Devils team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - part IV

[bossram]

Meh. You can always mock the extremist position. How many folks said he's a $5 mil per player? Two or three posters? That's hardly a consensus position. I thought he should be paid what a good fourth liner gets paid, maybe a lower third line player. I have no idea what the number is for that though.

It's not that extreme if 2 or 3 out of the 20 regular posters here advocated it. And others were wanting long-term deals in the $3.5 to $4M range.

Not advisable.

 

[bossram]

I’m surprised people on here are open to a 3 year deal. That’s horrible asset management you have to sign him for longer than that and if he doesn’t want to then you should look to deal elsewhere. Imo

Horrible asset management would be letting him walk for free or giving him away in a desperation trade because you know you can't re-sign him.

I would like Bratt to be re-upped for 8 years. I think the template for that deal was clearly available last offseason, and I sincerely believe Fitz did not offer it. If the next best thing is a shorter-term deal during their contending window, that's fine. Flexibility and cap space are assets too.

 

[My3Sons]

It's not that extreme if 2 or 3 out of the 20 regular posters here advocated it. And others were wanting long-term deals in the $3.5 to $4M range.

Not advisable.

Don't we have more than 20 regular posters? I realize that folks come and go but the Wood contract discussion lasted at least a couple of weeks early in the season and I would be surprised if you couldn't find at least 40 or 50 unique posters that had at least one comment. Granted, 30 of them were probably one poster's burner accounts but still.

 

[forceten]

Bratt: I'd say 5-6 years - get him to 30-31 - would be fine. He's still likely to command a sizeable contract in UFA at that age, and if he's dropping we could asset manage that at that age well too. Anything less would be a loss to us, I'd think. But the numbers have to work - we can't throw the bank at him and then be surprised when EVERYONE wants an overpayment and the entire team structure collapses.

Wood: I still think he's a valuable member of the energy line (I hesitate to say 4th line, I don't believe in fixed 1 through 4) but always thought 4-5m/year was absurd. He's reckless with his body and if he isn't fast he will be less effective. He's streaky. He's got a LOT of positives though and he and Bastian really work well together. McLeod too, my gosh if he could only score occasionally. As he's UFA he will get more than he should be hopefully take a home team 'discount' at a slight raise - maybe 3.5M, 3 years.

Don't we have more than 20 regular posters? I realize that folks come and go but the Wood contract discussion lasted at least a couple of weeks early in the season and I would be surprised if you couldn't find at least 40 or 50 unique posters that had at least one comment. Granted, 30 of them were probably one poster's burner accounts but still.

I mean, RangerDoggo made how many accounts so yeah!

 

[JrFischer54]

Don’t look now but Nico is only signed four more seasons after this. Time flies!

Why I find it funny posters on here talk about team friendly deals and don’t realize the devils have two of them and need to start putting together some winning seasons and adding talent not waiting for holtz or whatever

 

[JrFischer54]

Kovalchuk retiring was one of the best things to happen to the franchise in the last decade and some of us knew that at the time.

But also, why would you do that to yourself?

people like to think we saved all that cap space without Kovy and in the reality of it we were a dog shit bottom basement (cap wise) team so even if he stayed it wouldn’t have hurt our cap situation. Now if you want to say he would’ve kept the team competitive and thus hurting our draft picks? Eh I haven’t really seen that many motivated Russian veterans playing on bottom standings teams. He probably would’ve spent long chunks on IR and again that wouldn’t have hurt our cap either.

 

[Devils731]

people like to think we saved all that cap space without Kovy and in the reality of it we were a dog shit bottom basement (cap wise) team so even if he stayed it wouldn’t have hurt our cap situation. Now if you want to say he would’ve kept the team competitive and thus hurting our draft picks? Eh I haven’t really seen that many motivated Russian veterans playing on bottom standings teams. He probably would’ve spent long chunks on IR and again that wouldn’t have hurt our cap either.

If Kovalchuk hadn’t “retired” then the Devils would currently be stuck with him taking up $6.6 million in cap space while being awful. You’d basically lose a good Palat to keep a broken down Kovy.

Or Kovy could have retired later and he’d be chewing up an even bigger number in cap reclamation.

What happened was the Devils got Kovy on the best years of his contract and return only had to eat a small amount of cap reclamation for a long time. That is the best case scenario for a 15 year deal. Suter and Parise being examples of how bad it normally gets even with guys who age in a normal fashion.

 

[Devs3cups]

people like to think we saved all that cap space without Kovy and in the reality of it we were a dog shit bottom basement (cap wise) team so even if he stayed it wouldn’t have hurt our cap situation. Now if you want to say he would’ve kept the team competitive and thus hurting our draft picks? Eh I haven’t really seen that many motivated Russian veterans playing on bottom standings teams. He probably would’ve spent long chunks on IR and again that wouldn’t have hurt our cap either.

I mean if Kovy hadn't retired, we'd be stuck with his 6.6 mil cap hit for 3 more years. Not sure how it wouldn't hurt or negatively affect our cap situation.

 

[JrFischer54]

If Kovalchuk hadn’t “retired” then the Devils would currently be stuck with him taking up $6.6 million in cap space while being awful. You’d basically lose a good Palat to keep a broken down Kovy.

Or Kovy could have retired later and he’d be chewing up an even bigger number in cap reclamation.

What happened was the Devils got Kovy on the best years of his contract and return only had to eat a small amount of cap reclamation for a long time. That is the best case scenario for a 15 year deal. Suter and Parise being examples of how bad it normally gets even with guys who age in a normal

I mean if Kovy hadn't retired, we'd be stuck with his 6.6 mil cap hit for 3 more years. Not sure how it wouldn't hurt or negatively affect our cap situation.

They would’ve shipped that contract off to a bottom feeder

 

[Devs3cups]

They would’ve shipped that contract off to a bottom feeder

Kovy has been bad for a while.

We would've been caught with that contract for a long time and I doubt someone would've taken it with 3-4 years remaining. Anyway, we would've have to give a sweetener for any team to take that deal most likely, so that's a loss for us as well.

 

[glenwo2]

A discussion about Kovy's s--tty Contract?

This can only mean one thing :

 

[JrFischer54]

Kovy has been bad for a while.

We would've been caught with that contract for a long time and I doubt someone would've taken it with 3-4 years remaining. Anyway, we would've have to give a sweetener for any team to take that deal most likely, so that's a loss for us as well.

Eh the sweetener would’ve had to be that great since the actual dollars weren’t there. Also chances of him actually being in the lineup would be small

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

I think Wood would need a raise to re-sign which means 3.2m+ arguably 3.5m+ cause that's what he got last year. 5m maybe is the upper end of the range it would take but it's probably closer to 5 than 4 unless NJ goes long long term.

 

[Bleedred]

I think Wood would need a raise to re-sign which means 3.2m+ arguably 3.5m+ cause that's what he got last year. 5m maybe is the upper end of the range it would take but it's probably closer to 5 than 4 unless NJ goes long long term.

$5 million for Wood?

Yeah, f*** that about as hard as you can.

f*** $4 almost as hard.

Just walk away. We don’t have to keep everybody. This is what happens.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Wood is probably not even worth his current salary. I don’t think there’s a 4th liner in the NHL that doesn’t play special teams that is worth that, actually. Bastian would have a better argument, and he isn’t.

 

[Saugus]

Kovy has been bad for a while.

We would've been caught with that contract for a long time and I doubt someone would've taken it with 3-4 years remaining. Anyway, we would've have to give a sweetener for any team to take that deal most likely, so that's a loss for us as well.

And didn't he also have some NTC/NMC involved in his contract also? We couldn't just ship him to Arizona without him being on board.

 

[Bleedred]

Kovalchuk would have retired by now. He's retired now. This is already the second year he hasn't played pro hockey anymore.

We would have either had some kind of a penalty like Luongo's contract for retiring early like he did, or we could have shipped it to one of the tankers to reach the cap floor and he went LTIR for something.

Probably would have had some kind of a penalty though.

 

[devilsblood]

I wonder where all the, "we must re-sign Wood to a big contract, he's too valuable to our team" discourse went??

Well the teams swoon does align with Wood's point drought. And that drought pretty much started after he was trucked vs the Isles. 13 points prior to that hit. One point since.

But he, like most bottom 6 scorers, tends to be streaky, and when he gets hot again, the talk will pick up again.

And I said it then, $5M per was probably over selling what he will get, but many here undersell what he will get.

 

[KovalchukFistPump]

Kovalchuk would have retired by now. He's retired now. This is already the second year he hasn't played pro hockey anymore.

We would have either had some kind of a penalty like Luongo's contract for retiring early like he did, or we could have shipped it to one of the tankers to reach the cap floor and he went LTIR for something.

Probably would have had some kind of a penalty though.

Equipment allergy + LTIR

 

[bossram]

Well the teams swoon does align with Wood's point drought. And that drought pretty much started after he was trucked vs the Isles. 13 points prior to that hit. One point since.

But he, like most bottom 6 scorers, tends to be streaky, and when he gets hot again, the talk will pick up again.

And I said it then, $5M per was probably over selling what he will get, but many here undersell what he will get.

What's he worth then? What contract should Fitz go up to?

 

[Devils090]

I’ll always maintain Kovy did us a huge favor retiring when he did.

-we were going to suck anyway
-he was clearly not the same player after he messed his back up
-the recapture was going to get way worse each year he stuck around

Lou just couldn’t ever commit to tearing everything down so he just kept plugging garbage vets into the roster and extended our sucking for years

 

[devilsblood]

What's he worth then? What contract should Fitz go up to?

See how he plays the rest of the year and into the playoffs, but if he plays well? 3x$4? 4x$4 maybe.

This team was really rolling when the 4th line was playing at a high level. Wood is very much a part of that.

 

[Bleedred]

Kovalchuk is another guy that's shooting percentage started to drop as he got older. Even before 30, as he stopped playing in the NHL at 30, outside of when he came back 5 years later.

It was almost a 4% regression from his Atlanta days (18-26 years old) to his New Jersey days (27-30 years old).

Now, it may not have dipped as low as it says it did, due to New Jersey being notorious for undercounting shots, but would that represent more than a 1% decrease?

His last year of being a 40 goal scorer was the year he got traded here. And he averaged literally just over 2 minutes more per game here than he did in Atlanta. He may have scored 40 goals in 11-12 if he didn't miss 5 games. It's possible he could have scored 3 more goals in 5 more games played, but he was basically being used like a top pairing defenseman as far as his minutes go.

He was definitely good during the 11-12 season and playoffs, though there's an argument to be made that Elias was even better than he was that year. He scored 5 fewer points in roughly 280 fewer minutes played.

Yeah, he was good in 11-12 and the 11-12 playoffs, but we definitely didn't get the best of him. We could say we got the best of some players. We absolutely did with Taylor Hall. Not so much with Kovalchuk.

 

[Billdo]

Kovalchuk is another guy that's shooting percentage started to drop as he got older. Even before 30, as he stopped playing in the NHL at 30, outside of when he came back 5 years later.

It was almost a 4% regression from his Atlanta days (18-26 years old) to his New Jersey days (27-30 years old).

Now, it may not have dipped as low as it says it did, due to New Jersey being notorious for undercounting shots, but would that represent more than a 1% decrease?

His last year of being a 40 goal scorer was the year he got traded here. And he averaged literally just over 2 minutes more per game here than he did in Atlanta. He may have scored 40 goals in 11-12 if he didn't miss 5 games. It's possible he could have scored 3 more goals in 5 more games played, but he was basically being used like a top pairing defenseman as far as his minutes go.

He was definitely good during the 11-12 season and playoffs, though there's an argument to be made that Elias was even better than he was that year. He scored 5 fewer points in roughly 280 fewer minutes played.

Yeah, he was good in 11-12 and the 11-12 playoffs, but we definitely didn't get the best of him. We could say we got the best of some players. We absolutely did with Taylor Hall. Not so much with Kovalchuk.

I still maintain that his 2011-12 season was an absolute thrill as a fan. He for my money was one of the most electrifying guys we've had. Hughes gives me the same feeling but before Hughes it was Kovy. There have been better players overall but Kovalchuk was electric to me when he'd get the puck in our end and step on the gas through the neutral zone.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

If you told me we had the best 4th liner in NHL history, I wouldn't pay them 4x$4