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

[PKs Broken Stick]

I’m gonna guess it’s Holtz being moved for an established player — hopefully someone with some more control than Toffoli had. Let’s get nuts:

Holtz + 3rd for Yanni Gourde (50% retained). Sign Warren Foegele.

View attachment 842310

Haula-Hughes-Mercer
Timo-Nico-Bratt
Foegele-Gourde-Palat
Lazar-Nosek-Bastian

That is a very expensive 3rd line

 

[Brooklyndevil]

Scott Stevens seems to have disappeared. I wouldn’t mind giving him a shot as the Devils head coach. Not sure if he’s even interested and I doubt Fitz would consider him with the little experience he’s has. I just think he would help the young defenseman and add the sandpaper this team needs.

 

[devilsblood]

i agree with marty. goalies are quickly becoming starting pitchers in baseball. if you can have forwards/d go out there 20+ min a night getting hit blocking shots skating miles i really dont think its wmuch to ask for goalies to play 60-65 games or 10 in a row.

Pitchers just throw so much harder then they used to, while guys who don't get out of the low 90's are going to get crushed. So you have to limit how much they throw.

I think something similar is at play with goalies, except it is the shots they face that are consistently so much faster, as is the skill of the shooters setting up better opportunities, which wears goalies out.

Every we time we tried to run a goalie on a back to back this season it blew up on us.

I’m gonna guess it’s Holtz being moved for an established player — hopefully someone with some more control than Toffoli had. Let’s get nuts:

Holtz + 3rd for Yanni Gourde (50% retained). Sign Warren Foegele.

View attachment 842310

Haula-Hughes-Mercer
Timo-Nico-Bratt
Foegele-Gourde-Palat
Lazar-Nosek-Bastian

Holtz for a 32 year old who will be a 33 year old UFA at year end? Pass.

 

[NJDevs26]

But what if the clear upgrade is not there? We all ask why a trade was not made for a goalie in Dec or Jan, well, probably because there wasn't a trade to be made(though I bet he could have gotten Kahkonen earlier).

I dunno, maybe he does make that trade for Markstrom, but as I say above, having 2 mid 30 goalies sounds pretty risky.

While trading for Saros sounds very expensive, on multiple fronts.

If Fitz hasn't found a better option than Allen/Kahkonen for next year I'm sorry, then he hasn't done his job. Throwing up your hands and saying no goalie was available when you've now had two offseasons and a full year isn't gonna pass mustard.

Allen
2021-22 Montreal 35 GP 3.30 GAA .905 save
2022-23 Montreal 42 GP 3.55 GAA .891 save
2023-24 Montreal 21 GP 3.65 GAA .892 save

Kahkonnen
2022-23 San Jose 37 GP 3.85 GAA .883 save
2023-24 San Jose 31 GP 3.81 GAA .895 save

These guys aren't a risk? Yeah you're paying less for that risk but you're also vastly increasing the chances we're back in the exact same position we were this year with a vet not playing well and the #2 being demoted. You can't waste yet another win-now season hoping a fifteen-game sample size finds you a magic beans tandem. Allen is a proven backup but you need an actual #1. Even if you want to pray Marty can fire up the Delorean and bring Allen back to 2016-17 level over a full season you still need a far more proven #2 to keep the kids in Utica, not to mention an insurance policy if Allen does go splat.

 

[devilsblood]

Scott Stevens seems to have disappeared. I wouldn’t mind giving him a shot as the Devils head coach. Not sure if he’s even interested and I doubt Fitz would consider him with the little experience he’s has. I just think he would help the young defenseman and add the sandpaper this team needs.

Pass on this as well.

Maybe as defensive assistant but that seems unlikely.

 

[britdevil]

Scott Stevens seems to have disappeared. I wouldn’t mind giving him a shot as the Devils head coach. Not sure if he’s even interested and I doubt Fitz would consider him with the little experience he’s has. I just think he would help the young defenseman and add the sandpaper this team needs.

Is he going to hop the boards and lay out Rempe then?

I love Scott to death, but he is not a good coach. No thanks.

 

[JrFischer54]

Pitchers just throw so much harder then they used to, while guys who don't get out of the low 90's are going to get crushed. So you have to limit how much they throw.

I think something similar is at play with goalies, except it is the shots they face that are consistently so much faster, as is the skill of the shooters setting up better opportunities, which wears goalies out.

Every we time we tried to run a goalie on a back to back this season it blew up on us.


Holtz for a 32 year old who will be a 33 year old UFA at year end? Pass.

i think its more so they just stink thats why it blew up on us. goalies equipment and training is way better then it ever was so they should be better protected from the puck and be able to handle a work load. yet the opposite is happening would these goalies today have ever survived in the early 2000s nhl? or has the quality of goalies gone down because the players have gotten so much better?

 

[britdevil]

i think its more so they just stink thats why it blew up on us. goalies equipment and training is way better then it ever was so they should be better protected from the puck and be able to handle a work load. yet the opposite is happening would these goalies today have ever survived in the early 2000s nhl? or has the quality of goalies gone down because the players have gotten so much better?

Goalie is a niche position in a niche sport, with dwindling participation numbers. It's not exactly shocking that the quality isn't what it once was.

Parents can barely afford to feed and clothe their kids. Goalie equipment is double the cost of skater equipment.

If I were Canadian/American, I'd probably encourage my kid to play skater... Just saying.

 

[NJDevs26]

Is he going to hop the boards and lay out Rempe then?

I love Scott to death, but he is not a good coach. No thanks.

There's nothing to say he isn't a good assistant but he never really had much interest in it, he resigned after two years, came back for a brief spell after Pete got fired, went to Minnesota for a year then resigned again and hasn't been in the game for seven years now. If he wanted a job he could get a job.

 

[Bleedred]

Is he going to hop the boards and lay out Rempe then?

I love Scott to death, but he is not a good coach. No thanks.

Yeah, the Brodeur working with the team experiment hasn't gone over well.

Enough of these guys of yesteryear. I appreciate what they did as players, but I think people clamoring for them is just nostalgia.

I wouldn't hate it if he were an assistant, but the people who've called to bring him back over the years usually want him here to teach people how to lay hits and not be so soft lol and to stand up for their teammates lol.

I really don't wanna be one of those organizations that employs a bunch of guys because they were HOF players and won cups here 25-30 years ago.

Wayne Gretzky as a head coach went over horrifically. And he way overstayed his welcome. And Arizona (then Phoenix) weren't even nearly as big of a joke organization at that time as they've become now.

 

[Bleedred]

There's nothing to say he isn't a good assistant but he never really had much interest in it, he resigned after two years, came back and for some reason went to Minnesota for a year then resigned again and hasn't been in the game in seven years now.

No one ever really elaborated, but he left the team because there was a difference in philosophies with DeBoer. I'm not sure what those differences were. If it revolved around Adam Larsson and his usage. Maybe it was nothing like that and Stevens wanted everyone to play more physical and take people's heads off and Pete wasn't down for it.

But he came back as soon as Pete was fired. The new regime didn't bring him back the next year when they took over, which I remember pissed some people off.

He sat out I guess the next year or took a job with NHLN, then Bruce Boudreau drove to his house (I think?) in the offseason and begged him to come work for Minnesota. He quit after one year because his family was in Jersey and he hated to be away from them and due to whatever was going on in their lives (he may have still had young children at the time) I guess them moving to Minnesota with him during hockey season out of the question. He then returned to NHLN and I guess he's still on there? They have so many different people on there that I can't keep up.

You KNOW Lou has tried to hire him with the Islanders. We can all bet on that. Whether he's turned them down because he's not interested or whether he's turned them down because Long Island is still a 2 hour drive each way through massive traffic from his home, that's anyone's guess. If the Devils really wanted him and he really wanted to coach here, I'm sure he would, because we're probably as close to his house as the studio in Secaucus is, but that's also not a full time gig and he may like only having to show up however many nights a year he has to show up there.

He was an assistant for a few years because he became a full time assistant. He just didn't travel with the team. He cited family reasons. After Larry left in 2012 he said he was ready to travel with the team and be a full time asisstant.

 

[devilsblood]

If Fitz hasn't found a better option than Allen/Kahkonen for next year I'm sorry, then he hasn't done his job. Throwing up your hands and saying no goalie was available when you've now had two offseasons and a full year isn't gonna pass mustard.

Allen
2021-22 Montreal 35 GP 3.30 GAA .905 save
2022-23 Montreal 42 GP 3.55 GAA .891 save
2023-24 Montreal 21 GP 3.65 GAA .892 save

Kahkonnen
2022-23 San Jose 37 GP 3.85 GAA .883 save
2023-24 San Jose 31 GP 3.81 GAA .895 save

These guys aren't a risk? Yeah you're paying less for that risk but you're also vastly increasing the chances we're back in the exact same position we were this year with a vet not playing well and the #2 being demoted. You can't waste yet another win-now season hoping a fifteen-game sample size finds you a magic beans tandem. Allen is a proven backup but you need an actual #1. Even if you want to pray Marty can fire up the Delorean and bring Allen back to 2016-17 level over a full season you still need a far more proven #2 to keep the kids in Utica, not to mention an insurance policy if Allen does go splat.

Small samples yes, but the fact that both guys numbers have jumped dramatically coming from what were clearly bad teams does show they were having their numbers dragged down. Do I think they will perform to this level, no, but I'm pretty confident they play above the numbers they had on their previous teams.

Now I'm sure Fitz will be on the look out, but if Nash isn't trading Saros, and the best trade option is overpaying for Markstrom, who doesn't have great numbers himself the past 2 seasons, I'm rolling Kahk and Allen.

i think its more so they just stink thats why it blew up on us. goalies equipment and training is way better then it ever was so they should be better protected from the puck and be able to handle a work load. yet the opposite is happening would these goalies today have ever survived in the early 2000s nhl? or has the quality of goalies gone down because the players have gotten so much better?

It's not about being hurt by the puck. It's the ability to move fast enough stop pucks that are coming at them significantly faster.

 

[MadDevil]

What's the cliff notes version of this? I don't have The Athletic anymore since Corey left.

Basically it's just him talking about how goaltending is different now. The quote I posted was followed up with him basically saying he knows it's different now, so he sees both sides. He thinks goalies are as athletic as ever, but the game is more open, which is tougher on young goalies than vets (mentioning us sending our kids down for more experienced goalies). There's a comment about former players not being big on analytics because they "played the game" and sometimes it's more about feel and letting a goalie play if he wants to (mentioned Vasilevsky always wanting to play in Tampa). Finished with saying he thinks kids need to work on their core and flexibility because of the way goalies play now. Honestly, it wasn't really anything too enlightening.

I do think this quote kind of sums up goaltending these days...

“It’s kind of a mind-twister. What’s the balance of how you play them? When you play them? Who you get? So much is different than it used to be.”

 

[Brodeur]

yet the opposite is happening would these goalies today have ever survived in the early 2000s nhl? or has the quality of goalies gone down because the players have gotten so much better?

Butterfly became more of the standard into the late 90's / early 2000's. I have a pair of Marty's pro return pads from the 2001-03 era and those pads would have been rough to play the butterfly in with the lack of built in knee protection.

Post-lockout the pads really became conducive to the butterfly. There's been other articles about how much more strenuous the butterfly is compared to Marty's half-butterfly approach for most of his career. Injuries are more frequent as would be fatigue over a full season.

It was interesting that Marty namedropped Vasilevskiy in the article. Vasilevskiy admitted last year that he felt worn out after a couple deep playoff runs.

Marty also noted that the quality of backups has gotten much better. So it's not as big a drop for most teams to give more starts to their backup.

 

[My3Sons]

Butterfly became more of the standard into the late 90's / early 2000's. I have a pair of Marty's pro return pads from the 2001-03 era and those pads would have been rough to play the butterfly in with the lack of built in knee protection.

Post-lockout the pads really became conducive to the butterfly. There's been other articles about how much more strenuous the butterfly is compared to Marty's half-butterfly approach for most of his career. Injuries are more frequent as would be fatigue over a full season.

It was interesting that Marty namedropped Vasilevskiy in the article. Vasilevskiy admitted last year that he felt worn out after a couple deep playoff runs.

Marty also noted that the quality of backups has gotten much better. So it's not as big a drop for most teams to give more starts to their backup.

Both Daws and Schmid have already had hip surgeries and have yet to break into the NHL on a full-time basis.

 

[A1LeafNation]

he doesn't seem like a bad poster ...i just remember him posting here how were gonna like andreas after he was traded here.

we all know what happened

but like i said, seems like a decent poster that doesn't have 'an agenda'

I do like the nickname though lol.

 

[Brodeur]

Oooh, excuse for a Saved by the Bell tangent:



Heard this story secondhand, but the actor who played Jeff (Patrick Muldoon) was attending an Obama dinner/fundraiser. At some point, he noticed that the Secret Service was staring daggers at him and talking among each other. He asked the other people at his table if he was crazy and they were like "Yeah, they're staring you down."

Eventually a couple agents walked up to him and Muldoon was a little freaked out.

"Hey man, were you on Saved by the Bell?"

"Yeah, three episodes like fifteen years ago."

 

[Forge]

I’m gonna guess it’s Holtz being moved for an established player — hopefully someone with some more control than Toffoli had. Let’s get nuts:

Holtz + 3rd for Yanni Gourde (50% retained). Sign Warren Foegele.

View attachment 842310

Haula-Hughes-Mercer
Timo-Nico-Bratt
Foegele-Gourde-Palat
Lazar-Nosek-Bastian

Wrong seattle player for me.

I'd really like Tolvanen.

I chuckled at this part...

He mentions Calgary specifically again. He's a really big fan of Markstrom lol

 

[njdevils1982]

I do like the nickname though lol.

hey, you seem like a genuine fan, cheers.

 

[njdevil26]

I don't get the Bertuzzi love. Apart from one outlier season two years ago he's been a middling player that's not good defensively, who's also injury prone.

Same with Zadorov, I don't get the fascination with making a move on defense. Kevin Bahl has been perfectly fine for a young defenseman tasked with playing a defense heavy role on a struggling team and Zadorov is going to get paid handsomely despite being a low impact player due to a shallow defense market in UFA. Paying Zadorov at minimum 4+ years at $4M+ per will immediately look bad.

And trading a 1st round pick + a promising young defenseman in Bahl for a 35 year old Markstrom at $6M is terrible value.

So I'm guessing you are one of those types that identifies what this team needs then subsequently dislikes any and all ways of addressing it.

Brady Tkachuk has a 53.5% faceoff win percentage this season .

I don't know when people started assuming he's available? He's not going anywhere.

 

[billingtons ghost]

If you look at Brady Tkachuk's cumulative stats over the past three years they're almost identical to Timo's.

Meier (5v5 since 2021-22):
212 GP
3156:41 mins
55 goals
113 points
612 shots
52.5 CF%
54.0 xGF%

Tkachuk (5v5 since 2021-22):
228 GP
3213:51 mins
56 goals
126 points
615 shots
54.4 CF%
53.6 xGF%

They're literally the same player. So I don't know where this whole "he brings an element we lack" argument comes from. It's just as false as saying that Bratt is expendable because we have other talented forwards on the roster.

Brady Tkachuk has been a point per game player exactly once in 6 years. He's a quality 1st line forward but people cream their pants over him like he's prime Bobby Clarke or something.

I think it's pretty clear that our guys get knocked around and fall off their games bc they don't want to get hit. Right now our core of Bratt, Nico, and Jack at least seem to be freaking fragile, targeted players.

If you haven't noticed, when we aren't playing super soft riverboat Pitt or a lethargic WPG team we tend to be relying a lot upon Timo Meyer to be the guy.

I didn't think that getting another Timo Meyer type, or maybe two more would necessarily be a bad thing.

I love our guys but I have serious doubts the trio of Nico, Bratt, and Jack make it through a playoff round intact in today's NHL where we can see that elbows and knees and game misconducts don't really mean too much since there's no penalty.

I don't want to trade those guys and I think that a lack of a #2 and #3 center is really the bigger problem, but we need like a whole third line of guys who can play playoff hockey.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

I would not mind Zadorov, its just that I think we need someone better than that.

 

[longislanddevil]

If making the playoffs means keeping Travis Green as HC, I hate to say it but I’d rather miss the playoffs.

 

[Xirik]

Exactly right after the baby comment by Brodeur.
---
But he also gets both sides of it.

“It’s a good reality now — you need to have two goalies,” he conceded. “I think that’s where it gets skewed. Like, it’s hard to find that No. 1 goalie. You get it in Nashville. You get it in Tampa. You get it in Calgary. There’s a couple of places that have them. But there’s not many. A lot of them are tandems.
------
He goes on further basically to say that its a balancing act, the games a lot different and physical for a goalie. To me it sounds like he thinks the pendulum swung a little far to one side and the situation needs to end up more in the middle.

-----
But just like Vasilevskiy today, some people felt Brodeur played too many games during his career. Which Brodeur never understood.

“I would say, ‘Don’t tell me Scott Stevens’ job isn’t harder than me,'” Brodeur said. “I’m sitting there and I’m getting shot at. This guy (Stevens) is hitting everybody, and he’s playing 82 games. I can’t play 82 games?

“I’m still a hockey player.”

Where Brodeur does recognize the need for evolution is the physical stress on netminders because of the post-to-post agility that’s required in today’s high-paced game.
-------

Just another little tidbit that shows how competitive Brodeur was. Seems like some Goalies are okay with being Tandems and others like Vasi don't want anyone to touch their net cause its theirs.

 

[Andre Palot]

man whos a 2024 version of whoopi at that time?


btw do teams even release dvds anymore?

there should at least be a team film on Hulu or whatever.