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

[PizzaAndPucks]

Fitz said in no uncertain terms that his goal this offseason is to bring in a new starter.

Hopefully Allen is helping make the point that upgrading the goaltending doesn't necessarily mean mortgaging the future for a big fish. You just need someone that can come in and not give the game away, and there needs to be a change with the skaters.

I really don't envy Fitzgerald, whose job and possibly his future as a GM depends on nailing the goalie and coaching additions.

He still has made alot of moves. Not all of them have panned out but tbe moves he made at the time many of us supported. That's just the way it goes. Team still needs to and will grow from within but they need a player like Trenin or Joshua for the bottom 6.

 

[Xirik]

I still like the Markstrom route. Should be cheap, has a two year out and allows a Daws/Schmid/ThatOtherKid to develop into something and be a cheap option.

It would be fun to see all the Flames fans getting angry at the return when its not as good as what they would have gotten at the deadline.

 

[BurntToast]

How much of last season’s success was Brunette?

Ruff:
19-30-7 .402 (during Covid)
27-46-9 .384
52-22-8 .683 (Brunette)
37-36-5 .474

Also an odd stat, last season was the only year under Lindy with a winning home record. Hynes had great home records and terrible away records.

This season is a bust. My concern is the team’s play. They won 1 or 2 “Back to Backs” all season. The Devils only play 40 minuets, most nights. The play down to crap teams and they sulk. It feels like giving up 1 bad goal will turn into 2-3.

Get healthy, get a new coach. Find better character/role players.

 

[Maine Fan]

That played Vanecek WAY too much?

they didn't have much choice.

 

[Jason MacIsaac]

People forget that Allen could just as easily (most likely) return to his Montreal ways next year. I seriously doubt he will play as well as he is now.

 

[Billdo]

they didn't have much choice.

See that's where I disagree. Schmid never got a real chance to do anything and at the end of the day he had better numbers than the two in front of him who did.

 

[Guadana]

Fitz said in no uncertain terms that his goal this offseason is to bring in a new starter.

Hopefully Allen is helping make the point that upgrading the goaltending doesn't necessarily mean mortgaging the future for a big fish. You just need someone that can come in and not give the game away, and there needs to be a change with the skaters.

Yes. YES.

thanks to Allen, more people recognize it.
After getting of just a good goalies, not the best/most expensive ones, not the worst goalies this team is showing that its not a goaltending that need an upgrades.

 

[NJDevs26]

How much of last season’s success was Brunette?

Ruff:
19-30-7 .402 (during Covid)
27-46-9 .384
52-22-8 .683 (Brunette)
37-36-5 .474

Also an odd stat, last season was the only year under Lindy with a winning home record. Hynes had great home records and terrible away records.

This season is a bust. My concern is the team’s play. They won 1 or 2 “Back to Backs” all season. The Devils only play 40 minuets, most nights. The play down to crap teams and they sulk. It feels like giving up 1 bad goal will turn into 2-3.

Get healthy, get a new coach. Find better character/role players.

Very little compared to having a healthy Dougie and a roster where we’re scratching a 30-goal forward as opposed to playing bums like Tierney and Willman on the regular

 

[None Shall Pass]

Just looked it up, and we are one of three teams this year without a shootout goal.

The other teams are Vancouver (2 shootouts, like us) and Winnipeg (1 shootout).

 

[TrufleShufle]

People forget that Allen could just as easily (most likely) return to his Montreal ways next year. I seriously doubt he will play as well as he is now.

Bullshit, can you name a time where a goalie looked amazing and gave us all hope and then just turned to shit?

 

[Devs3cups]

 

[Better Call Sal]

See that's where I disagree. Schmid never got a real chance to do anything and at the end of the day he had better numbers than the two in front of him who did.

Unfortunately for Schmid, they took advantage of having the ability to send him down without waivers to try and find his game when they could. And to double down on that, his stats have been equally as unimpressive in Utica to put it lightly.

Daws got driven into the ground up here eventually when Vitek became completely unplayable, but he has at least had stronger of stretches of play in both Utica and NJ overall. Unfortunately, he became victim to the circumstance right around when Lindy was at the tail end of the job and joined the Cratered Club with the rest of our current goalies.

 

[Rhodes 81]

Just like last year, I think there's a lot of validity to the idea that you just need a "good enough" goalie tandem combined with a better skater group and hope that one of them gets hot. But there's no way you can decide Allen and Khakonen is "good enough." They have to find a consistent 50 game starter that has been + more often than not in their career if they aren't getting an elite starter. Those guys exist but there aren't likely to be that many of them available.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

by the way, last week this team had two games with multiple goal leads and another where they blew a lead with 15 minutes left. Got 0 points from those games.

If they hung on to win all 3 of those games, they're in playoff positioning right now lol.

 

[Call Me Al]

yeah it’s hilarious that they changed coaches and in the end could have very realistically saved their season with the move, but it was such a bad move that they squandered that opportunity too lmao

i wanted this season to end with a merciful bullet in the head months ago but the drawn out torture is really what they earned. this is going to go down as one of the worst/most disappointing/least enjoyable seasons in NJD history. a disaster top to bottom

 

[My3Sons]

yeah it’s hilarious that they changed coaches and in the end could have very realistically saved their season with the move, but it was such a bad move that they squandered that opportunity too lmao

i wanted this season to end with a merciful bullet in the head months ago but the drawn out torture is really what they earned. this is going to go down as one of the worst/most disappointing/least enjoyable seasons in NJD history. a disaster top to bottom

It would have ben difficult to bring in an interim coach from outside the organization. If Brunette was still in place to take over for Ruff obviously we can think it would have been different.

 

[AfroThunder396]

There's no way an external HC is going to come in as an interim. You'd be taking a job knowing that you're going to be fired in 8 weeks. The only way you're going to get an external guy to come in is to drop the interim tag and promise him the permanent position.

They're also not going to promote Dineen for 20 games and then demote him back to the AHL when the season is over for the same reason. Interims have to be guys already on your NHL bench that are under contract and can be easily disposed of when you find your guy.

 

[Guttersniped]

How much of last season’s success was Brunette?

Ruff:
19-30-7 .402 (during Covid)
27-46-9 .384
52-22-8 .683 (Brunette)
37-36-5 .474

Also an odd stat, last season was the only year under Lindy with a winning home record. Hynes had great home records and terrible away records.

This season is a bust. My concern is the team’s play. They won 1 or 2 “Back to Backs” all season. The Devils only play 40 minuets, most nights. The play down to crap teams and they sulk. It feels like giving up 1 bad goal will turn into 2-3.

Get healthy, get a new coach. Find better character/role players.

After last night, I would say Brunette did a lot, because the way the two teams played was night and day, and we used to play a lot more like Nashville does now.

Now all our players disconnected, with no real discernible system other than ridiculously long up ice passes. We’re a grotesquely perimeter team. Kind of shocking Green had a head coaching job before.

I took someone who doesn’t go to a lot of hockey games, my brother was out of town, and she commented that the Devils looked like they were hesitant and second guessing themselves.

So yeah, we’re badly coached and in a bad place mentally. I don’t care about missing the playoffs at this point because it wouldn’t go well.

 

[TrufleShufle]

After last night, I would say Brunette did a lot, because the way the two teams played was night and day, and we used to play a lot more like Nashville does now.

Now all our players disconnected, with no real discernible system other than ridiculously long up ice passes. We’re a grotesquely perimeter team. Kind of shocking Green had a head coaching job before.

I took someone who doesn’t go to a lot of hockey games, my brother was out of town, and she commented that the Devils looked like they were hesitant and second guessing themselves.

So yeah, we’re badly coached and in a bad place mentally. I don’t care about missing the playoffs at this point because it wouldn’t go well.

Yea I started sports betting by only betting on the Devils when they were down a goal or two, and it treated me pretty well. To the point where if they were down by 1 going into the 2nd, I would hold off betting until they went down by one more goal, to help the odds. This year.... learned pretty quick not to do that anymore.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

After last night, I would say Brunette did a lot, because the way the two teams played was night and day, and we used to play a lot more like Nashville does now.

Now all our players disconnected, with no real discernible system other than ridiculously long up ice passes. We’re a grotesquely perimeter team. Kind of shocking Green had a head coaching job before.

I took someone who doesn’t go to a lot of hockey games, my brother was out of town, and she commented that the Devils looked like they were hesitant and second guessing themselves.

So yeah, we’re badly coached and in a bad place mentally. I don’t care about missing the playoffs at this point because it wouldn’t go well.

What percentage of that is the engine of our team being unable to play center and avoiding contact at all costs? I don’t think Nico’s line is a perimeter line nor has the Nosek-Palat combo. The 4th line is just AHLers so it’s hard to even judge.

 

[NJDevs26]

Just looked it up, and we are one of three teams this year without a shootout goal.

The other teams are Vancouver (2 shootouts, like us) and Winnipeg (1 shootout).

Christ even our 0-13 team OCCASIONALLY got a shootout goal

 

[Bleedred]

After last night, I would say Brunette did a lot, because the way the two teams played was night and day, and we used to play a lot more like Nashville does now.

Now all our players disconnected, with no real discernible system other than ridiculously long up ice passes. We’re a grotesquely perimeter team. Kind of shocking Green had a head coaching job before.

I took someone who doesn’t go to a lot of hockey games, my brother was out of town, and she commented that the Devils looked like they were hesitant and second guessing themselves.

So yeah, we’re badly coached and in a bad place mentally. I don’t care about missing the playoffs at this point because it wouldn’t go well.

Just quoting this for truth.

Also, I’m glad you noticed they played a lot like us last year. I thought the same thing the entire game, but wondered if maybe I was just psychologically playing games with myself.

 

[NJDevs26]

After last night, I would say Brunette did a lot, because the way the two teams played was night and day, and we used to play a lot more like Nashville does now.

Now all our players disconnected, with no real discernible system other than ridiculously long up ice passes. We’re a grotesquely perimeter team. Kind of shocking Green had a head coaching job before.

I took someone who doesn’t go to a lot of hockey games, my brother was out of town, and she commented that the Devils looked like they were hesitant and second guessing themselves.

So yeah, we’re badly coached and in a bad place mentally. I don’t care about missing the playoffs at this point because it wouldn’t go well.

What I find amusing is people giving Brunette all the credit for last year is that the same logic didn't apply this year. Last year Lindy got no credit, this year he gets all the blame. If you literally think he's Mr. Magoo and the assistant runs the show a la what people attribute last year to, then you (Devil fans on the whole, not specifically) should be blaming Green for the team's struggles this year instead of chanting Fire Lindy. It's not like Lindy had total autonomy the other three years and suddenly didn't have it last year. Either he was the decision maker through his tenure, or he wasn't and the assistant was always the brains of the operation. Or option C, the decisions have been made from above all along which doesn't help the Brunette genius narrative.

 

[Bleedred]

Christ even our 0-13 team OCCASIONALLY got a shootout goal

Well it took that team quite a while to get its first shootout goal.

I wanna say like five or six shootouts.

Last night was only our second shootout of the year.

I wanna say we’re either 0 for 5 or 0 for 6 on the season. I can’t remember if we had two or three shooters go in that Arizona game. I remember Schmid gave up at least two goals.

 

[NJDevs26]

The other funny thing about the Brunette discourse is that the power play last year wasn't even appreciably better than the one this year numbers-wise (yes, I was surprised too when I saw the stats). I know the early-season surge goosed the numbers and Green's a moron but still you'd think if Brunette was the Bill Walsh of the NHL he's being made out to be, there'd be a noticeable difference in the power play, the one thing assistants clearly have a big hand in and especially with better personnel last year:

This year - 21.7%, 14th in the NHL
Last year - 21.9%, 13th in the NHL