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

[Eggtimer]

Fair points, but when I say patient, I mean he didn't make BIG moves like Dougie Hamilton, Timo Meier, Palat, really any big UFA signings at all, other than 3 years of Lovejoy and John Moore and Wayne Simmonds on a one year deal. Brian Boyle for 2 years wasn't really a big UFA signing.

Hall was a big acquisition of course, but the price to get him was nothing. Let's be honest here, Adam Larsson has been very underwhelming for what was expected when he was drafted. You trade Taylor Hall for him any time you can.

The post that I believe I made the ''Patient'' remark in regards to, I believe was about how Fitz needs to be more patient than spending big assets on Timo Meier or somebody like that.


In that case I would just play him in both of these games.

Blackwood is playing in one of the next 2 or 3 games after this, so I see no need to play him Thursday if we're not playing him tonight.

I agree with you man. I don’t get it but maybe they are thinking about how many starts they give VV so they dont tire him out ane he is fresh for the playoffs so he can back up MB…..
Im kidding about the backing up part . But I can see them wantimg a fresh VV . He has not olayed many games in the NHL in one season so we don’t really know how the workload is going to effect him. We need him fresh and at his best come playoffs.

 

[Clam Jensen]

WE SALUTE YOU!


What about below the waist?

You dirty boy!!

 

[Unknown Caller]

Why hasn’t the Timo trade happened yet?

Seravalli just dropped his perfect deadline matches and he had Meier to Carolina and Crouse to the Devils.

 

[Guttersniped]

Palat’s contract isn’t great and there’s some risk but he offers unique upside.

People are really sleeping on what “ultimate glue guy” and his playoff production means.

He’s been one the most reliable goal scorers in the playoffs in last several years.

 

[Eggtimer]

Seravalli just dropped his perfect deadline matches and he had Meier to Carolina and Crouse to the Devils.

Well then , Seravalli can eat a d!ck.

 

[Mgd31]

Seravalli just dropped his perfect deadline matches and he had Meier to Carolina and Crouse to the Devils.

Not saying he won't go to Carolina, but Seravalli was also pumping Meier to the Rangers before they got Tarasenko

 

[theoptimist]

Servalli is 34. He needs to simmer down and finish his plate. Clearly, age 40 is the minimum for this business.

 

[NJDevs26]

We kind of took advantage of it with Siegs and Marino. And having the cap space allowed us to sign Dougie.

That said we are past the point of hoarding cap space. Fitz originally said that Jack/Nico would let the team know when it is time to go for it. Well it is time to go for stuff.

Siegs had nothing to do with the cap, it had to do with finding a younger player not playing and giving him a larger role. Marino was a cap trade signed to term but he wasn’t exactly a sure thing, even Fitz more or less admitted he was better than they thought. He wasn’t thought of as a guy you build your team around, he was looked at as a complementary piece, like a Graves or a Johansson. THOSE guys you can find every year and you can fit them in if you really want. Pittsburgh punted Marino cause they wanted other guys more to replace him and also didn’t think he was as good as he became. We traded for Marino in large part to avoid a long term deal for Severson.

 

[NJDevs26]

Palat’s contract isn’t great and there’s some risk but he offers unique upside.

People are really sleeping on what “ultimate glue guy” and his playoff production means.

He’s been one the most reliable goal scorers in the playoffs in last several years.

He’s definitely a big reason we weren’t sweating out Shesterkin against the Avs last Spring.

 

[Peter Sidorkiewicz]

I can’t see him go to Vegas .For one , they cannot extend him , they dont have that great of assets , Vegas is a hated divisional rival .
Leafs cannot extend him unless they move someone like Nylander or Brodie plus Murray. I can’t see it.
To me it’s between us and the Canes

Agree with this and it comes down to how agressive Carolina is.

If Seth Jarvis is on the table, I think that beats any NJ offer including Holtz. To do a better offer we would have to include Mercer.

 

[Eggtimer]

Servalli is 34. He needs to simmer down and finish his plate. Clearly, age 40 is the minimum for this business.

He dyed his hair grey to look older lol

 

[Guttersniped]

I like a ton of what Fitz has done, but I don’t like what he’s doing with his 1st round picks. Luke was great - but I don’t know if he really had a choice on that pick. Didn’t like Stillman. Didn’t like Holtz. Didn’t like Muk. The players are all fine, it was when they were picked / the other options available.

I don’t like the position focus of the drafts. Why is it heavy on LD one year and then RD the next? Feels like it isn’t BPA or player type, but rather that there’s a position bias coming in.

I also don’t like that Fitz wasn’t aggressive in solving for goalie of the future. I would have preferred spending assets to move up and draft Wallstedt vs staying at 29 for Stillman. Once Cossa was off the board, we should have been looking at moving up, IMO.

These are nits though.

I think what Fitz does to upgrade the Devils wings and then what he does with goalie over the long term will define Fitz’s tenure.

He’s done some nice work, but really it looks like he’ll be carried by #1oa (Hughes), #2oa (Nemec), #4oa (Hughes), and top ufa (Hamilton). He’s filled in around that nicely, but make or break in terms of the devils cup prospects are goal and wings.

Not sure how we move up for Wallstedt.

You move up with a pick trade and Shero traded the #36 pick for Gusev.

People keep saying they wanted that but wishful thinking doesn’t get our pick from #29 to #20.

Edmonton traded that pick (#20) to the Wild for picks (#22 & #90).

Our next pick was #68

Fitz traded both the #61 (Graves) & #75 (Siegenthaler) picks in that draft but I don’t think that was wrong.

Nor I don’t think keeping those picks gets us moved up 9 spots in the 1st.

Spoiler: Would have loved to have traded down but *sigh*

Sadly #27 is more appealing than #29

 

[Eggtimer]

Agree with this and it comes down to how agressive Carolina is.

If Seth Jarvis is on the table, I think that beats any NJ offer including Holtz. To do a better offer we would have to include Mercer.

I cant see the Canes offer Jarvis. The way they operate , it completely goes against how they do business . Unless they feel like they need to go all in for once , I juat cannot see it unless they go against what they have done for years. They let Hamilton go and replaced him with DeAngelo is one example of them placing huge value in comtracts of good value. Jarvis amd his ELC is huge for them . Especially with Aho needing a new contract . Canes won’t pay a prospect as good amd valuable as Jarvis PLUS a pick PLUS pay Meier 8+ million long term

 

[Emperoreddy]

They aren't trading away Jarvis the same way we aren't trading Nemec or Hughes

 

[Guttersniped]

I just wish it was for way cheaper than his qualifying offer. I'm still afraid they'll do the same for Blackwood next year, since he's a little more mediocre this year and a little less worst goalie in the league.

Wait, this a concern you have? I had no idea…

 

[Normal Devil]

Agree with this and it comes down to how agressive Carolina is.

If Seth Jarvis is on the table, I think that beats any NJ offer including Holtz. To do a better offer we would have to include Mercer.

I have a hard time believing Carolina is offering up Jarvis. If so then it's probably going to be a tough one for Fitz to beat.

 

[jkrdevil]

Seravalli just dropped his perfect deadline matches and he had Meier to Carolina and Crouse to the Devils.

I think you need to separate Servalli’s opinion from his actual reporting. On the opinion stuff, (like that column) he definitely is still the Philly guy who once gave Ray Emery a third star of the game for basically instigating a fight against Holtby in a game he gave up 4 goals on 15 shots.

That in his stuff he keeps mentioning the need to sign Severson, when everyone pretty much knows they are going to let him walk to make room for the two top-5 d-men picks they have basically shows that he isn’t on top of this organization.

 

[Guttersniped]

I’m a Shero apologist too. If we had someone that was more aggressive in the infancy of the rebuild, we’d be Vancouver or worse right now.

Shero’s philosophy about UFAs was right.

The 2016 off-season is infamously bad, it’s got to be the worst of the hard cap era. Lovejoy was was probably one of the best contracts handed out.

The fact was the cap was exploding for years so not a lot of players made it to the UFA market and the ones that did often got absurd contracts.

The cap crunch has made better players available and the UFA less bonkers.

These new UFA contracts will still get ugly, but in the late Lou/early Shero era the UFA contracts were often immediately horrifically bad. Anyone half decent who made it to free agency got a ridiculously massive payday.

 

[Goptor]

They aren't trading away Jarvis the same way we aren't trading Nemec or Hughes

It just doesn't make sense. Trading away a cost controlled NHL player for a guy thats due for big money salary AND trading a premium for that.

Does not seem like a very Carolina thing to do. Unless their owner gets involved.

 

[Brodeur]

I also don’t like that Fitz wasn’t aggressive in solving for goalie of the future. I would have preferred spending assets to move up and draft Wallstedt vs staying at 29 for Stillman. Once Cossa was off the board, we should have been looking at moving up, IMO.

I forget if it was Nashville or Buffalo who posted some behind the scenes video from the 2020 Draft, but there was a brief blip with various GMs calling trying to trade up. One of them was Fitz and presumably Yaroslav Askarov was the target.

Guttersniped detailed it pretty well about the Wallstedt pick. I don't think we had enough to move up from #29 to #20 plus I'm not sure if Edmonton would have wanted to move down that far. Post-draft, they said they were going to take Xavier Bourgault at #20 but took a calculated risk in trading down two spots and still getting him at #22. Typically when teams trade down it's under the assumption that they can still get the guy they would have drafted anyways plus they got an extra pick for moving down. Bourgault was ranked #20-25 on most rankings, so #29 was probably too far for them to consider.

At the 2015 Draft, Toronto traded #24 (Travis Konecny) to Philly for #29 and #61. I vaguely recall post-draft that Toronto's target was defenseman Jacob Larsson who was ranked in the #30-35 range so they thought they could move down and still get him. But Larsson got taken #27 by Anaheim. With Larsson off the board, Toronto then traded #29 to Columbus for #34 and #68. With the extra picks, Toronto ended up with Travis Dermott, Jeremy Bracco, and Martins Dzierkals.

 

[HBK27]

Does anybody have an example of a contending team trading away a player like Jarvis or Mercer at the deadline?

I just don't see how it makes sense for either team to do this when they both have the assets via picks/prospects/non-core players to make a deal work.

 

[Mgd31]

Does anybody have an example of a contending team trading away a player like Jarvis or Mercer at the deadline?

I just don't see how it makes sense for either team to do this when they both have the assets via picks/prospects/non-core players to make a deal work.

Niklas Bergfors

 

[JimEIV]

Watching women's beanpot and upsetting my wife with jokes.

All I need to do is say look at that crowd and trouble ensues

 

[Bleedred]

Servalli is 34. He needs to simmer down and finish his plate. Clearly, age 40 is the minimum for this business.

He’s been completely gray since probably I first seen a picture of him, which must have been at least 7 or 8 years ago. I figured he was my age.

Then I found out he was that many years younger than me. You can tell he’s not that old looking at his face, but I was shocked he was like 27 or whatever when I first found out what he looked like.

There was a guy on NHLN, I forget his name. He was really young looking, like not even 30 and he was starting to really gray.

I remember Drew Miller was like a full head of gray hair at like 26, while his older brother Ryan Miller didn’t appear to really be graying much until the last couple years and he’s in his 40’s now.

 

[JimEIV]

And certainly never mention backdoor plays.