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

[Cheddabombs]

Like this!

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Ok ok, 50 goals is better but we didn’t exactly have a lot going on in 2015-16.



I hope they don’t give us a “Plan the Parade” cover lol.

Thanks but no thanks Hockey News, stick to trolling Canadian teams with that shit.

A simpler time. Zacha, Wood and Santini all making their debuts. Zacha starting off his career with 2 points in game one. How naive we were

 

[Guttersniped]

yes, when shero gets insulted on here that’s when my lou hatred comes out. lou’s bumbling bullshittery is necessary context to understand how bad the shape of the organization was when shero walked in.

fitz has done an amazing job, but his day 1 was EXTREMELY different from shero’s. you can downplay shero‘s accomplishments all you want, but he turned this franchise around and even made the playoffs in the process. and of course, a big part of that was getting rid of useless lou bums like camm and schneider while drafting players like Z who was literally just a major piece of the timo trade. which was my original point.

saying that other nameless average GM’s (whatever that means) would have done the same is such a vague, ridiculous thing to say and is utterly meaningless. personally, i can’t wait to see who cleans up the islanders for lou this time when he inevitably gets the stanky boot.

I’m only bitter over the last 2nds in the Summer of Shero because they affected what Fitz could do.

We lost picks he could drafted with, combined with other picks to move up in the draft, used in trades, etc.

We waived Gusev on April 9, 2021. The 2021 NHL Draft was on July 23-24 and our #36 pick had been gone since July 29, 2019. It was just dumb.

I just don’t like having less assets now, I won’t hold a long term grudge about this (unlike some people, holy crap lol).

I’m certainly over Lou shit. Well, keeping Niedermayer would have been nice. The 2m dead cap space makes the Schneider trade a disaster for this franchise since 2013 and still an annoyance.

It’s kind of amazing how bad it is, because the dude was an absolute sweetheart and was stellar in goal for 3 years (out of 7 unfortunately).

That contract was arguably Lou’s Poison Pill as it contributed quite a bit to Shero’s demise. I guess if you don’t like Shero, you should like Cory? (This is why alternative timelines are so difficult to navigate, either the Nazis win WW2 or Ashton Kutcher loses both his arms.)

The stork didn’t leave Tom Fitzgerald at HBSE’s door, we needed Shero to get him. Fitz did some goofy shit at various drafts too. Fitz will make more mistakes too, it happens, I care more about the overall approach and philosophy.

I did want Shero gone. I didn’t like his approach to team building. Not sure that would have improved.

I also thought he dithered too much over Hynes too. Shero’s biggest selling point was he was an able executive, but the month long observation farce was just silly.

We went 0-4-2 to start the season. Fitz became an assistant coach, an extra pair of eyes, blah, blah, blah on Oct 16th 2019.

We went 8-6-2. Thumbs up, Fitz is done on Nov 25th and learned that the team has not quit on Hynes, blah, blah, blah. Nothing to see here, please disperse.

We then go 1-4-0 and Shero fires Hynes on Dec 3rd.

That will always be funny to me because the next ugly losing streak was obviously getting Hynes fired. Most GMs just give the HC a vote of confidence my guy.

 

[Devilsgrl35]

Fitz on NHL network just said he's speaking to Bratt's agent "as we speak".

 

[Hisch13r]

If we don't add a depth forward I'd like to get Clarke some games down the stretch. We're 2 forward injuries away from having to bump one Bastian or Wood into the top 9. Get a look at what you have with Clarke because he'd likely be a much better piece there and I wouldn't want to throw him to the wolves in the playoffs.

 

[MachoDiablo]

At the 2003 Anniversary pre-game presentation Nico was just banging his stick on his ice in excitement. No one else was really even doing it much, if at all lol.

The dude wants this so bad, Nico’s going to be such a lunatic in the playoffs.

You have to wonder what it did to him to make the playoffs in his rookie year and then suddenly find the team in the wilderness overnight. He's had a taste, might've thought "we'll make it back here, no problem!", then got stuck eating dirt for a few years. Now he's signed for the long haul and wears the C, you know he's dying for the calendar to get to April.

Just to reiterate something from the trade thread, a big reason why this trade works for the Devils is that they had the chips to push in without compromising their tip-top assets, but also because a few years of careful building (and some lotto luck, of course) means they Devils won't have to make big moves like this that often. If Fitz was the kind of GM who just ships futures off at the drop of a hat just to try and snake into a wild card spot or something I'd be worried, but no, he's taking a home run swing here on a guy who perfectly fits this team's on-ice needs and its larger scale contention window, and those are the kinds of guys you make the big deals to acquire.

If the Devils are shipping off a ton of organizational depth on the regular for older guys and rentals who just destroy the cap situation, in a vain attempt to make an ill-fated run? Yeah, that'd concern me. But right now they're one of the youngest teams in the league, one of the best teams in the league, and they just got better while still remaining a club with some of the best prospects in the league.

 

[Lou is God]

Been offline most of the day but just got home to hear Fitz say on NHL Live that he's working on getting Bratt's contract done as we speak.

Sorry if this old news.

 

[DerekDevils30]

If we don't add a depth forward I'd like to get Clarke some games down the stretch. We're 2 forward injuries away from having to bump one Bastian or Wood into the top 9. Get a look at what you have with Clarke because he'd likely be a much better piece there and I wouldn't want to throw him to the wolves in the playoffs.

Good idea. Let him play with Palat and Haula for a few games. Both guys are solid playmakers and veteran presence for a guy getting his nose wet.

 

[JimEIV]

Not sure how you got that from my post, but ok

You had a flawed premise. The premise was one GM doing yeoman's work then gets fired only to have another take his work to another level.


Both of those teams really never achieved any sort of sustained success or went to a real next level...all while being very bad for a very long time with different GM's.

At best those teams saw little blips in the graph but when you zoom out and look at the graph over larger portions of time, the line hasn't really moved much at all....we can very well be that also, I don't think so, but only time will tell

 

[Hisch13r]

Been offline most of the day but just got home to hear Fitz say on NHL Live that he's working on getting Bratt's contract done as we speak.

Sorry if this old news.

If he were to actually get a Bratt deal done before Meier I think he's either paying a ton and/or Bratt's just f***ing pumped about adding Meier and wants to lock in now.

 

[MauDevils]

Fitz on NHL network just said he's speaking to Bratt's agent "as we speak".

Bratt's agent making a mad dash for that remaining cap space.

 

[Omar Little]

Re-signing Haula but not Tatar would be quite the choice. Tatar should be a no brainer.

We don't really have a 3C for next year. I don't trust Boqvist to really assume that role.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Fitz on NHL network just said he's speaking to Bratt's agent "as we speak".

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

if Fitz gets both Bratt and Meier to sign fair longterm deals, I will never say a bad word about him

 

[Billdo]

if Fitz gets both Bratt and Meier to sign fair longterm deals, I will never say a bad word about him

I'm telling you, matching 8 year deals worth 66.5 mil.

 

[Devilsgrl35]

Fitz also named dropped Bratt yesterday during one of his interviews I saw in the context of contract extensions. It honestly sounds imminent.

 

[Hisch13r]

We don't really have a 3C for next year. I don't trust Boqvist to really assume that role.

We can afford Tatar and a 3C. Haula is a pretty generic interchangeable 3C. If it’s him fine. If it’s someone else fine. Tatar on the other hand is irreplaceable

I'm telling you, matching 8 year deals worth 66.5 mil.

That would be pretty f***ing crazy to me. I’m expecting 8.5 as a min and that’s ~8.3

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Whatever term between 5 years and 8 that gets them to under 8.5m and I'll be happy.

 

[My3Sons]

We don't really have a 3C for next year.

Really? Is this some sort of joke?

 

[bossram]

If he were to actually get a Bratt deal done before Meier I think he's either paying a ton and/or Bratt's just f***ing pumped about adding Meier and wants to lock in now.

Hit 'em both with matching 8 x $8.75M deals and I'll be a happy camper.

 

[Hisch13r]

Hit 'em both with matching 8 x $8.75M deals and I'll be a happy camper.

I’m fine with anything up to 9

 

[bossram]

I’m fine with anything up to 9

Oh me too. In my head I'm thinking more $9x8 for Meier and a bit less for Bratt, but announcing matching deals on the same day would be nice symmetry and get the bulk of the work out of the way.

Also avoids some contract fight with the player who signs second - e.g. "he got $X, I deserve $Y"

 

[NJDevils17]

I don’t think you can (or should) pay Bratt less than Meier.

 

[Eggtimer]

Fitz also named dropped Bratt yesterday during one of his interviews I saw in the context of contract extensions. It honestly sounds imminent.

Yes Fitz made a point of saying priority #1 was Bratt and is working on it. I honestly believe Meier has a handshake deal that he will extend but the visuals would be bad from Bratts perspective if we extended Meier before him. Not saying an exact figure is worked out on Meier but Fitz has got reassured that Meier is open to extending.

 

[Guttersniped]

Garth Snow under Wang is such a uniquely weird situation it’s hard to compare to anything.

Snow was GM from July 2006 to June 2018, which is hard to wrap your brain around in itself.

And Wang got impossibly cheap at times, the organization was ridiculously bare bones.

Ironically, they drafted pretty darn well when Ryan Jankowski was with them. He was a scout with them for 2 years and then became a AGM in 2005-06, in Milbury’s last year, at age 31. He left after 2009-10.

They still drafted pretty ok overall, the team often targeted talented fallers in draft.

That worked out at times, like with Cizikas and Lee in 2009, Barzal in 2015. There’s a lot of infamous examples of it not working out, such as Ho-Sang in 2014 and Kabanov in 2010.

I think that was probably the best philosophy for an organization with not very much at all to spend on player development.

 

[Darkauron]

Give Bratt and Meier 8x$9 each and id be okay with it. Anything less would be great