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

[guitarguyvic]

"All our scoring right now is because depth guys are contributing. We need our top guys to produce!"

"This team is relying way too much on a couple of top guys. We need depth scoring to come through!"

Newsflash folks: this is exactly what it looks like to have a team with depth. When the top guys are on a slump, the depth guys make up for it. But the depth guys aren't going to score consistently for an extended period of time (that's why they are depth, duh) so that's when you want to see your stars carrying the team. Which they've done on this team.

It's like some of you think it's realistic to expect evenly distributed production from every line at all times and score 6 goals a game. Did we just start watching hockey yesterday or something? I don't get it.

 

[My3Sons]

LOL, now we are looking to Blackwood to save the team?
That's like asking pirates to save the people on a sinking ship full of gold.


Blackwood lives on IR, why would we ever want to resign him?

I presume you understood I was being silly? @Bleedred sees Blackwood as poorly performing and has stated on multiple occasions that he sees Schmid as likely to deliver the same or better results as Blackwood for a fraction of the price.

 

[Jersey Fresh]

All three of those guys are established producers...the likelihood that all three of them slump for a continued extended period of time is very low.

This kind of "concern" is Chicken Little. Do any of you ever just relax?

Judging purely on tone of both of our posts, don’t think I’m the one that needs to relax.

It’s a hockey board, airing concerns and/or benign observations is what we do here.

Calm down.

 

[guitarguyvic]

Judging purely on tone of both of our posts, don’t think I’m the one that needs to relax.

It’s a hockey board, airing concerns and/or benign observations is what we do here.

Calm down.

Well, they aren't legitimate concerns. It's nitpicking the team/players for falling short of implausible expectations.

I'm quite calm thanks. Just responding to posters who literally invent things to get freaked out about like they just started getting into hockey this week.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Jack is shooting 2.4% over his last 10. This won’t continue, he’s still getting lots of shots and chances every game.

 

[Saugus]

Jack is shooting 2.4% over his last 10. This won’t continue, he’s still getting lots of shots and chances every game.

I think it's a positive sign that Meier is also getting chances while playing on Hughes's line. Even though Hughes is slumping, they are still creating offense.

The goals will come soon, and hopefully timed right for when we get to the playoffs. I would love to see some or all of our star players absolutely break out in the postseason.

 

[Jersey Fresh]

Well, they aren't legitimate concerns. It's nitpicking about things baselessly.

I'm quite calm thanks. Just responding to posters who literally invent things to get freaked out about like they just started getting into hockey this week.

Again, the only one sounding “freaked out” here is you, doing black flips because this somehow triggered you so much.

Secondary scoring to one extent or another has been an issue during the middle part of the season. It’s cooking now and long may it continue, but if the top guys don’t play like top guys down the stretch, that could be a problem. And before you hyperventilate again, this is neither a prediction nor a “we’re doomed” tantrum, just a completely anodyne observation.

This is new territory for just about all of our top scorers and they’ll need to adapt when the games get tighter and more critical. Nothing that says they won’t.

This whole thing of you playing the straight, rational poster is especially rich coming from you and your long history of “sky is falling” contrarianism during this rebuild.

 

[Jersey Fresh]

Jack is shooting 2.4% over his last 10. This won’t continue, he’s still getting lots of shots and chances every game.

There’s been a “crispness” to his game that’s been lacking. A lot of fanned shots, mis-controls, and wayward passing. Some of it has likely been trying to acclimate to Meier, but he’s just seemed off. He’s got plenty of time to get right.

 

[guitarguyvic]

About Bratt. He's a great player but he's in the same tier as guys around the league who have recently signed deals in the ~$8-8.5 mil per year range.

I think he's a polarizing figure because he's a smallish, enigmatic perimeter player, who is also perceived to be playing hardball with contract negotiations.

He's not the kind of guy fans can easily connect with despite his production, and when he isn't producing at that ppg pace, he's not good enough at other facets of the game for people to easily overlook it (as has been the case recently). He's the type of player that will need to come through with some playoff heroics to shed the stigma from many fans. Getting a reasonable contract worked out without more drama would also endear him a bit more.

He's just a weird case overall.

 

[Bleedred]

The devils score 3.55 goals per game, good for fourth best in the entire league. The highest scoring team in the league score 0.3 goals more per game…or to put it another way, one extra goal every three games. How much more finishing do you possibly think they could have?

I don’t understand folks who think this is a problem.

That’s why I don’t understand all the comments about how we always get goalied. Even Dano keeps talking about how hot the goalies have been against us lately, when really it’s only been Kuemper last night, Hill and I guess Montembeault which is like over two weeks ago now. We’re only a few games removed from scoring 6 goals on like 28 shots on Annunen and having him sent back to the minors so they can bring up Keith Kinkaid. And 5 goals on 40 shots against Ingram 2 games ago.

We don’t regularly get goalied this year. It’s happened maybe a half a dozen times over 64 games.

Two different times to worthless Binnington (which is the most embarrassing by far), Hart in that 1 goal on 49 shot game in December where Severson caused the game winner and was scratched the next game. The Montembeault and Hill games recently and maybe two others I’m forgetting. And last night, but we won that. It’s maybe happened in a couple games we won anyway. I guess the one Boston game where Blackwood gave up 4 and was pulled after two periods and we came back to score 3 in the 3rd and just barely lost 4-3, but we still scored 3 goals in that game.

I guess you can also count the Matt Murray game where we scored 1 goal on like 30-something shots, had 3 goals called back and deliberately he pushed the net off 3-4 times.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

There’s been a “crispness” to his game that’s been lacking. A lot of fanned shots, mis-controls, and wayward passing. Some of it has likely been trying to acclimate to Meier, but he’s just seemed off. He’s got plenty of time to get right.

He does look off. He’s coming up on a career high in games played, there’s probably some fatigue plus the injury he’s dealing with. The staff needs to just get him right for the playoffs. Give him some strategic days off if he needs it.

 

[guitarguyvic]

Again, the only one sounding “freaked out” here is you, doing black flips because this somehow triggered you so much.

Secondary scoring to one extent or another has been an issue during the middle part of the season. It’s cooking now and long may it continue, but if the top guys don’t play like top guys down the stretch, that could be a problem. And before you hyperventilate again, this is neither a prediction nor a “we’re doomed” tantrum, just a completely anodyne observation.

This is new territory for just about all of our top scorers and they’ll need to adapt when the games get tighter and more critical. Nothing that says they won’t.

This whole thing of you playing the straight, rational poster is especially rich coming from you and your long history of “sky is falling” contrarianism during this rebuild.

I'm not hyperventilating about anything. I'm responding because, like I said, these concerns aren't objectively valid.

The secondary scoring was not really an issue at any point, the only way you can justify saying something like this is if you hold some wild unrealistic expectation. It's called secondary scoring for a reason. It's what you hope to get when your star players are in a slump, like right now. If you had concerns about it when the star players were carrying the team, then the current state of things should assuage that concern.

"but if the top guys don’t play like top guys down the stretch, that could be a problem. And before you hyperventilate again, this is neither a prediction nor a “we’re doomed” tantrum, just a completely anodyne observation." And if my aunt had different genitalia, she'd be my uncle. What's the point of making a statement like this if it's not an actual concern of yours? If it is a concern, then that takes us right back to it being baseless. There's no objective reason to believe our top producers are going to become mediocre players who can't produce at the expected rate down the stretch.

A lot of what I criticized and was concerned about during the rebuild was proven wrong (although definitely not all especially as it relates to Shero), but I stand by my stance at the time. I value evidence in the here and now, "potential" is way too ambiguous of an idea for me to build hope or predictions off of. The players we have now have finally proven themselves, so I changed my tune. These concerns masked as "anodyne observations" are the exact opposite of that.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

My only legitimate concern remains goaltending. Vanecek has been good this year but he should be expected to put up some stinkers over the postseason and will not start every game I'm guessing.

 

[NJDevs26]

People are mostly panicking over Jack because his shooting slump coincides with returning from his mystery injury.

 

[Triumph]

I'm not hyperventilating about anything. I'm responding because, like I said, these concerns aren't objectively valid.

The secondary scoring was not really an issue at any point, the only way you can justify saying something like this is if you hold some wild unrealistic expectation. It's called secondary scoring for a reason. It's what you hope to get when your star players are in a slump, like right now. If you had concerns about it when the star players were carrying the team, then the current state of things should assuage that concern.

"but if the top guys don’t play like top guys down the stretch, that could be a problem. And before you hyperventilate again, this is neither a prediction nor a “we’re doomed” tantrum, just a completely anodyne observation." And if my aunt had different genitalia, she'd be my uncle. What's the point of making a statement like this if it's not an actual concern of yours? If it is a concern, then that takes us right back to it being baseless. There's no objective reason to believe our top producers are going to become mediocre players who can't produce at the expected rate down the stretch.

A lot of what I criticized and was concerned about during the rebuild was proven wrong (although definitely not all especially as it relates to Shero), but I stand by my stance at the time. I value evidence in the here and now, "potential" is way too ambiguous of an idea for me to build hope or predictions off of. The players we have now have finally proven themselves, so I changed my tune. These concerns masked as "anodyne observations" are the exact opposite of that.

'Evidence in the here and now' is what the contrary position is providing. Hughes can't score over the last 10 games - what if he's back to his 18-19 year old self, scoring-wise? What if he's just a 25 goal guy who shoots 4 times a game? I don't agree with it, but you should see the similarities between your own position in October about this team and the position people are taking now about people not producing.

 

[None Shall Pass]

I think it's wild that Nico is now 0-9 for his career in shootouts. You'd figure one would go in by dumb luck by now.

 

[guitarguyvic]

'Evidence in the here and now' is what the contrary position is providing. Hughes can't score over the last 10 games - what if he's back to his 18-19 year old self, scoring-wise? What if he's just a 25 goal guy who shoots 4 times a game? I don't agree with it, but you should see the similarities between your own position in October about this team and the position people are taking now about people not producing.

It's not really similar though. One is taking a more skeptical "wait and see" approach because the player hasn't proven he can produce at that level yet, the other is questioning if the player can continue producing at a high rate in spite of the fact that he has already proven he can/does.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

check the date that John Marino returned to the lineup.

 

[bossram]

"All our scoring right now is because depth guys are contributing. We need our top guys to produce!"

"This team is relying way too much on a couple of top guys. We need depth scoring to come through!"

Newsflash folks: this is exactly what it looks like to have a team with depth. When the top guys are on a slump, the depth guys make up for it. But the depth guys aren't going to score consistently for an extended period of time (that's why they are depth, duh) so that's when you want to see your stars carrying the team. Which they've done on this team.

It's like some of you think it's realistic to expect evenly distributed production from every line at all times and score 6 goals a game. Did we just start watching hockey yesterday or something? I don't get it.

Yep. For much of the season, Jack was supernova and carrying the team. Now with the top guys going quieter, you have the 3rd line and Mercer filling in. That's what you want.

check the date that John Marino returned to the lineup.

It helps immensely to have a guy that just eats the toughest minutes for breakfast, but can still turn play in the right direction and win those minutes.

It's a huge subsidy to the rest of the team.

 

[Eggtimer]

I’m very pumped for this . Get to watch Bedard live . I’d way rather watch the Devils play live even if it was a random game in November against a shit team but I’ll take what I can get .

 

[Blender]

check the date that John Marino returned to the lineup.

Marino is god.

Ty Smith and a 2nd

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Marino is god.

Ty Smith and a 2nd

it wasnt even a 2nd, it was a 3rd!

 

[Cheddabombs]

If we didn't make that Marino trade we'd probably be right there with the rest of the wild card teams. In Fitz I trust!

 

[FinnishDevil]

With all the hot takes about Haula earlier in the season, it should be some people on this board stirring his drink the way he's playing.

 

[Blender]

it wasnt even a 2nd, it was a 3rd!

Oh right, I assumed we paid more than we even did.