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

[devilsblood]

well, it's obvious that Zacha was carrying Hischier. If that isn't an indictment of advanced stats I'm not sure what would be. I'm somewhat agnostic on advanced stats but I'm skeptical that the anomaly you've uncovered in those numbers are a true reflection of their play. Zacha looks fairly disinterested to me for much of this season. His play has reflected that in my view.

Nice straw man.

Given that's not the point I was making, it's not an indictment on advanced stats at all, more so it's a reason to look deeper into the stats.

But it does show that Zacha's #'s are not merely due to playing on Nico's line.

 

[KovalchukFistPump]

How has Zacha had a solid season? He took a step back in his point production during a season where GPG are way up. And I don't see much progress in the defensive side of things.

 

[devilsblood]

Hopefully a team heavy into advanced stats wants Zacha . Might be able to get a pretty decent asset for him?

I wonder what you can actually get.

Im making the argument Zacha had a solid season. Not great, but solid. Sounds like he'll be getting a raise too, so will a team give up much to bring him in? I tend to doubt it, but perhaps team see more upside still possible. The underlying trends do continue upward.

We do need to clear out the glut of wingers so maybe we take what we can get for him, but I'm doubting it's a haul.

 

[devilsblood]

How has Zacha had a solid season? He took a step back in his point production during a season where GPG are way up. And I don't see much progress in the defensive side of things.

Shot rate was the best in his career. Same for icf, scf, hdcf.

On ice defensive #'s were, even in light of league wide gpg being higher, his best since his rookie year. Significantly better than last year.

Played less on the PP though, and was less effective while on it. Also shot a lower % in all situations.

 

[KovalchukFistPump]

Shot rate was the best in his career. Same for icf, scf, hdcf.

On ice defensive #'s were, even in light of league wide gpg being higher, his best since his rookie year. Significantly better than last year.

Played less on the PP though, and was less effective while on it. Also shot a lower % in all situations.

I'm curious, do you have a link to the defensive numbers? I'd like to take a look. Is it from Evolving Hockey?

 

[devilsblood]

View attachment 537044

This may be the first meme that Dano would approve of

Is that a hair tie?

 

[devilsblood]

I'm curious, do you have a link to the defensive numbers? I'd like to take a look. Is it from Evolving Hockey?

I'm a natstat guy.

Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

www.naturalstattrick.com

This is the whole team, click Zacha for his yearly's.

 

[McDuffz88]

Are we really having a Zacha debate? Dude needs to go. I don't even wan't him on the 3rd line. The dude doesn't try or put in effort. I counted a million times this season that if Zacha just put in some effort he would of beat the opponent to the puck for a much needed clearing but Zacha just doesn't care. He just isn't the type of player you wan't on your team when your competing. I wan't players who will play their heart out not a player who just coasts around like a zombie.

 

[Saugus]

I think it's time to part ways with Zacha. He is what he is at this point, and there's little chance he will improve here. A change of scenery might benefit him, and it will make room for us to add someone else that fits our team better.

Better to trade him and get some return than deal with an RFA bridge contract and potential nastiness in arbitration.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Is that a hair tie?

You mean his headset?

 

[billingtons ghost]

Sev's much more then Zacha. I'll make an argument that Zacha had a solid season, but we have plenty of lw options, and lw is a pretty easy hole to fill.

Sev's plays a position at which we have no organizational depth, and it's a pretty difficult position to fill league wide.

I don't want to overpay Sev's, but we might need to. We really don't need to overpay Zacha.

I know rhd doesn't grow on trees, but I definitely don't want to overpay for Sevs. He's an important player for us, but with the rest our D makeup, at anything north of 6m, we can find a younger less braindead player at half his price through trade or free agency that maybe won't bring the same vision and offense, but could bring the same or better D.

 

[Bleedred]

Whether he tries and puts in effort or not is irrelevant, he shouldn't be here past next season (at the LATEST).

Either trade him for whatever you can get for him or give him his qualifying offer and he either goes at the deadline next year or walks for nothing if we're a playoff team.

That's much better than signing him for more than $3 million a year or even at $3 million a year for multiple years.

If we sign him for multiple years than we're clearly signing him JUST TO SIGN HIM and nothing more.

We don't have to keep every player just to keep them. If we did then guys like Brian Gionta either would have been a Devil for life or at least until he was well into his 30's. Rafalski would have been a career Devil. Probably Madden too (I'm glad he wasn't, he wasn't even better than Michael McLeod at the time he left here), among others.

You can blast Shero if you want for thinking it was a good idea to bring him into the NHL at 19 and not just send him back to the OHL, thus the reason he's UFA in one more year at 26 and not two at 27 like most players, but we've run out of time here on him.

We shouldn't be signing guys just to sign them. It's the same thing with Ryan Graves, although I haven't read a good ''So? Graves or Severson? Which one do we keep?'' in many months now.

 

[billingtons ghost]

Take away the first round draft pick disappointment, and he's still out fourth best fwd with one of the top two or three shots on the team. He was pushed (again) into being our 2nd or third line center and while we appear deep at C, Nico and Jack are not unexpectedly on the shelf. And I don't see that now as something we will never have to worry about as they have targets. We claimed 3C was an easy spot to fill and then only filled it bc Mercer exceeded expectations. I like Boqvist and his upside maybe exceeds zachas, but maybe not as a center. Despite the howls of protest, if we can get Zacha at less than 4, that's a coup in my book.

 

[Eggtimer]

These crap games show more than people think. I’d try to dump anyone that is showing that they are just going through the motions. I know it’s hard to get up for a meaningless game , njt I want to see players that actually care and want to win regardless of the situation. Mercer showed some of that when he got the crap penalty called against in the Sens game.
It will be very interesting how Fitz will fint tune the roster this off-season. Right now , we have skill , but the mixof players is just not right and not constructed well. We need one or two defensive D ano a defensive checking line that can still score and is hard to play against .
We have to be seen as one of the easiest teams to play against as we are currently constructed . I want S Stevens to come out of retirement and a forward version or two or three of him .

 

[billingtons ghost]

Hopefully a team heavy into advanced stats wants Zacha . Might be able to get a pretty decent asset for him?

Ideally that's what happens. We deal him for a team need.

 

[Eggtimer]

Ideally that's what happens. We deal him for a team need.

Yes . Him and Ty Smith. I know it’s early to “give up” on Smith but I see him as redundant regardless if he turns his game around or not.

 

[billingtons ghost]

These crap games show more than people think. I’d try to dump anyone that is showing that they are just going through the motions. I know it’s hard to get up for a meaningless game , njt I want to see players that actually care and want to win regardless of the situation. Mercer showed some of that when he got the crap penalty called against in the Sens game.
It will be very interesting how Fitz will fint tune the roster this off-season. Right now , we have skill , but the mixof players is just not right and not constructed well. We need one or two defensive D ano a defensive checking line that can still score and is hard to play against .
We have to be seen as one of the easiest teams to play against as we are currently constructed . I want S Stevens to come out of retirement and a forward version or two or three of him .

We are a joy to play against...Except for the speed. Remove Subban, if Wood can't answer the bell and assuming we never are forced to start Geersten again please God, and we are ice capades unless we triple shift Bastian.

 

[billingtons ghost]

Yes . Him and Ty Smith. I know it’s early to “give up” on Smith but I see him as redundant regardless if he turns his game around or not.

Absolutely. Id hope they give Smith some time just to increase his trade value.

The sad thing is that Zacha is pretty much going to be Nichushkin if he ends up in the right situation.

 

[Captain3rdLine]

 

[Triumph]

Shot rate was the best in his career. Same for icf, scf, hdcf.

I really dislike superlatives. Wow, best shot rate in his career. That's a whole .15/60 above his best mark so far, which over 1000 minutes amounts to 2.5 shots. What a breakthrough!

The thing is that it's not hard to look at Zacha's shot rate as a decline because he is getting a lower percentage of the shots taken while he is on the ice. The Devils got 29 shots/60 with him on the ice last year, 34 this year, and yet his shot rate stayed the same. He played winger most of the year. I'd argue that's a worse shot rate. And this really is the issue for me - Pavel Zacha does not get enough shots or make enough passes. He just does not have the puck on his stick enough.

On ice defensive #'s were, even in light of league wide gpg being higher, his best since his rookie year. Significantly better than last year.

Played less on the PP though, and was less effective while on it. Also shot a lower % in all situations.

He formed a nice combination with Nico Hischier, but I think any decent forward can do that. While it is partly coaching, my biggest issue with Zacha is that he has not carved out a role. He doesn't play PP1. He doesn't play regularly on the PK anymore. He's just a PP2/evens kind of guy, he'll score 15-20 goals a season, but he's not doing a whole lot. He's potentially going backwards on the depth chart and It's time to ship him out.

 

[Triumph]

Take away the first round draft pick disappointment, and he's still out fourth best fwd with one of the top two or three shots on the team. He was pushed (again) into being our 2nd or third line center and while we appear deep at C, Nico and Jack are not unexpectedly on the shelf. And I don't see that now as something we will never have to worry about as they have targets. We claimed 3C was an easy spot to fill and then only filled it bc Mercer exceeded expectations. I like Boqvist and his upside maybe exceeds zachas, but maybe not as a center. Despite the howls of protest, if we can get Zacha at less than 4, that's a coup in my book.

I don't care about Zacha being a 1st round pick. Do not care in the slightest. He has a good shot, he doesn't use it often enough. 3C isn't an easy position to fill but the reason why it was talked about being filled so much is because Pavel Zacha proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is not a center in a Devils uniform, and still isn't. If he were a 3C, this wouldn't be an issue, they'd just play him there. They don't because he's not good enough to do it.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

 

[My3Sons]

A little elaboration perhaps?

On what? I’m happy to but not sure what you are looking for.

 

[My3Sons]

Nice straw man.

Given that's not the point I was making, it's not an indictment on advanced stats at all, more so it's a reason to look deeper into the stats.

But it does show that Zacha's #'s are not merely due to playing on Nico's line.

I’m just poking fun at the obvious. I’ve seen that argument made in the past about advanced stats for one player or another. I like Zacha and it’s a shame he has never reallly hit his stride. I’m just not sure he loves hockey as opposed to just being good at it. I’d like to keep him on the team as a middle six type player if it made sense but my guess is he will want too much money.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Zacha is not even that bad, it’s just that we have plenty of younger, cheaper, more interesting guys knocking on the door and we have to make some room.

We have two right handed forwards that will likely be here next year, Wood will presumably be here and has a needed skillset, and we very likely go after someone in free agency/via trade. We need to subtract multiple guys, it’s only logical that Pavel will be one of them.