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

[Guttersniped]

According to Blues fans, Montgomery took over coaching their PP and PK. PP went from 6th to 3rd but apparently looks a lot more dangerous. Also their PK went from 25th to 6th. They are really happy with the guy and don’t want to lose him.

Montgomery might not want to leave after he just put his life back together after getting sober.

He’s certainly a possible candidate though.

 

[Mgd31]

Montgomery might not want to leave after he just put his life back together after getting sober.

He’s certainly a possible candidate though.

Yea that’s another good point they brought up

 

[Billdo]

I like your thinking and I agree 100%. We need an upgraded 3rd line. The question is what do we do with the likes of Johnsson, Kuokkanen, Tatar. They have one year left on their deals.
I think Fitzy priority has to be goaltending and continue to revamp the defense with Subban’s likely departure. There is no good veteran 3C as free agents, unless we sign at Trocheck for that role, whom will cost at least $6m per season. It’s probably a worthwhile investment because Trocheck is the perfect age for us. He can score and play defense. And is very good on faceoffs, which is what we need so we don’t overuse McLeod. And I like the signing because it keeps Mercer at wing, which I think he is better suited for.
In an ideal world, I like to dump both Zacha and Tatar and sign both Trocheck and Nuke.

Sharangovich-Hughes-Mercer
Bratt-Hischier-Holtz
Johnsson-Trocheck-Nishkushkin
Wood-McLeod-Bastian

Kuokkanen will be the plug and play 13th forward who can fill anywhere in the bottom six.
Unfortunately that leaves Boqvist without a role. He just isnt suited to playing a heavy game, which is why I prefer McLeod as 4C. Maybe we carry him as an additional forward or he can become a “thrown in” trade asset.

I'd rather Kuokkanen or Zacha than Johnsson tbh.

 

[Bleedred]

Dallas was getting outshot by quite a bit in Montgomery's one full season there, but they also were Roman Polak almost 20 minutes of ice time and Polak was one of the league's greatest black holes of suck. Just a bottomless crater.

I do wonder why he was playing 20 minutes, as his minutes went down the next season and then he opted not come back for the playoffs after the first covid pause.

 

[Guttersniped]

Devils are organizationally thin at center, especially for the bottom 6. Boqvist shows flashes, but we're not sure the consistency is there yet. McLeod is a serviceable 4th liner, especially with his face-off competency. Both of these players inject speed into the line-up, which is nice, but I'm not sure I'd be willing to commit to either of them yet as long-term options for the bottom 6.

Meyers would, if nothing else, give you another name to throw into that hat. If he's at least as good as Boqvist or McLeod -- which is conceivable -- he gives you more depth. With Zacha a likely trade candidate for the off-season, there is not a lot of flexibility if the Devils suffer an injury up the middle.

In the prospect pool, the Devils are barren. Pytlik's injuries have slowed his development to the point where you can best hope he's a future 4C, and he's the top center option in the pool right now. If you consider Salminen a center -- and I don't -- his stock is certainly down after the Devils reached for him a bit in the 3rd round last year. Shlaine is maybe an AHL guy, and Baumgartner was a wasted pick who could probably no longer be considered an AHL prospect, much less an NHL one. Zakhar Bardakov was probably the Devils best pick after the 1st round last year, but we're still not sure if he projects to center or LW.

All I'm saying, is it might make sense for the Devils to take a run at an almost NHL-ready 23 year old who might represent the best center UFA option out of the NCAA this year.

I’d be thrilled. (Of course I like that sort of thing and don’t expect offensive stars from the process.) You want to grow your own bottom six players if possible and FA signing is a great way to do that.

Hell, Rooney was useful and was just a dude we signed out of Providence in 2016. Top FA targets that year included Aston-Reese (Pens are obviously one of the best in terms of developing guys), Pionk (who signed with the Rangers because guys do that a lot) and Brandon Tanev (signed with Jets, flourished with the Pens).

And lower down, our own Nick Lappin. Who made things happen. I will brook no Lappin slander here.

 

[devilsblood]

Wedge played 8 periods here in two starts and played the Caps, the Flames (for 2 periods) and the Blue Jackets. That’s not much to work with in figuring out how he would have played here.

The Coyotes played very low event hockey based around having not a ton of talent and having a bunch of veteran cap dumps. When we lost to them 4-1, in the game that got Blackwood shut down, they had 17 shots, giving Mac a .765 SV% for the game.

Also, again, take out Bernier’s last game and his SV% is .914. He only had 9 starts. Blackwood’s SV% in his first 13 games (out of 23) was .913.

Gillies was bad and the defense in front of him had gotten worse. Schmid was pretty obviously overwhelmed though he got shelled a bit in several games. Hammond seems like the worst of bunch, but that’s me.

What happened to each goalie is unique, they do blur together because there were seven of them and a bunch of losses.

Last year Wedge played 16 games for us, posted a .900 save % and we were all, shall we say, less then satisfied. His 3 games and .880 save % this season solidified that opinion.

Does Zona play a low event style? I'll take your word for it, but if so, that's kind of my point. We play a high event style, which I'm theorizing breaks mediocre/poor/young goalies.

 

[Tao Jersey Jones]

Comets have three B2B in their seven GR.

Would be nice to have Daws play in the last two of them. Both are on the road. Daws would have to skip Vegas to make it to Cleveland for one of them. The last one closes out the season in Rochester and Providence.

 

[Hisch13r]

If you guys want some entertainment then go over to the Rangers board and read the last couple pages of the Laf thread. You've got people acting like we're at literal war chastising people and saying things like "you're fraternizing with the enemy" for agreeing with Devil fans in the mainboard thread on Laf that he's been disappointing. It's some real weirdo shit.

 

[Guttersniped]

Last year Wedge played 16 games for us, posted a .900 save % and we were all, shall we say, less then satisfied. His 3 games and .880 save % this season solidified that opinion.

Does Zona play a low event style? I'll take your word for it, but if so, that's kind of my point. We play a high event style, which I'm theorizing breaks mediocre/poor/young goalies.

I don’t have a breakdown of Wedge and his games. I don’t care that much.

Arizona didn’t win much with low event hockey, other than when their players went on a shooting bender and their rando goalies got hot.

I’m don’t watch them outside of our games against us, as I’m not sick in the head, but they tried to limit the damage as we dominated them and then struck when they had the occasional opportunity.

That strategy worked great against us since Blackwood was not functional in what was his last game. Not putting a lot of effort into producing offense won’t work out for you though in terms of winning.

Wedge is like a lot fringy goalies, he can be good at times but then not good a lot.

We got worse, statistically speaking, in terms of defense both on 5v5 and the PK in the last few months. So that didn’t help our terrible AHL goalies and completely raw rookie goalies. But we got terrible goaltending. That happened.

I don’t know how much better this team would play with better/healthy goalies. It would be nice to have found out.

No one is in love with the defense under Ruff and guys making defensive errors. But no, I don’t think Wedge’s stats proves anything. Not superficially, with so few games played. We got the best results with our best goalies (when healthy) this year.

If you want to see Wedge as the Rosetta Stone here, have it. I’ve fixated on this shitty goaltending enough, I don’t want to keep debating Scott f***ing Wedgewood of all meaningless things. He played 8 periods for us this season.

There are teams with way leakier, more brutal defenses (Columbus, Detroit). They have worse goal differentials. It’s not like we’re spectacularly godawful defensively, that’s why the goaltending gets talked about a lot.

The “Fire Ruff” stuff shows people are interested in changes to the defensive systems too.

 

[Hisch13r]

Ahhhhhhhhhhh

 

[MauDevils]

He's 27 and never even cracked .5 PPG before this season and a big part of his production increase is coming from the PP. Is he on their top unit?

I'm insanely hesitant getting into a bidding war over breakout players on extremely good teams.

 

[devilsblood]

If you want to see Wedge as the Rosetta Stone here, have it. I’ve fixated on this shitty goaltending enough, I don’t want to keep debating Scott f***ing Wedgewood of all meaningless things. He played 8 periods this season.

Thats cool but you did respond to my post on the subject. Seems odd that just 2 posts in your getting all cuss words about it.

 

[Bleedred]

Wedge played 8 periods here in two starts and played the Caps, the Flames (for 2 periods) and the Blue Jackets. That’s not much to work with in figuring out how he would have played here.

The Coyotes played very low event hockey based around having not a ton of talent and having a bunch of veteran cap dumps. When we lost to them 4-1, in the game that got Blackwood shut down, they had 17 shots, giving Mac a .765 SV% for the game.

Also, again, take out Bernier’s last game and his SV% is .914. He only had 9 starts. Blackwood’s SV% in his first 13 games (out of 23) was .913.

Gillies was bad and the defense in front of him had gotten worse. Schmid was pretty obviously overwhelmed though he got shelled a bit in several games. Hammond seems like the worst of bunch, but that’s me.

What happened to each goalie is unique, they do blur together because there were seven of them and a bunch of losses.

Yeah in his two game sample size Hammond is definitely the worst of the bunch.

I’m not sure if that’s sustainable him being worse than Gillies if he got more action, but his two games here have been nothing better than Gillies worst games here. Although Gillies last three starts have been right there with Hammond’s two starts here.

I do seriously believe Hammond is also still not healthy either. Like I seriously wonder if we hadn’t traded for Hammond, if he would have even played a game yet for Laval or whoever.

I still think he’s bad, but I wonder if he’s just a little less bad than these two games.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

He's 27 and never even cracked .5 PPG before this season and a big part of his production increase is coming from the PP. Is he on their top unit?

I'm insanely hesitant getting into a bidding war over breakout players on extremely good teams.

His main value is defense. He’s been an elite, Selke-level defensive player for years.

 

[Bleedred]

I seriously believe at this point that Karel Vejmelka is one of the most overrated goalies of the year, but that’s clearly a symptom of playing on a bad team (people assuming he’s not as bad as he’s played this year) as well as Gillies syndrome over here.

The fact that people think Vejmelka might not be bad is what makes him overrated. He’s one of the worst regular full time NHL goalies (this don’t include call ups and AHL guys, like the Daws and Gillies of the league) I’ve seen this year.

What’s the relevancy to Vejmelka in this thread? Just brought it up because of the Wedgewood stuff. Yes, Wedgewood looked A LOT better than Vejmelka to me on Arizona. But Wedgewood also is the type of goalie that gives up a lot of goals that don’t bad or stoppable, but really are stoppable due to the way he plays.

 

[Hisch13r]

He's 27 and never even cracked .5 PPG before this season and a big part of his production increase is coming from the PP. Is he on their top unit?

I'm insanely hesitant getting into a bidding war over breakout players on extremely good teams.

I mean you're not really paying for his production. You're paying for one of the best two way play drivers in the entire league and an elite PKer who on the side can also produce pretty well. He's sitting 41 pts in 53 games this year. You could remove his 9 PP pts and that's still 32 in 53. His 5v5 production is generally like a middle 6er with this year and 19-20 being upper end 2nd line production. He ranks tied for 138th in 5v5 pts among forwards this year and T96 in 5v5 P/60 with Barzal and Nylander. 19-20 that's T106 in P/60 and T144 in raw 5v5 pts. Nuke is f***ing great.

He's basically a bigger and younger Coleman. My issue with going after Coleman was always the term for a 30 year old. Cap hit wise he's worth a f*** ton. So if you're going after a 27 year old instead I'd be more willing to go longer term for a 5 or 6 year deal.

 

[Guttersniped]

If you guys want some entertainment then go over to the Rangers board and read the last couple pages of the Laf thread. You've got people acting like we're at literal war chastising people and saying things like "you're fraternizing with the enemy" for agreeing with Devil fans in the mainboard thread on Laf that he's been disappointing. It's some real weirdo shit.

Ok, I bit. The one guy freaking out about someone “agreeing with Devils trolls” also complained that all Devils fans do is watch (?) the Rangers and post about that dumb team.

Oh, sweetie, projection is a hell of thing because only one person in this imaginary relationship that has this fantasy and it’s you.

I’ll make fun of the Rangers, for the entertainment value, if they come up, but I can’t even figure out how someone can (maybe?) believe that. People on the main board threads aren’t all Devils fans either. (And the guy with this delusion isn’t a bad poster in particular, but has some issues relating to the Devils apparently. Lighten up Francis.)

But fans do that often. Thinking a retaliatory cross-check in a guy’s face is bad = not appreciating Malkin’s historical greatness (or something). Pen/Malkin fans are pontificating at great length in a main board thread. I bet they cry about the haters picking unfairly on their (legendary) guy on their board.

 

[Bleedred]

I don’t even know why Gibson or Binnington would be an option. Both guys are already oozing with real buyout potential.

We just bought out a goalie not too long ago, who was decaying and badly declining. But at the time we gave him the deal he was one of the best in the world.

We already have red flag indicators that Binnington and especially Gibson are problem contracts waiting to happen. I mean f***, Gibson is a problem already happening. Never mind waiting to happen. Binnington’s peak might have very well been his rookie year and he’s signed for too long and at too much money.

Gibson is pretty much where Schneider was by this time in 2019, only he’s about 4-4.5 years younger. But Gibson does have roughly the same NHL mileage that Schneider had on him at that time. Just slightly less to be precise.

So that means he’s roughly…. I don’t know? One more off-season away from a buyout? Not that I think he will be bought out next off-season (maybe by the 2024 off-season though), but he probably should be.

 

[My3Sons]

Thats cool but you did respond to my post on the subject. Seems odd that just 2 posts in your getting all cuss words about it.

You’ve been around enough that you are surprised @Guttersniped added profanity? Are you surprised because it took two posts instead of leading with it?

 

[Guttersniped]

Thats cool but you did respond to my post on the subject. Seems odd that just 2 posts in your getting all cuss words about it.

I have cuss words in like 35% of my posts and was cursing Scott Wedgewood’s meaningless. Because it’s pronounced.

I was basically saying I can’t take the “but is it just goaltending?” debate anymore. Because obviously, it’s not just that, but it was a whole of lot of that.

And I dissected a bunch of these guys games to show they didn’t perform all the same and people still claim that, so it’s probably time to stop getting sucked in. (This isn’t about your posts, just in general.)

 

[My3Sons]

Ok, I bit. The one guy freaking out about someone “agreeing with Devils trolls” also complained that all Devils fans do is watch (?) the Rangers and post about that dumb team.

Oh, sweetie, projection is a hell of thing because only one person in this imaginary relationship that has this fantasy and it’s you.

I’ll make fun of the Rangers, for the entertainment value, if they come up, but I can’t even figure out how someone can (maybe?) believe that. People on the main board threads aren’t all Devils fans either. (And the guy with this delusion isn’t a bad poster in particular, but has some issues relating to the Devils apparently. Lighten up Francis.)

But fans do that often. Thinking a retaliatory cross-check in a guy’s face is bad = not appreciating Malkin’s historical greatness (or something). Pen/Malkin fans are pontificating at great length in a main board thread. I bet they cry about the haters picking unfairly on their (legendary) guy on their board.

There are 32 teams in the league which means 31 fan bases want your team to fail on some level. Every team including the Leafs is going to have more haters than fans even excluding the fans that have minimal interest in the other teams beyond close rivals. Some folks can’t handle that.

 

[Lou Bloom]

Yeah, I'd definitely go big after Nuke if he hits FA. Even if you don't believe in his breakout this season due to his current linemates, he was still producing at a rate of over 30 points per 82 in his first two seasons with the Avalanche playing a pure bottom 6 role with less than 12 mins 5v5 time and very little PP opportunities.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Bratt-Nico-Nuke would have to be one of the best lines in the entire league.

 

[Hisch13r]

Bratt-Nico-Nuke would have to be one of the best lines in the entire league.

I was thinking more Yegor-Jack-Nuke then Bratt-Nico-Holtz and you move Mercer back to 3C with say Tatar and maybe Zetterlund

 

[MadDevil]

I was thinking more Yegor-Jack-Nuke then Bratt-Nico-Holtz and you move Mercer back to 3C with say Tatar and maybe Zetterlund

Shara-Jack-Nuke sounds kind of dirty.