Devils team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - season begins!

[Guttersniped]

Lmao

I always believed Blackwood was a good goalie in NJ, when healthy.

Unfortunately for us he had real trouble staying healthy his entire time as a Devil.

The funniest part of Blackwood’s 23-24 season* was that he stayed healthy until
until he was injured in a game vs us in late February.

I assume old habits die hard and he was just used to getting injured when he saw a bunch of Devils skaters on the ice.

Vanecek isn’t good though lol.

*for me more than Blackwood

 

[bigd]

Because we burned his slide year calling him up last year, and now if he's in the AHL all year this year that's 2 of his 3 ELC years gone. Those cheap years are incredibly valuable for teams trying to win.

I doubt he will be in the AHL all year this year. If he is that means he's hasn't progressed and could be trade bait at the deadline.

 

[TheBeerNerd]

I always believed Blackwood was a good goalie in NJ, when healthy.

Unfortunately for us he had real trouble staying healthy his entire time as a Devil.

The funniest part of Blackwood’s 23-24 season* was that he stayed healthy until
until he was injured in a game vs us in late February.

I assume old habits die hard and he was just used to getting injured when he saw a bunch of Devils skaters on the ice.

Vanecek isn’t good though lol.

*for me more than Blackwood

When it came to the Blackwood saga... it is what it is. The team mishandled his injury, and he blew a lot of goodwill by dithering on getting vaccinated.

My concern is with Vanacek. He was never good against high danger chances with us, not even in 2022-23 when he was decent. I'll have to check on what that's like now, but it's probably higher than Markstrom. Keep in mind, he was one of the best goalies in that category in Calgary last season. Now he's among the bottom, last I checked, although his recent starts probably increased his standing a little bit.

If nothing else, it supports the hate some of us have for Rogalski.

 

[bigd]

That's not how dougie drives play.

Dougie isn't going to make a crazy deke at the blueline. He makes good, quality, simple plays in the ozone, and forces other teams to respect him which opens up for his forwards.

Dougie over the last 3 years (including this year), is on the ice for 37 shots/60 5v5.

That is the best mark in the league among dmen.

If you go back and include 21-22 he's 2nd behind Bouchard.


And I would like to potentially turn that Kovacevic value into value that replaces the limited to non existent Dowling and Macdermid value, while allowing us to get the benefit of Nemec's value.

You need 9 NHL defenseman in your system to get through a season successfully, we can't afford to trade Kovacevic away.

 

[Guttersniped]

When it came to the Blackwood saga... it is what it is. The team mishandled his injury, and he blew a lot of goodwill by dithering on getting vaccinated.

My concern is with Vanacek. He was never good against high danger chances with us, not even in 2022-23 when he was decent. I'll have to check on what that's like now, but it's probably higher than Markstrom. Keep in mind, he was one of the best goalies in that category in Calgary last season. Now he's among the bottom, last I checked, although his recent starts probably increased his standing a little bit.

If nothing else, it supports the hate some of us have for Rogalski.

Markstrom better than Vanecek as of now.

 

[My3Sons]

I always believed Blackwood was a good goalie in NJ, when healthy.

Unfortunately for us he had real trouble staying healthy his entire time as a Devil.

The funniest part of Blackwood’s 23-24 season* was that he stayed healthy until
until he was injured in a game vs us in late February.

I assume old habits die hard and he was just used to getting injured when he saw a bunch of Devils skaters on the ice.

Vanecek isn’t good though lol.

*for me more than Blackwood

Blackwood’s best work with NJ was as the straight man in the comedy duo of Blackie and Bleed. Classic humor with a touch of insanity. You can ask @Bleedred about their history. Really a shame they broke up but apparently Bleed couldn’t handle it when Blackie suggested adding a Japanese performance artist to the group.

 

[dgibb10]

You need 9 NHL defenseman in your system to get through a season successfully, we can't afford to trade Kovacevic away.

How many NHL forwards do you need?

 

[My3Sons]

How many NHL forwards do you need?

14.6

 

[bossram]

Zajac had Pectoral Surgery in Aug 2017 and had his 3rd best year in goals (19) and 2nd best season SH% (15.8%) in 2018-19 at 33.

Christian Dvorak had Pectoral Surgery in Oct 2018 and had his best season in goals (18) the next season and then his best season SH% (17.9%) the year after that.

Yeah, Dougie has to work his way back from the injury but we don’t have to assume he’s irrecoverably broken now.

No idea why everyone is concluding that Dougie's shot has taken a massive hit. Yes, he only has 1 goal, but he's a bulk shooter - I guarantee he's had 1 goal in 62 shot stretches before.

By viewing only, I don't think I've seen Dougie really uncork any fearsome slapshots this year, whereas in 22-23 he was hammering in clap bombs. Per NHL Edge data his top shooting velocity is down a touch compared to 22-23.

 

[dgibb10]

By viewing only, I don't think I've seen Dougie really uncork any fearsome slapshots this year, whereas in 22-23 he was hammering in clap bombs. Per NHL Edge data his top shooting velocity is down a touch compared to 22-23.

22-23 is 562 shot attempts

so far he has just 130 because he's played 20 games.

Not shocking in 4x the opportunities he was able to find 1 that got a bit faster

 

[Guttersniped]

By viewing only, I don't think I've seen Dougie really uncork any fearsome slapshots this year, whereas in 22-23 he was hammering in clap bombs. Per NHL Edge data his top shooting velocity is down a touch compared to 22-23.

Yeah, he’s been off with shooting but hopefully he can improve.

I just don’t see the point of assuming these 20 games show us how he’ll be forever. I’m not generally an optimist but I’m going to have to hope with that.

 

[Better Call Sal]

It's probably too simple of an explanation, but I wonder if being a goalie in San Jose dials the pressure back given the team's expectations. Obviously, the general consensus is you'll get shelled back there because the team isn't great, but it might allow them to be a bit more carefree of the repercussions and just focus on stopping the puck.

Could be an indictment on Rogalski though. I know @Bleedred 's ears just perked up.

 

[dgibb10]

Zajac had Pectoral Surgery in Aug 2017 and had his 3rd best year in goals (19) and 2nd best season SH% (15.8%) in 2018-19 at 33.

Christian Dvorak had Pectoral Surgery in Oct 2018 and had his best season in goals (18) the next season and then his best season SH% (17.9%) the year after that.

Yeah, Dougie has to work his way back from the injury but we don’t have to assume he’s irrecoverably broken now.

Dougie had 1 in 77 to close out 2021-22 and 3 in 136

 

[bossram]

22-23 is 562 shot attempts

so far he has just 130 because he's played 20 games.

Not shocking in 4x the opportunities he was able to find 1 that got a bit faster

I get that. I'm just saying the NHL Edge data corroborates what I'm seeing: His top-end shot is not exactly there.

Yeah, he’s been off with shooting but hopefully he can improve.

I just don’t see the point of assuming these 20 games show us how he’ll be forever. I’m not generally an optimist but I’m going to have to hope with that.

I'm not saying he's been bad or anything. Dougie has been good. I'm saying there is evidence that some of the red flags I was concerned with before this season (skating deterioration, injury affecting his shooting) are becoming noticeable. I hope it's a short-term blip. It might not be.

 

[MartyOwns]

If nothing else, it supports the hate some of us have for Rogalski.

i really don’t want get dragged into this again, but no it doesn’t lol. not when we have 2 senior citizens back there putting up mostly good numbers.

 

[Brodeur]

I wasn't really talking about the 1st round where I agree, it's extremely difficult to move at the places Fitzgerald has been drafting, but just in general, Fitzgerald basically went 4 years without making a pick trade of any significance - Shero showed an aptitude towards getting an extra pick here or there if he thought he might be going off the board, and Fitzgerald hadn't done that until this past draft.

That just reminded me, I was ready to take a bathroom/food break with our pick at #75. And then they traded down to #82 then #85. I was getting hangry with the extra 15+ minute wait.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

It's probably too simple of an explanation, but I wonder if being a goalie in San Jose dials the pressure back given the team's expectations. Obviously, the general consensus is you'll get shelled back there because the team isn't great, but it might allow them to be a bit more carefree of the repercussions and just focus on stopping the puck.

Could be an indictment on Rogalski though. I know @Bleedred 's ears just perked up.

I don't watch them enough to know but they really didn't give us much in our game, a lot of the shots were from the perimeter and such. I saw the goals NYR scored last night and they were all grade A looks for the most part. Blackwood has his occasional goofy gaffe but that was arguably one of the easier shutouts he had v us, we didn't challenge him at all.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

 

[Devils731]

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And if the Devils are lucky, Cotter is growing into his role a bit here.

Obviously the goal scoring will come way down, he’s way above his head at 25% shooting percentage, but last game he was really feeling his oats just transporting the puck around the offensive zone perimeter and it was messing with Florida.

Visually, I think I’m seeing him carry the puck like that more and more often since the start of the year. Hopefully he’s found an effective play that either he didn’t have before or wasn’t called for before but that fits his abilities well.

 

[My3Sons]

i really don’t want get dragged into this again, but no it doesn’t lol. not when we have 2 senior citizens back there putting up mostly good numbers.

Yes it does. I want my Rogalski hate comedy. It makes people happy. If something can be spun to blame Rogalski for it, like World War 1 or the Plague of Justinian for example, it should be just for the laughs.