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

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

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They just arrived.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Completely forgot tomorrow is the battle of the Hugheses. Not enough to keep me up at that hour though.

Unless...

 

[Ripshot 43]

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Pour me a Cup, I’m in damnit!

10 Minutes later:

 

[devilsblood]

Oh, I’ve been banned from 108 / 109. Something about three cans of Truly, a t-shirt gun, and a hip replacement is all can say.

Did you say 3 cans? Damn son!!

I don't even want to know about this hip replacement business.

 

[devilsblood]

Cozens is the interesting pickup. He's a victim of Buffalo's constant management failures. Put into a leadership role at a young age when there is no vet leadership on the team. Then has pressure to produce because they handed him a ridiculous $7m/yr contract so quickly. Its Sam Reinhart all over again. Only problem is you have to deal with an albatross $7m cap hit while he builds his confidence up again.

I was kind of into the Cozens idea. Despite the zero goals, he actually has a good shot rate this year, he has size, plays fairly physical, and can take faceoffs(not especially good but he can take them). But $7mil a year? That has to end the discussion.......unless we are trading them Palat.

 

[devilsblood]

Why do they need to switch the pairings? The Nemec-Casey pairing was the one getting caved
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Also, if you are going to switch a pairing, it should be towards a longer term option, not moving 2 guys to their off side.

So if you want to break up Hamilton-Dillon

Siegs-Hamilton (Proven to work)
Hughes-Pesce (Almost certainly the exact partner pesce was meant to come in for)
Dillon-Kovacevic (shutdown 3rd pairing)

Which makes it nice and easy to bring Nemec back in when/if Kovacevic's heater stops.

Don't make pairing decisions on the assumption that Kovacevic suddenly became an elite dman at age 27. If he actually has become one, he should be able to handle playing with Dillon just fine. If not, you want to get the long term pairings as much time as possible

Dillon is down to 13:39 of 5v5 toi since Hughes Pesce arrived, lowest on the team. Hamilton is at 15:49, 2nd lowest.

Only a 3 game sample and definitely skewed a bit by special teams, but I expect Hughes and Pesce to play more as they get up to speed.

In all situations Dillon is again 6th in TOI at 16:28. Hughes is 5th at 17:45, while the other 4 are in that 20-21 minute range.

So Dillon is already playing "bottom pair minutes" and again, I expect Hughes's minutes to go up. Though not quite sure where, 5v5 or eventually PP1.

Also, and again, super small sample, but does Pesce not look like the perfect partner for Luke thus far? Even in theory it makes great sense. So if you can play them fairly big minutes, but not the heavy defensive minutes that Sieg's and Kova play, that puts Hughes Pesce in a great spot. And then we roll out Hamilton on the "3rd pair"? Seems a little unfair really.