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

[Whaddagoal]

Now I am thinking of the good old days.

This board flipping it's collective shit when Urbom got claimed off waivers. Turned into a absolute nothing burger of a player.

Jim and a few people pissed we let that Russian D prospect go to the Rangers. Also amounted to absolutely nothing.

Yes, I remember people getting pissed about that initially ( the Russian D one). Still ammounted to nothing.

 

[Emperoreddy]

 

[Emperoreddy]

I will never forget how I tried to will Kalinin out of the garbage pan. I worked at it for half a season. And then, by the next season he was basically out of the team ...

Oh did he have no puck skills/hands.....

Jesper Boqvist is like a Ferrari when it comes to guys like Kalinin.

Beau Bennet, Kalinin, some other dudes, we had quite the shit at some point. Loktionov was up there too.

Bennet was one of the guys I was thinking of.

 

[Nubmer6]

We had a lot of guys like Rooney it seemed for awhile.

We also had some interesting JAG offensive D guys. I remember we hyped up this one guy who made the team from camp, damn I can't rememeber his name but he was all offense on D.

Can't even remember now. Obviously gelinas but this was guys after him, there was a series of random JAG dmen with some offense. Oh there was auvitu but another one. Shit, now I have to look it up.

Edit: some guys like Rooney, Nick Lappin and Blake pietilla. Somehow out of that came blake Coleman and we forgot about pretty much all the other dudes him and Rooney at least seemed to be workable.

Still can't find that D I'm trying to recall.

Hmm... Connor Carrick? Kurtis Foster? Can't remember others, and what years they were. It all kinda blends together for me.

 

[MadDevil]

Hmm... Connor Carrick? Kurtis Foster? Can't remember others, and what years they were. It all kinda blends together for me.

Ah Kurtis Foster...from the era of the PP specialist on defense that just bombed away from the point.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

NJD just took down the videos with that Halloween picture. And the tweet picture of Nico and whomever was with him.

What gives... Didn't see anything particularly going on in there...

So I just looked into it and people apparently have issue with what Nico wore....? They're saying what he wore was racially insensitive but when you literally go on amazon it's the first thing that pops when you search for a "hippie" costume. People have too much time on their hands lol

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Boqvist was charmin soft on a team that desperately needed less of that

Awful take considering he literally went to two teams that have been the model of the NHL success for the past 5 years but yeah since he doesn't do what a boomer fans wants, he's useless. What people like you fail to get is it didn't have to be Boqvist but getting away from that type of player led to issues in the bottom 6 last year and the demise of this team along with the goaltending in 23/24

 

[TheUnseenHand]

1st in total hits, 8th in hits per 60.

Hits per 60 at least normalizes the data. I'm sick of seeing stats with totals this early in the year when we have played so many more games than most other teams. It's super misleading.

 

[TheUnseenHand]

This thread needs less Boqvist and more Kevin Rooney.

Cam Jan

 

[Whaddagoal]

Hmm... Connor Carrick? Kurtis Foster? Can't remember others, and what years they were. It all kinda blends together for me.

@Emperoreddy @Triumph

Haha Found it. But my mind really crossed the eras wrongly. It was 2010-2011. Somehow I had placed it in my mind during the 2013+ eras

Matt Taormina. It was MacLeans pet offensive dman who made it out of camp and looked pretty spiffy on O but was bad overall, but Johnny Mac kept playing him and then he disappeared quickly as the season went to toast. Looking at it again, he had some time in the PDB season following but again didn't stick.

Anyway a bit of a detour but I found it.

Matt Taormina Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Salary, Title | Hockey-Reference.com

Checkout the latest stats of Matt Taormina. Get info about his position, age, height, weight, trade, draft, salary and more on Hockey-Reference.com

www.hockey-reference.com

I think why I struggled a bit remembering was that Severson had a similar initial impression (very good start) but stuck around of course and ended up very good. My mind kept initially flipping to Severson, but was like no, I remember some other guy being a flash in pan type of Offensive d-man. (Not Severson).

It was Taormina.

 

[Whaddagoal]

So I just looked into it and people apparently have issue with what Nico wore....? They're saying what he wore was racially insensitive but when you literally go on amazon it's the first thing that pops when you search for a "hippie" costume. People have too much time on their hands lol

Okay, yeah, that's totally ridiculous.....

Goes with my other post about it.... Won't say much more.

 

[Ripshot 43]

So I just looked into it and people apparently have issue with what Nico wore....? They're saying what he wore was racially insensitive but when you literally go on amazon it's the first thing that pops when you search for a "hippie" costume. People have too much time on their hands lol

Are you sure it’s not people upset with Jack dressing up as Mario? Clearly Jack isn’t an Italian, let alone a Plummer or a cartoon character.

 

[forceten]

Nothing matches the organizations own JAG obsession than Pierre Dagenais who refused to sign with us and we drafted him again, then kept playing him despite my grandmother being a faster skater

 

[Clam Jensen]

Okay, yeah, that's totally ridiculous.....

Goes with my other post about it.... Won't say much more.

People who get upset at costumes need to touch grass. Unless you’re dressed up as Hitler or in black face, it’s a friggin holiday.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Awful take considering he literally went to two teams that have been the model of the NHL success for the past 5 years but yeah since he doesn't do what a boomer fans wants, he's useless. What people like you fail to get is it didn't have to be Boqvist but getting away from that type of player led to issues in the bottom 6 last year and the demise of this team along with the goaltending in 23/24

If you add Boqvist and subtract Tierney to last year’s team, do you genuinely believe anything would be different? This is the last time I’m mentioning this player, because lol.

 

[Hisch13r]

PP stats are interesting comparing the first 7 vs last 6

PP%

• Whole season - 31% (ranks 6th)
• First 7 - 18.5% (ranked 17th)
• Last 6 - 53.3% (ranks 1st)

xGF/60

• Whole season - 8.61 (ranks 5th)
• First 7 - 7.64 (ranked 12th)
• Last 6 - 10.71 (ranks 1st)

I think this is one of the more encouraging things about the team. Their recent surge isn’t just strictly driven by some good shooting luck. Obviously they won’t keep clicking over 50% but the recent surge and being at the top of the league in PP% the past half dozen games is because they’ve been the best team at generating quality looks on the PP.

I remember noting the first few games that to me it seemed like their passes were always just off the mark (granted their puck play in general sucked lol). With the change to a wildly different PP set up than usual being so movement based they were probably struggling to read each other at first which played into them not hitting each other on the tape. That and the Meier for Noesen swap has been a huge boon for the PP

 

[Jersey Fresh]

PP stats are interesting comparing the first 7 vs last 6

PP%

• Whole season - 31% (ranks 6th)
• First 7 - 18.5% (ranked 17th)
• Last 6 - 53.3% (ranks 1st)

xGF/60

• Whole season - 8.61 (ranks 5th)
• First 7 - 7.64 (ranked 12th)
• Last 6 - 10.71 (ranks 1st)

I think this is one of the more encouraging things about the team. Their recent surge isn’t just strictly driven by some good shooting luck. Obviously they won’t keep clicking over 50% but the recent surge and being at the top of the league in PP% the past half dozen games is because they’ve been the best team at generating quality looks on the PP

I bet the PK goes in the opposite direction. We were super aggressive it seemed like those first few games. Then they settled back into the more passive style.

 

[Cheddabombs]

PP stats are interesting comparing the first 7 vs last 6

PP%

• Whole season - 31% (ranks 6th)
• First 7 - 18.5% (ranked 17th)
• Last 6 - 53.3% (ranks 1st)

xGF/60

• Whole season - 8.61 (ranks 5th)
• First 7 - 7.64 (ranked 12th)
• Last 6 - 10.71 (ranks 1st)

I think this is one of the more encouraging things about the team. Their recent surge isn’t just strictly driven by some good shooting luck. Obviously they won’t keep clicking over 50% but the recent surge and being at the top of the league in PP% the past half dozen games is because they’ve been the best team at generating quality looks on the PP

Noesen has been great on the first powerplay unit. And now with Luke back, having him and Meier on the 2nd unit gives them more options. A very good trend indeed.

 

[Hisch13r]

I bet the PK goes in the opposite direction. We were super aggressive it seemed like those first few games. Then they settled back into the more passive style.

I think that was simply a blip on the radar. They had those 2 awful games where they gave up 4 on 6. Then 1 on 4 to a bad Isles team that couldn’t score outside of playing us.

Past 2 games they seem back. Given up 0 on 6 and xGA/60 is 6th with a 4.67. First 8 games lead the league with 4.3.

The 2 NIGHTMARE games they gave up an ATROCIOUS xGA/60 of nearly 20 on the PK. Next closest was 14.39. Only 7 teams besides us were in the double digits.

Isles game was meh. 6.76 for that game which would rank 14th league wide for the season as a whole

The 2 games are really dragging down the season totals since they were just sooooooo bad. 9th in xGA/60 with a 6.3 and 14th in PK% with an 81%

 

[Devils731]

I think one thing interesting about the PP is that the first PP unit features a lot of skating and position swapping compared to a standard PP unit.

This is interesting because it matches how the PP looked during the huge PP start last season…before it became more static and struggled.

I don’t think it’s as simple as “when they move they succeed” but I do think Hughes and Bratt’s skating are the largest plus skills on the PP(honorable mention Hamilton shot) so creating a PP system that allows them to use their skating is a good idea.

You know your idea is a good one if other people start to steal it and I think teams with really good skaters should take things from this PP.

 

[Nubmer6]

I think that was simply a blip on the radar. They had those 2 awful games where they gave up 4 on 6. Then 1 on 4 to a bad Isles team that couldn’t score outside of playing us.

Past 2 games they seem back. Given up 0 on 6 and xGA/60 is 6th with a 4.67. First 8 games lead the league with 4.3.

The 2 NIGHTMARE games they gave up an ATROCIOUS xGA/60 of nearly 20 on the PK. Next closest was 14.39. Only 7 teams besides us were in the double digits.

Isles game was meh. 6.76 for that game which would rank 14th league wide for the season as a whole

The 2 games are really dragging down the season totals since they were just sooooooo bad. 9th in xGA/60 with a 6.3 and 14th in PK% with an 81%

I don't remember if our PK style changed before or after those games but we definitely seemed to change from an aggressive, pressuring PK to a much more passive one at some point.

 

[Saugus]

Hits per 60 at least normalizes the data. I'm sick of seeing stats with totals this early in the year when we have played so many more games than most other teams. It's super misleading.

Hits is also one of those metrics that is really subjective. What counts as a hit? A lot depends on whose rink statistician is crediting the hits.

 

[Hisch13r]

I think one thing interesting about the PP is that the first PP unit features a lot of skating and position swapping compared to a standard PP unit.

This is interesting because it matches how the PP looked during the huge PP start last season…before it became more static and struggled.

I don’t think it’s as simple as “when they move they succeed” but I do think Hughes and Bratt’s skating are the largest plus skills on the PP(honorable mention Hamilton shot) so creating a PP system that allows them to use their skating is a good idea.

You know your idea is a good one if other people start to steal it and I think teams with really good skaters should take things from this PP.

Yeah the start of last year the puck and player movement was incredible. When they’re fully cooking it’s so hard to stop since it’s so hard to predict what they’ll do.

Doesn’t Edmonton already kind of do this in a way where McDavid roams free

 

[Devils731]

I think that was simply a blip on the radar. They had those 2 awful games where they gave up 4 on 6. Then 1 on 4 to a bad Isles team that couldn’t score outside of playing us.

Using last game as the most recent look at the PK, I think we can see both aggressive and passive play so visually we got to see both.

I think the standard approach was to put pressure along the blue line when it made sense but when the PK is out a little too long I do think we see the aggressiveness leave and they become more of a passive box.

That passivity may be by design. Rather than start getting sloppy, run around, wear yourself out more while being too slow to make plays, just become passive and try to get that clear and get off the ice.

I haven’t watched enough yet but I’ll probably have in the back of my mind the expectation that I think I’ll see them more aggressive early in the shift and less so when out too long.