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

[NjDevsRR]

All in all, I think the rebuild was quite well done. There's been a lot of luck, but from having only Greene, Zajac, Lars, Sevo, Wood and Coleman to where we are now, I doubt you could've played it that much better.

I don't know of any rebuild that didn't have ugly bits. I don't know if I'd like to be a CHI fan during the early 00s and Wirtz. Maybe you can say Tampa had a better process, transitioning from St. Louis to Hedman, Kuch and Stamkos fairly quickly, but, from the ground-up? Looking at Ottawa, Buffalo, Detroit and Montreal, it's too easy to f*** it all up.

*Jim intensifies*

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

All in all, I think the rebuild was quite well done. There's been a lot of luck, but from having only Greene, Zajac, Lars, Sevo, Wood and Coleman to where we are now, I doubt you could've played it that much better.

I don't know of any rebuild that didn't have ugly bits. I don't know if I'd like to be a CHI fan during the early 00s and Wirtz. Maybe you can say Tampa had a better process, transitioning from St. Louis to Hedman, Kuch and Stamkos fairly quickly, but, from the ground-up? Looking at Ottawa, Buffalo, Detroit and Montreal, it's too easy to f*** it all up.

I mean, you can say this but remember Schneider single handedly played them out of the Matthews/McDavid lotteries. They got good hockey karma in winning the lotteries afterwards by not actually trying to be utterly horrendous like Buffalo did during the McDavid draft and then some teams during the Matthew year.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Loving the Bratt discussion. Good thing we didn’t trade him for Laine…

those discussions were always insane to me, especially the more recent ones. Bratt literally does everything better outside of shooting the puck.

 

[Triumph]

All in all, I think the rebuild was quite well done. There's been a lot of luck, but from having only Greene, Zajac, Lars, Sevo, Wood and Coleman to where we are now, I doubt you could've played it that much better.

I don't know of any rebuild that didn't have ugly bits. I don't know if I'd like to be a CHI fan during the early 00s and Wirtz. Maybe you can say Tampa had a better process, transitioning from St. Louis to Hedman, Kuch and Stamkos fairly quickly, but, from the ground-up? Looking at Ottawa, Buffalo, Detroit and Montreal, it's too easy to f*** it all up.

It's something I wish we could have multiple chances at - obviously the Devils' lottery luck was ridiculous, but besides that, they've done reasonably well. Things like trading Gelinas for a 3rd which was used to draft Zetterlund who ended up being a major piece to get Meier, those are the things you have to be doing to succeed (usually).

The one obvious hole is in net, where the Devils have now spent a 1st, an exchange of 2nds, and 2 3rds, plus Kevin Bahl, to try to solve it in the last 3 seasons. Maybe Malek can be the guy, but it's not looking great for Daws.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

It's something I wish we could have multiple chances at - obviously the Devils' lottery luck was ridiculous, but besides that, they've done reasonably well. Things like trading Gelinas for a 3rd which was used to draft Zetterlund who ended up being a major piece to get Meier, those are the things you have to be doing to succeed (usually).

The one obvious hole is in net, where the Devils have now spent a 1st, an exchange of 2nds, and 2 3rds, plus Kevin Bahl, to try to solve it in the last 3 seasons. Maybe Malek can be the guy, but it's not looking great for Daws.

Agreed with your first paragraph point, if the Devils were just a lottery merchant and didn't do well elsewhere, we still might be a Buffalo/Ottawa type team where you have elite top end talent and little to no depth through the roster.

As for the second point, it might be a situation where this team has to trade for goalies or try to hope goalies are attracted by NJ's situation. The better Markstrom plays and looks, the better it'll be for that. They might have just bite the bullet in that regard. It's one of the reasons we probably all wanted Askarov to come here and why Fitz actually tried to get him it sounds like.

those discussions were always insane to me, especially the more recent ones. Bratt literally does everything better outside of shooting the puck.

People too tunnel visioned in finding Jack a winger when the Devils can do way better than Laine anyway.

 

[TheBeerNerd]

Ya think Fitz is kicking himself for not making a trade for Helleybuck when he had the chance?

There's something absolutely rotten about our goalie development on all levels. Blackwood and Schmid were terrible in the AHL and only improved when they came up, and Blackwood didn't have to work with Rogalski for the start of it. Daws is f***ing awful in Utica this year, and honestly he wasn't great when he started off there. I don't know what the cause is, but I have a hunch that Marty isn't anywhere close to being as good as evaluating goaltending talent as he was at playing goal.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Ya think Fitz is kicking himself for not making a trade for Helleybuck when he had the chance?

There's something absolutely rotten about our goalie development on all levels. Blackwood and Schmid were terrible in the AHL and only improved when they came up, and Blackwood didn't have to work with Rogalski for the start of it. Daws is f***ing awful in Utica this year, and honestly he wasn't great when he started off there. I don't know what the cause is, but I have a hunch that Marty isn't anywhere close to being as good as evaluating goaltending talent as he was at playing goal.

Yes but there was no way you were trading Mercer after 22/23

 

[MB3]

Ya think Fitz is kicking himself for not making a trade for Helleybuck when he had the chance?

There's something absolutely rotten about our goalie development on all levels. Blackwood and Schmid were terrible in the AHL and only improved when they came up, and Blackwood didn't have to work with Rogalski for the start of it. Daws is f***ing awful in Utica this year, and honestly he wasn't great when he started off there. I don't know what the cause is, but I have a hunch that Marty isn't anywhere close to being as good as evaluating goaltending talent as he was at playing goal.

Eventually teams will realize that the truly elite players almost never make good coaches/management. Look at Gretzky. Ted Williams. Magic Johnson. Maradona.

It's even more exacerbated because of his playstyle. He didn't play the way current goaltenders do, so why would he be able to know and evaluate what makes a developing goalie great?