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?

 

[MasterofGrond]

I don't think Helle was ever, really, available. He re-signed with them, and I'm pretty sure that was always both his and the team's preferred outcome. You explore the trade market as a fallback, and unless we blew their socks off, and I mean like not with a trade based around Mercer, it wasn't going to happen.

 

[The Wumpus]

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 moved to Chicago in 2006 and it was a bleak scene. You'd hardly even know the city had a hockey team. The Hawks were getting outdrawn by the Wolves out in the suburbs. Quick change once Wirtz kicked it.

 

[TheBeerNerd]

I moved to Chicago in 2006 and it was a bleak scene. You'd hardly even know the city had a hockey team. The Hawks were getting outdrawn by the Wolves out in the suburbs. Quick change once Wirtz kicked it.

I seem to remember the Wolves had a marketing phrase to the effect of "we're bringing back an old tradition to Chicago: good hockey."

 

[Guttersniped]

As a 16 year old, his numbers were basically the exact same(actually a tad better for Bratt) as then team mate Alex Nylander. After a strong draft year in the OHL Nylander would go 8th OA. Bratt of course had a fairly non descript season in the AIK.


I assume Nylander was already high up on the draft radar, but Bratt should have been as well, or at least significantly higher up then where he was drafted.

I wouldn’t even call Bratt’s season particularly nondescript for a draft year player in that league. The season he was personally disappointed with was his D+1 year.

Bratt was a 5’9” playmaking Swedish winger who struggled with physical play. That screams tweener.

His production arguably should have gotten him taken sooner but it’s not shocking he went late.

I feel like Bratt’s unicorn-ness is mostly a testament to him, to his intelligence, his skill and his hard work. You lessen one of those elements and he might not have overcome his size/strength issues early on.

 

[Guttersniped]

Thank god Bratt was our #1 selection in 2016. Whewwww, thank the lordy. Nope, nothing else happened that draft.

This is Joey Anderson erasure.

 

[dgibb10]

I wonder if something with SJS like

Bystedt, Sturm (50% retention from somewhere), 2nd

for

Casey, 3rd

makes sense

4C for us as well as a C prospect we desperately need.
RD prospect that SJS desperately needs

 

[glenwo2]

Thank god Bratt was our #1 selection in 2016. Whewwww, thank the lordy. Nope, nothing else happened that draft.

What do you mean?

We drafted......someone earlier but I can't remember.....

 

[Guttersniped]

I wonder if something with SJS like

Bystedt, Sturm (50% retention from somewhere), 2nd

for

Casey, 3rd

makes sense

4C for us as well as a C prospect we desperately need.
RD prospect that SJS desperately needs

You’re overvaluing Casey here. Not sure they would see Bystedt as any less valuable, much less give Sturm as a toss-in plus a 2nd.

Plus San Jose currently doesn’t have any extra 2nds, they aren’t swapping their 2nds for a late 3rd.

I used to argue that Casey to SJS made no sense because they drafted a tiny RHD, Mattias Hävelid, with the preceding pick in the same draft (whoops!).

Hävelid’s offense seemingly hasn’t developed though, not sure what his future is, so he’s probably not as much a factor.