Confirmed with Link: Haula to NSH for Hanzel and a 2025 4th round pick

[braindead]

Someone with some free time should start charting Trotz’s +/- on roster moves from an age basis. Just feels like he’s raised the average age of this team by at least 5 years since he took over.

In fairness to him, he did make the team older but he made the call to go for it with an aging core that had reeled off a really impressive streak near end of 23/24 season. So he signed Saros, traded Askarov and signed three veteran stars. It sucked early so he tried to make changes on the fly to preserve the run at the playoffs. if I am charitable, this may have included early moves to shed salary, planning to make trade deadline acquisitions. It was a dumpster fire from start to finish. The first step proved to be disastrous and it wasn’t obvious at the time but it started us on the slippery slope to hell.

Now, since he is stuck with it, I believe he has decided to run it back and see if last year was a fluke. It probably was a fluke in the sense that we probably should be about the 15th worst team instead of 3rd worst but we have a body of evidence that seems pretty clear- this team isn’t good.

So, I think he will rearrange the deck chairs slightly for this year and then we probably throw in the towel at the trade deadline to start a bigger rebuild. with a new coach.
And another good draft pick. And maybe a new GM

Honestly, I don’t see a big difference between blowing it up now and blowing it up towards the end of the upcoming season so in some ways, I don’t even mind him testing his odds at roulette this off-season.

 

[herzausstein]

Barry Trotz's record as a coach is more impressive sure., but his record as a GM has been pretty bad so far. If you think the Devils are in rudderless chaos I'd love to introduce you to our current situation.


Yeah even if we move out one or two vets we're still going to have something like two vets for each young forward who makes the roster. Like how many vets can you possibly need to mentor the young players.

This will also be Evangelistas 3rd full season so he should be considered as a vet too even though he is younger.

 

[Soundgarden]

Marchment got a 3rd and 4th right now in comparison.

 

[cynicalcitizen]

In fairness to him, he did make the team older but he made the call to go for it with an aging core that had reeled off a really impressive streak near end of 23/24 season. So he signed Saros, traded Askarov and signed three veteran stars. It sucked early so he tried to make changes on the fly to preserve the run at the playoffs. if I am charitable, this may have included early moves to shed salary, planning to make trade deadline acquisitions. It was a dumpster fire from start to finish. The first step proved to be disastrous and it wasn’t obvious at the time but it started us on the slippery slope to hell.

Now, since he is stuck with it, I believe he has decided to run it back and see if last year was a fluke. It probably was a fluke in the sense that we probably should be about the 15th worst team instead of 3rd worst but we have a body of evidence that seems pretty clear- this team isn’t good.

So, I think he will rearrange the deck chairs slightly for this year and then we probably throw in the towel at the trade deadline to start a bigger rebuild. with a new coach.
And another good draft pick. And maybe a new GM

Honestly, I don’t see a big difference between blowing it up now and blowing it up towards the end of the upcoming season so in some ways, I don’t even mind him testing his odds at roulette this off-season.

Outside of the inexplicable point streak, they were bad in 23/24.

 

[Gh24]

One year left at 3.15M is hardly an anchor that needs a sweetener. He's effective as a pest type player who scores around 0.5 PPG and wore A for last two seasons. Not necessarily a player I think we needed, but it's not like he wouldn't be an asset

Main boards seem to be laughing at this trade, so perhaps I'm totally wrong

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Marchment got a 3rd and 4th right now in comparison.

Yeah, I thought for sure he'd get more. Just by virtue of being 6'5" mostly. I don't think he's a very good player, but he does have 22 goals each of the last 2 years, which is pretty solid regular season production, even if he's a bit lumbering.

I'm surprised Trotz wasn't in on him at that price. Although maybe Dallas was only willing to trade him outside the division. He only had a 10-team NTC apparently, so once you cross off the Canadian teams I don't expect we would have been on his no-trade list.

 

[PredsV82]

Sorry but this means Trotz has already decided next year is another shit year and Haula will be traded at the deadline

 

[herzausstein]

Main boards seem to be laughing at this trade, so perhaps I'm totally wrong

I think alot of outside (and inside) viewers just dont understand why a team that is already old and was the 3rd worst team in the NHL last season would go out and spend a mid round pick on a soon to be 35 year old player. This doesn't really move the needle for this team and Haula does have some injury issues. In a vacuum, this move is odd.

 

[Olderfan]

I think alot of outside (and inside) viewers just dont understand why a team that is already old and was the 3rd worst team in the NHL last season would go out and spend a mid round pick on a soon to be 35 year old player. This doesn't really move the needle for this team and Haula does have some injury issues. In a vacuum, this move is odd.

It may be to replace Sissons later but I’m grasping at straws for some kind of reason.

 

[Armourboy]

I think alot of outside (and inside) viewers just dont understand why a team that is already old and was the 3rd worst team in the NHL last season would go out and spend a mid round pick on a soon to be 35 year old player. This doesn't really move the needle for this team and Haula does have some injury issues. In a vacuum, this move is odd.

Well and the Veteran leadership angle doesn't even make sense unless you are moving a bunch of vets.

 

[Predsanddead24]

If we have holes in the roster we need to fill I'd also much rather chase after guys in their mid-20s who may still have room to grow. Let's try and find our own Bennett, Verhaeghe, and Forsling types who could use a change of scenery. We're not winning the Cup this year so we really need to shift our mindset to looking a few years down the line.

 

[glenngineer]

Outside of the inexplicable point streak, they were bad in 23/24.

To be fair, there was a 13-3 stretch in there as well if memory serves me correctly. Outside of these two streaks, this team has been sub-par, and that's being generous.

 

[triggrman]

To be fair, there was a 13-3 stretch in there as well if memory serves me correctly. Outside of these two streaks, this team has been sub-par, and that's being generous.

I mean that's a big chunk of the season they were playing well. I'd say that's a good season. Good not great.

 

[glenngineer]

I mean that's a big chunk of the season they were playing well. I'd say that's a good season. Good not great.

I think the 13-3 stretch was better than the 18 game stretch. I said it then and I'll say it now, we didn't play anyone worthy during that stretch OR we did play worthy teams who were missing key players so while yes, we went on a nice run, it was more of a Mirage than anything.

The other thing with that season, we had a few stretches where we flat out stank/stunk. That was more in line with what we saw this season.

With that being said, which data do you rely on to shape your franchise and its direction?

I'm really struggling to find the direction Trotz is trying to move this franchise in.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

I think Trotz himself is really struggling to find the direction to move the franchise in.

 

[GoldOnGold]

I think Trotz himself is really struggling to find the direction to move the franchise in.

I think his actions are definitely sending us in a direction - downwards.

 

[Predsanddead24]

It is interesting that we're now in a situation where we don't really have anyone obviously ready to promote to the NHL this coming season. Kemell is the closest but his AHL numbers have been underwhelming. Molendyk I'm hopeful can be in the NHL quickly but I'd still expect him to get his feet wet in the AHL to start the season. Wood could definitely use some AHL time as well. Beyond that there's really not much of anything there. Weisblatt as a depth player maybe? Ideally, we'd have kept guys with some room to grow like Parsinnen, Fabbro, and Tomasino around but that ship has sailed. So now we are in kind of a weird spot where we should be rebuilding but we don't have anyone to give ice time to so for next season we probably do need to add a couple of depth pieces. Like I said earlier I'd prefer we use those slots on guys who are younger and have some long term potential but I can actually get the rationale. Granted I think Trotz had made huge mistakes to get us to this point.