Confirmed with Link: Sheldon Keefe to be named the next head coach of the New Jersey Devils

[JimEIV]

Guys throw the puck up the wall and rim it around without looking because they're compensating for compromised footspeed and young partners who also tend to roam and do less than ideal things positionally. It's dumb but it's reality. Injuries aren't independent of the mental game.

You can be excited about Luke and Nemec and also acknowledge they're both river boat gamblers. And Bahl is not yet a solid player. A guy like Siegs goes from perfectly timed pinches and breakouts in '23 to completely losing his IQ in a year?

This is the first true X's and O's coach we've had in a while. No new age overwrought coach's conference shit, no laissez faire golden retriever pat on the head from a retread. This is the time to take a microscope to the guys on the back-end. It's exciting.

It's not even gambling from my POV... it's more not knowing that will come with time. Luke and a little bit lesser Nemec looked like kittens chasing a ball of yarn in their own zone more often than not.... it'll get get better for sure... but with all the problems we had last year having all that inexperience exacerbated things. You're not going to get away with soft on defense forwards, inexperienced defense AND bad goaltending....then throw injuries on top of it all.

I will say that I do expect these problems on defense to continue into next season...it should be better but I don't think it gets to where we need it to be.

 

[Maine Fan]

I am OK with the selection. He is defensive minded and defense wins playoff games. He is middle age so if he works out he is in while the younger players grow. He needs an offensive assistant for the right pairing. That's done, onto goalie, then a strong vet defensive guy.

Good job as usual, Fitz.

 

[My3Sons]

I recall it happening a lot. Because as I’ve said he just throws pucks wherever now. He shouldn’t ever be throwing a puck somewhere in the Dzone without knowing that a player is there.


Unmotivated to pick his head up and try to make a play yes. He also wasn’t throwing it out of the zone. Lazy hope rims

I think there was a systemic element to the bad throwing the puck around the boards thing. I saw Nemec do that too at times. I think they both expected someone to be there but clearly there wasn't. Not sure if it's a timing thing or just bad coordination.

 

[MasterofGrond]

It's not "losing the partner" that's the excuse, it's Luke, Nemec and Bahl were much worse partners than anyone here is willing to admit.

Bahl being the best of the worst...he was far less erratic than the other two.

Marino was way worse with Siegs than Bahl or Hughes, and meaningfully worse with Bahl than Hughes.

"Wah he had to babysit Hughes" is a lazy excuse when Hughes carried him better than anybody else.

Maybe Hughes was actually pretty reasonable this season despite being an out and out rookie, and Marino just sucked.

 

[My3Sons]

It's not even gambling from my POV... it's more not knowing that will come with time. Luke and a little bit lesser Nemec looked like kittens chasing a ball of yarn in their own zone more often than not.... it'll get get better for sure... but with all the problems we had last year having all that inexperience exacerbated things. You're not going to get away with soft on defense forwards, inexperienced defense AND bad goaltending....then throw injuries on top of it all.

I will say that I do expect these problems on defense to continue into next season...it should be better but I don't think it gets to where we need it to be.

So my wife and youngest decided that we needed a kitten over my objections. She's sweet and adorable but intermittently crazed. She plays with those feathered things on the stick you wave around her and she tries to snag it. She also has a ball of what look like rigid rubber bands with a bell inside and then some feathers on that. I guess they think kittens instinctively want to hunt birds? No ball of yarn though. I think that's old timey, probably not good for the kitten.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

First part is incorrect, most fans were calling for it as soon as green and fitz said it. It easily could have happened. He played poorly defensively until Jack was shelved. Hattaki played as good as Bahl and better in many respects, could have and should have been done. Luke is GOING to be great but his defensive part of the game won't be ready even until end of next year, so be prepared.

Nah, it’s correct. By March Luke was playing well again. Well past his rookie wall. He should not have been benched at that point, without a doubt.

What exactly do you think would’ve been accomplished by benching a player for a game anyway? This is not what makes or breaks a player. But you can certainly ruin a player by beating the creativity out of them.

 

[Bleedred]

I think Bahl has more upside the Sieg’s who is a softish defensive oriented dman.

If it's the Siegs from last year then I might agree, but he was a pretty good defenseman before that.

 

[glenwo2]

FINALLY.


The bitching has commenced.


But seriously.... Sullivan/Rod was what we wanted but ended up being a pipedream.

HOWEVER, Keefe or WoodCroft I would take and we got one of them so I'm good.

 

[JimEIV]

Marino was way worse with Siegs than Bahl or Hughes, and meaningfully worse with Bahl than Hughes.

"Wah he had to babysit Hughes" is a lazy excuse when Hughes carried him better than anybody else.

Maybe Hughes was actually pretty reasonable this season despite being an out and out rookie, and Marino just sucked.

Every established defender just got bad in less than a year.... People were gushing over Marino last year now he just sucks? Talk about lazy excuses?

Marino baby sat all year and all of his partners were bad defensively and the forwards provided little to no help. There was no continuity among the defense at all this season...

In 2023 Hamilton/Siegenthaler and Marino/Graves were the core of the defense...there was virtually no change in the top 4 in 2023 except for an injury to Marino and Severson slotted in seamlessly. Our defense was bad this season and the #1 reason was too much inexperience.

 

[OmNomNom]

why are we talking about defensemen performance on this thread

 

[Ripshot 43]

It took less than 24 hours for this thread to turn…

 

[Better Call Sal]

It's not even gambling from my POV... it's more not knowing that will come with time. Luke and a little bit lesser Nemec looked like kittens chasing a ball of yarn in their own zone more often than not.... it'll get get better for sure... but with all the problems we had last year having all that inexperience exacerbated things. You're not going to get away with soft on defense forwards, inexperienced defense AND bad goaltending....then throw injuries on top of it all.

I will say that I do expect these problems on defense to continue into next season...it should be better but I don't think it gets to where we need it to be.

Given they'll be learning a new system, I don't expect things to just click out of the gate for everyone. I anticipate growing pains as well. But I'm very interested to see what transpires.

 

[Oneiro]

No they don’t. They do it when they’ve signed a long term contract and are now playing lazy unmotivated hockey. It’s not his IQ which is why it’s frustrating. Hopefully the new staff can whip him back to what he was.

The Occam's Razor argument is that he's injured and f***ing up, not that he's a fat happy cat which is far more conspiratorial.

Back to Keefe, the Leafs saw his HDCF% second only to the Canes for the past four years, they were top 10 in SF and SA. Marner is an objectively good defensively player, Matthews went from okay to a Selke nominee. He squeezed blood from a stone with a lot of one-dimensional players on the back-end and bottom six and never stepped on the production of his star players to do so. They played their last three series losses in a way that I find hard to nitpick given the context. This is a good hire.

 

[Guadana]

why are we talking about defensemen performance on this thread

He is defensive structured coach who never coached toronto with good defensive squad.

Fans who are hating him as a hire know nothing. Its not that hard to understand from their arguments. Sorry, guys, its true. Sometimes its good to know details. And the picture could open in different colors.

Keefe loved Holl because at least he could be reliable in puck battles and was average in D zone without the puck. Holl isnt good very good defenseman overall. May be Jack isnt as good as AM and their core four may be better than our core four, we still have better depth and we absolutely have more cap space to build better team around our core four. And we dont know how good they will play under Keefe, he took toronto's core four to the peak on the highest level and taught them to play defense/two way game, both AM and MM were nominated on Selke, they were not so famous for defensive game before.

So I think its okay to start to talk about defense more, because even without good defensemen and with bad goalies his team showed quite good defensive game. So if Devils will reward him with good defense, he can achieve better results here.

 

[njdevils1982]

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[Da Cool Rula]

60 years?! damn.... i'm on 40 years (since i was 9)

Love our true American fans. I'm assuming you are...

 

[BurntToast]

The Devils have cap and a way to fix/restructure the bottom 6, maybe a 10OA (or a new goalie).

It will be interesting to see how Berube does in Toronto. That team seems to have PTSD from Babs. I also heard from a Flames fan, that Treliving has a history of picking bad coaches.

 

[devilsblood]

I guess the loss of an all star level partner, a broken foot and a concussion are just a couple of things that went wrong

He was bad way before the injuries. Was Hamilton carrying him? Maybe, but that doesn’t make Siegs good when Hamilton is back. He’ll just be carrying him again

Also note Smith was significantly better on the PK, where the “but Hamilton was hurt” excuse carries no weight.

 

[Guttersniped]

It's not even gambling from my POV... it's more not knowing that will come with time. Luke and a little bit lesser Nemec looked like kittens chasing a ball of yarn in their own zone more often than not.... it'll get get better for sure... but with all the problems we had last year having all that inexperience exacerbated things. You're not going to get away with soft on defense forwards, inexperienced defense AND bad goaltending....then throw injuries on top of it all.

I will say that I do expect these problems on defense to continue into next season...it should be better but I don't think it gets to where we need it to be.

You underestimate how well Keefe managed some underwhelming and injury-riddled defenses. And who knows what our defensive core is next year.

And you make it sound like we’ll have to wait forever on Luke and Nemec.

Top young defensemen establish themselves by 22, and more offensive ones sooner than that.

Thomas Harley is 22 and has played 152 NHL games (including playoffs). He’s been one of the Stars best players this season and is 2nd in TOI/GP after Heiskanen.

Getting better is where we need to be next season, specifically better enough to make the playoffs. We don’t have to be a finished product.

 

[Guadana]

Getting better is where we need to be next season, specifically better enough to make the playoffs.

Better and healthier. Huge of the lack of success was every player was injured or half injured. Of course this injuries started from bad play and lack of defensive culture that pushed players to risk more for trying to even the game. One follows from the other mutually.

 

[JimEIV]

You underestimate how well Keefe managed some underwhelming and injury-riddled defenses. And who knows what our defensive core is next year.

And you make it sound like we’ll have to wait forever on Luke and Nemec.

Top young defensemen establish themselves by 22, and more offensive ones sooner than that.

Thomas Harley is 22 and has played 152 NHL games (including playoffs). He’s been one of the Stars best players this season and is 2nd in TOI/GP after Heiskanen.

Getting better is where we need to be next season, specifically better enough to make the playoffs. We don’t have to be a finished product.

I don't underestimate Keefe...I honestly have no idea what to expect from him.

And I definitely do think our young defenders could be good enough to make the playoffs.

On Harley, 22 is a lot different than 20 in Luke or 19 in Nemec.

Harley came into this season with 131 AHL games and 40 NHL games...and he was lucky enough to be paired with Heiskanen the vast majority of the season.

Luke came into this season with 2 NHL games. Nemec came into this season with 65 AHL games...that is substantially different.

I don't think all experience is good experience.... getting your head kicked in for 82 games is not good experience.

 

[Bcap88]

Looks like the keefe thread got jim’d

 

[HersheyBob27]

You underestimate how well Keefe managed some underwhelming and injury-riddled defenses. And who knows what our defensive core is next year.

And you make it sound like we’ll have to wait forever on Luke and Nemec.

Top young defensemen establish themselves by 22, and more offensive ones sooner than that.

Thomas Harley is 22 and has played 152 NHL games (including playoffs). He’s been one of the Stars best players this season and is 2nd in TOI/GP after Heiskanen.

Getting better is where we need to be next season, specifically better enough to make the playoffs. We don’t have to be a finished product.

Clearly harley’s AHL time was invaluable to his progress. Love the way he has been developed

 

[theoptimist]

Oh we're talking about Siegenthaler?

 

[AfroThunder396]

It's pretty crazy to say that the team was bad defensively while in the same breath try to deflect blame from the defensive defensemen.

Bahl and Siegenthaler literally only have one job, if they're not playing good defense then they aren't bringing any value to the roster. If you want to know why the defense sucked last year, that's a great place to start.