GDT: We're Here: Your New Jersey Devils @ Philadelphia Flyers, 7 PM, ESPN+/Hulu

[billingtons ghost]

if the Devils had a ~.910 goalie, they would 100% absolutely be a "respectable" team. I can say that unequivocally.

That's because you'll never understand the relationship between an absolute shit team defense and SV%, so yeah - you say alot of stupid things unequivocally.

I can say that this team won't have a .910SV% goalie as long as they play like this. That would be true too.

 

[Bleedred]

Oh and once again, we lose another game where we scored the first goal. That was a CONSTANT theme last year and here we are again on opening night.

Yeah, goaltending and not the coach. The coach is the one who decided to start the inferior goalie on our roster tonight.

 

[Cheddabombs]

Nah....the second goal was horrific defense.

I assume you mean the third, which it definitely was. Terrible defense that led to a grade A chance. I wouldn't expect Blackwood to make that save.

But... good goalies can make that save more often than ours can. And after the terrible goal he just let up 30 seconds earlier, a save there could've gone a long way. But yeah, terrible defense.

 

[Triumph]

I still can't for the life of me understand why if Vanecek is playing our home opener, he can't also play our season two nights earlier.

That's just weird.

It's not 1993 and we don't need to split the goalies and rotate them every game like Terreri and Brodeur. Terreri was still good enough in 1993-1994 that it didn't hurt us to swap him and Brodeur every other game.

If Vanecek sucks well..... If Vanecek sucks then you give him rope. We've given the shit head enough rope already by not exiling him to begin with, AND by actually letting him start the season opener after he wasn't the better goalie in preseason, nor the last two regular seasons.

I'm telling you and this time I'm for real, they won't f*** around with Ruff. His replacement is already on the bench. It's just a question of how long they'll let him go. The last GM tried to Frankenstein his head coach and keep him alive with machines for about 6 weeks before finally saying enough is enough. And after another 6 weeks he was out the door.

Blackwood has pretty good career numbers against the Flyers, that's reason enough to start him, they're looking to have 2 starting goalies here, if Blackwood plays like this most nights, he will be a backup, but they're giving him rope.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

That's because you'll never understand the relationship between an absolute shit team defense and SV%, so yeah - you say alot of stupid things unequivocally.

wait, arent you the one who didnt care about Cory Schneider's SV% because we gave up so many shots?

But now that the SV% is bad, now the team defense is the culprit?

Get outta here.

 

[jkrdevil]

Nah....the second goal was horrific defense.

Two things can be true. It was horrific defense. It is also a shot that a real NHL goalie in 2021 doesn’t allow in. It’s a clean shot from above the circles. Modern goalies don’t let those in.

 

[captainscott12]

Were you gonna say something?

That's why i'm saying they need to forget about McLeod. If we must play Wood because he is more sentimentally important and has a bit more of an X factor (in speed and goals), then fine, but lets keep Zetterlund or Boq as an option and get Mike McLeod outta here finally.

With Smith, we only saw 10 mins TOI, i can't say make much of one game and that TOI. Of course he is a 7th guy, but he didn't look out of place for a 7th guy.

PP was better not marginally, not giving up a shortie was awesome. Hard to say what the PK is.

Yeah we lost out mainly due to subpar goaltending at the wrong times. Blackwood made some decent saves but then craps the bed when you need him to be a wall. After momentum changes, most importantly.

every goalie in the NHL makes good saves in a game or they wouldn't t even be D1 college goalies.. Blackwood has not proven he can play in this league yet let alone be an opening night starter... that was a coaching mistake on Ruff's part. the good news is if Vanicheck comes and gets a win sat night the decision is made for him that Vanicheck gets 3/4 starts moving forward and if Blackwood can't do better than he showed tonight he may have to make him 3rd string if one of the other goalies can outplay him

 

[Devs3cups]

Again, this is not something that is exclusive to the Devils. You guys act like it is. Every team has multiple breakdowns throughout the game.

In fact, I’d say most goals scored in the NHL are caused by defensive breakdowns/mistakes from the opposite team one way or the other.

 

[Guadana]

That's fair, It wasn't a terrible goal, but it was one you could have used a save on, especially after a pretty unforgivable first goal allowed.

Please, keep back your avatar. Blackwood isn`t good and make our life painful, but we still Devils fans, Blackwood will not play most of the games of the season, and I think he will not sign new deal with us. And you should save your personality. Hating Blackwood is the only small part of it.

With all respect, your Guadana.

 

[billingtons ghost]

wait, arent you the one who didnt care about Cory Schneider's SV% because we gave up so many shots?

But now that the SV% is bad, now the team defense is the culprit?

Get outta here.

Hey guess what - you still can't understand quality versus quantity, right? What a surprise.

 

[Omar Little]

Palat on the half wall is especially asinine.

Palat on the half wall is idiotic. We need two righties on the powerplay.

Low man (Hischier or Palat)
Bumper (Mercer or Palat)
Right flank (Bratt or Holtz)
Left flank (Hughes)
D (Hamilton)

 

[guitarguyvic]

Again, this is not something that is exclusive to the Devils. You guys act like it is. Every team has multiple breakdowns throughout the game.

Oh jeez this tired line again. It's about as insightful as saying "every team scores some goals".

Have we ever given any weight to what types of breakdowns they are, as opposed to just volume?

 

[Devils090]

Blackwood sucks, but our system is horrible and nobody besides maybe Igor has a chance to be good with how piss poor our defense is. We constantly turn it over in the corners, leave guys wide open in the slot/doorstep, can’t run a clean breakout, etc etc. no goalie is going to save this team from Ruff’s garbage.

 

[Captain3rdLine]

Graves sucks, Smith sucks. I think most people know that to an extent.

But Hamilton isn’t getting nearly enough heat.

He’s looking closer to Subban than a 9M defensmen. Might be one of the most overrated/overpaid players I’ve seen and it’s pissing me off because I was skeptical of signing him in the first place and then warmed up to it with the hype. Doesn’t seem to have a top pair skillset whatsoever.

Only one game in so hopefully he can turn it around but I’m having a hard time seeing it.
I’m sure if the team starts doing a lot better and spending lots of time in the ozone all his numbers will start looking great as he fires everything on net but I want to see him controlling the play when it matters especially in games where we might be struggling or can’t get anything going.

 

[JimEIV]

Second goal was a perfect microcosm of this whole debate. "Yea, I screwed up but if you just..." Both Blackwood and the D could say that and it would hold water.

Seriously... what you are saying is unreasonable.

If you give a player the puck in front of the net with a pass coming from out of nowhere they will score on Hasek, Roy, Brodeur... anyone ...that is just a difficult save...and what you are asking is unreasonable.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Hey guess what - you still can't understand quality versus quantity, right? What a surprise.

so just to be clear- the New Jersey Devils are the only team that gives up these "wide open" shots consistently? No other team does this?

Cory Schneider's Devils teams did not do this?

JUst want to make sure I keep the narrative straight.

 

[Omar Little]

Seriously... what you are saying is unreasonable.

If you give a player the puck in front of the net with a pass coming from out of nowhere they will score on Hasek, Roy, Brodeur... anyone ...that is just a difficult save...and what you are asking is unreasonable.

That was the 3rd goal

 

[Triumph]

Oh jeez this tired line again. It's about as insightful as saying "every team scores some goals".

Have we ever given any weight to what types of breakdowns they are, as opposed to just volume?

Yes. And a breakdown like the 2nd goal is routine, and a good goalie stops it and nobody remembers that breakdown.

 

[Captain3rdLine]

Seriously... what you are saying is unreasonable.

If you give a player the puck in front of the net with a pass coming from out of nowhere they will score on Hasek, Roy, Brodeur... anyone ...that is just a difficult save...and what you are asking is unreasonable.

It wasn’t in front of the net. The second goal was the Konecny shot from the high slot.

You might be thinking of the 3rd

 

[captainscott12]

That's because you'll never understand the relationship between an absolute shit team defense and SV%, so yeah - you say alot of stupid things unequivocally.

I can say that this team won't have a .910SV% goalie as long as they play like this. That would be true too.

well we get to see a legit NHL goalie saturday. so i guess we will see...

 

[Bleedred]

Blackwood has pretty good career numbers against the Flyers, that's reason enough to start him, they're looking to have 2 starting goalies here, if Blackwood plays like this most nights, he will be a backup, but they're giving him rope.

They absolutely shouldn't give him any rope after this.

Real time numbers after tonight. He's an .892% (he's actually like .8918585945849 or something, it's just below .89.2%) goalie over the last 56 regular season games starting February 20th of 2021.

I'm pretty sure it's 179 goals on 1655 shots now.

This is the worst 56 game stretch a goalie has had here in quite some time, maybe the last 30 years. It's hard to say when adjusting for era. Kinkaid, Schneider and Brodeur's last 56 games here were pretty bad, not quite as bad, but league average save percentage is a little bit lower than the years where they were playing their final 56 games here.

Hedberg's final 16 or 17 games here were excruciatingly bad, but his last 56 games here were really surprisingly a lot better than I thought they would have been, but he had a very good 11-12 (he probably overachieved) and a not too bad 10-11.

 

[Omar Little]

Graves sucks, Smith sucks. I think most people know that to an extent.

But Hamilton isn’t getting nearly enough heat.

He’s looking closer to Subban than a 9M defensmen. Might be one of the most overrated/overpaid players I’ve seen and it’s pissing me off because I was skeptical of signing him in the first place and then warmed up to it with the hype. Doesn’t seem to have a top pair skillset whatsoever.

Only one game in so hopefully he can turn it around but I’m having a hard time seeing it.
I’m sure if the team starts doing a lot better and spending lots of time in the ozone all his numbers will start looking great as he fires everything on net but I want to see him controlling the play when it matters especially in games where we might be struggling or can’t get anything going.

He’s super soft for his size. That’s always been the knock on him. His intensity is not very high

 

[JimEIV]

That was the 3rd goal

Ok...

 

[captainscott12]

so just to be clear- the New Jersey Devils are the only team that gives up these "wide open" shots consistently? No other team does this?

Cory Schneider's Devils teams did not do this?

JUst want to make sure I keep the narrative straight.

no you have to play perfect defense all the time... no team in the league does this

 

[Guadana]

That's because you'll never understand the relationship between an absolute shit team defense and SV%, so yeah - you say alot of stupid things unequivocally.

I can say that this team won't have a .910SV% goalie as long as they play like this. That would be true too.

Man, defense was not perfect, but they clearly didn`t give even the same amount of chances the flyers give to the devils. Overall defense was pretty reasonable. It is enough. Blackwood missed and didn`t keep, forwards didn`t score. 37 shots and only 2 goals. of course Hart was good, but there were enough moments, when they through the puck away from the space where Hart could miss the goal. This game on the shoulders of Devils shooters, on Blackwood, on Hart and on Koneckny.