GDT: Wings @ Devils - Season Finale - 7:00 PM - MSG+

[Eggtimer]

I don’t want to see anyone lose their job but …. I’m sorry , Recchi has to be let go . Let him be an equipment guy or something but no way in hell should he be in the coaching staff in any capacity

 

[Bleedred]

Updated stats

McLeod ends the season on a 33 game goalless drought. The second of at least 33 games or more in his NHL career and third of at least 25 games and fourth of at least 16 games.

 

[MauDevils]

The gut punch this season was putting absolutely zero effort into fixing coaching or goaltending.

Fitzgerald was fine wasting the entire year.

 

[Bleedred]

Blackwood is the only Devils goalie I had for 30 goals stoppable this year and he wrapped that up extremely quickly in these last two games.

Nobody played enough to have even more than 24. Daws had 24, Gillies had 22. Blackwood was still the leader before he reappeared this last week, but only by one at 25.

 

[Hollywood Nosebleed]

Yeah, he seems like a nice, sweet guy, he looked like he was about to cry in the post game.

I think this was his swan song, more than likely as an NHL head coach altogether, but almost definitely for us.

I giggled before he got on the air and said to myself wouldn't it be funny if he got on there and said ''Well.... I just got fired guys. I wanted to break it here on live TV, so I'm now effectively former Devils head coach and I guess we can do our interviews as scheduled and talk about this season''.

And then I felt kind of bad cause he looked dejected.

He really does seem like a nice guy, and he's had a lot of stuff happen that was out of his control. However, I don't want him back, but again I wouldn't mind him staying in the organization in some capacity if he wanted. Maybe something like player development, but I doubt he'd want that.

 

[Hisch13r]

The gut punch this season was putting absolutely zero effort into fixing coaching or goaltending.

Fitzgerald was fine wasting the entire year.

Keeping Recchi was awful. Potentially overpaying and forcing a move to try and fix goaltending in a lost season is not great. Let's say we "fixed" the goaltending in January. Are you really that much happier if we have like 5 more wins? Getting it fixed for next year is what matters.

 

[NJDevs26]

Yeah, he seems like a nice, sweet guy, he looked like he was about to cry in the post game.

I think this was his swan song, more than likely as an NHL head coach altogether, but almost definitely for us.

I giggled before he got on the air and said to myself wouldn't it be funny if he got on there and said ''Well.... I just got fired guys. I wanted to break it here on live TV, so I'm now effectively former Devils head coach and I guess we can do our interviews as scheduled and talk about this season''.

And then I felt kind of bad cause he looked dejected.

I was feeling bad for Lindy until you posted that quote about him defending the PP lol...if he really believes THAT shit he was trying to peddle then he needs to go too.

 

[Tao Jersey Jones]

Updated stats

McLeod ends the season on a 33 game goalless drought. The second of at least 33 games or more in his NHL career and third of at least 25 games and fourth of at least 16 games.

I was hoping Schnarr could challenge McLeod next season in camp, but he got injured and never got back to his early season form and is back to about what he was in his last two seasons so far with Laval as far as Pt/G production. Granted he is learning a new system and new teammates.

 

[Camille the Eel]

Really I don’t know that we can blame the season on the coaching. There is a lot to complain about the coaching, but even if we had Scotty Bowman behind the bench I don’t see this team being more than a 500 hockey club, given the collapse of the goaltending.

 

[Bleedred]

He really does seem like a nice guy, and he's had a lot of stuff happen that was out of his control. However, I don't want him back, but again I wouldn't mind him staying in the organization in some capacity if he wanted. Maybe something like player development, but I doubt he'd want that.

I could see this happening, actually. I could see him work the last year of his contract here in some capacity that isn’t coaching, unless it’s as a special assignment coach or something

And I sometimes also wonder if he “Steps down” from coaching and takes on another role here maybe for several years. Like the player development stuff you mentioned.

 

[Bleedred]

Really I don’t know that we can blame the season on the coaching. There is a lot to complain about the coaching, but even if we had Scotty Bowman behind the bench I don’t see this team being more than a 500 hockey club, given the collapse of the goaltending.

That’s fair. That’s why we can’t expect to fix the bench and keep throwing Flaccid Wood out there and assume he’s fixed and ready to “Bounce back”. We need a goalie that is no question better than Blackwood.

 

[NJDevs26]

I could see this happening, actually. I could see him work the last year of his contract here in some capacity that isn’t coaching, unless it’s as a special assignment coach or something

And I sometimes also wonder if he “Steps down” from coaching and takes on another role here maybe for several years. Like the player development stuff you mentioned.

I doubt Lindy would ever stay here after being nudged aside as head coach unless he's REALLY got an attachment to Fitz (a la Larry Robinson with Lou).

 

[Hisch13r]

Really I don’t know that we can blame the season on the coaching. There is a lot to complain about the coaching, but even if we had Scotty Bowman behind the bench I don’t see this team being more than a 500 hockey club, given the collapse of the goaltending.

Yeah I still don't think Ruff's coaching "broke" this team. That's goaltending. They played pretty average hockey overall. The PP coaching though while also not "breaking" the season was just so bad and can't continue.

 

[NJDevs26]

So years like 16-17 where there was absolutely nothing good going on outside of getting Hall who didn't even have a great year or 19-20 where it also fell apart and we were clearly much further away from anything than we were this year were more entertaining years? Or 15-16 where there was quite literally nothing good about the team besides our elite goalie getting wasted and watching him drag around our god awful roster to a few more wins.

63 points dude, 63 points in 82 games and that's with the extra OT/SO points you didn't have before 2005. The Devils haven't had a season this rancid since *checks notes* two years BEFORE Lou Lams' tenure ever started.

New Jersey Devils Historical Statistics and All-Time Top Leaders | Hockey-Reference.com

Checkout the latest and historical year by year stats of New Jersey Devils along with the list of all time top 12 players and more on Hockey-Reference.com

www.hockey-reference.com

 

[Hollywood Nosebleed]

I could see this happening, actually. I could see him work the last year of his contract here in some capacity that isn’t coaching, unless it’s as a special assignment coach or something

And I sometimes also wonder if he “Steps down” from coaching and takes on another role here maybe for several years. Like the player development stuff you mentioned.

I think that would be an ideal situation. Players like him, and I'm glad he's given our young players the confidence to use their offensive skills. I'd hate to extinguish that, and have Nico go back to a 55pt C. At the same time they need structure and Ruff isn't going to provide that. Him stepping down would be a great bridge into the next coach we hire. Kind of like Mike D'antoni did for the Nets, but Steve Nash isn't a good coach haha.

 

[Hollywood Nosebleed]

I doubt Lindy would ever stay here after being nudged aside as head coach unless he's REALLY got an attachment to Fitz (a la Larry Robinson with Lou).

He's been in the area for a while. Sabres at first, and after Dallas he was with the Rangers and then us. Maybe he has some roots here. He obviously loves the game so maybeeeee he wants to stick around in a reduced role. Also he has to know his HC days are over, so who knows.

 

[Peter Sidorkiewicz]

Next season, I like to see:

Sharangovich-Hughes-Mercer
Bratt-Hischier-Trade
Holtz-UFA-Zetterlund
Wood-McLeod-Bastian

Siegenthaler-Hamilton
Graves-Severson
Bahl-Smith

Trade/UFA-Blackwood

Boqvist-Okhotyuk-Bernier

As much as well like the young players breaking through, we need to get better.
Its too risky to give Boqvist the 3C role next season when he can't win a faceoff and is average defensively. I am happy to keep Boqvist on the team next season to battle with McLeod for 4C role.

I want to see 2 new forward additions from outside the organization so Zacha, Johnsson, Tatar need to move on. It won't hurt to carry them for one more season as 3rd liners, but i think we can accelerate the rebuild if they go now. Kuokkanen i'll keep and try to sneak him through waivers. He will be a handy utility player to call up if Wood can't get healthy.

Ty Smith's form is a problem but he might be saved that the current UFA market for defenseman isn't that great. I dont think we should be spending trade capital for a bottom pair defenseman so I think we should give Smith and Bahl a shot at the third pair role. They have been a pairing before at WJC. And Bahl's stay at home style will suit Smith if he gets his form and confidence back. Okhotyuk and Walsh to be the teams 7th and 8th defenseman. I dont think we need to bring in a veteran journeyman like Jaros.

A new starting goaltender is a must and probably keeping 3 goalies to start next season until we know more about Bernier's status.

 

[Hollywood Nosebleed]

63 points dude, 63 points in 82 games and that's with the extra OT/SO points you didn't have before 2005. The Devils haven't had a season this rancid since *checks notes* two years BEFORE Lou Lams' tenure ever started.

New Jersey Devils Historical Statistics and All-Time Top Leaders | Hockey-Reference.com

Checkout the latest and historical year by year stats of New Jersey Devils along with the list of all time top 12 players and more on Hockey-Reference.com

www.hockey-reference.com

I'd rather the young kids be producing at elite or near elite levels on a 63pt team than an old fart like Jagr (love him) being our leading scorer. I'm not saying we'll have the 17-18 Avs turn around, but if we surround our core with some vets and goaltending we will be competing for the playoffs. Everything points to that. You'd have to have your head in the sand not to see the difference. Now Fitz has to go out and do it. It's such a shame the goaltending market is shit. That's my big worry.

 

[theoptimist]

Really I don’t know that we can blame the season on the coaching. There is a lot to complain about the coaching, but even if we had Scotty Bowman behind the bench I don’t see this team being more than a 500 hockey club, given the collapse of the goaltending.

.500 is alot for this team

 

[Eggtimer]

Next season, I like to see:

Sharangovich-Hughes-Mercer
Bratt-Hischier-Trade
Holtz-UFA-Zetterlund
Wood-McLeod-Bastian

Siegenthaler-Hamilton
Graves-Severson
Bahl-Smith

Trade/UFA-Blackwood

Boqvist-Okhotyuk-Bernier

As much as well like the young players breaking through, we need to get better.
Its too risky to give Boqvist the 3C role next season when he can't win a faceoff and is average defensively. I am happy to keep Boqvist on the team next season to battle with McLeod for 4C role.

I want to see 2 new forward additions from outside the organization so Zacha, Johnsson, Tatar need to move on. It won't hurt to carry them for one more season as 3rd liners, but i think we can accelerate the rebuild if they go now. Kuokkanen i'll keep and try to sneak him through waivers. He will be a handy utility player to call up if Wood can't get healthy.

Ty Smith's form is a problem but he might be saved that the current UFA market for defenseman isn't that great. I dont think we should be spending trade capital for a bottom pair defenseman so I think we should give Smith and Bahl a shot at the third pair role. They have been a pairing before at WJC. And Bahl's stay at home style will suit Smith if he gets his form and confidence back. Okhotyuk and Walsh to be the teams 7th and 8th defenseman. I dont think we need to bring in a veteran journeyman like Jaros.

A new starting goaltender is a must and probably keeping 3 goalies to start next season until we know more about Bernier's status.

Can’t have Smith playing the way he did this year . Especially if we have players that are better in-house - Bahl Okhotiuk. If he doesn’t earn his spot then he is the extra or AHL . I hope he is traded before next year as he is redundant. Don’t have room for a small , crap defensive D man .

 

[NJDevs26]

I'd rather the young kids be producing at elite or near elite levels on a 63pt team than an old fart like Jagr (love him) being our leading scorer. I'm not saying we'll have the 17-18 Avs turn around, but if we surround our core with some vets and goaltending we will be competing for the playoffs. Everything points to that. You'd have to have your head in the sand not to see the difference. Now Fitz has to go out and do it. It's such a shame the goaltending market is shit. That's my big worry.

Again we're talking semantics and asthetics. In many ways it was even more discouraging the team was this bad as a team with the big three forwards putting up the numbers they did, albeit Hughes only played like half the season. And while I'm pretty sure we'll get star numbers from Hughes going forward (assuming he plays full seasons), how do we know the numbers of the big three forwards weren't at least slightly padded by a pond hockey system and offense being up all around the league? Time will only tell if this season was a 2004-05 type sugar high abberation with Cheechoo getting 50+ goals and Gionta getting 48 or perhaps part of a new norm going forward with more offense in general in the league.

 

[Bleedred]

I can’t give Blackwood a stoppable goal for goal 3. Dougie did take him out of the play and he didn’t have quite enough time to reasonably expect him to get set before the shot came through. So he goes down to 29 stoppable not 30. Womp womp.

Rest of the goals were not good though. We never got to see again just how bad the game winner was as it was originally a no goal.

It was BAD. A nasty squeaker through the legs.

 

[Guttersniped]

Ruff just said ''We had a 2.5 month run where we were a top-5 power play''.

This is like the ''Cory Schneider was a .920% for 20 games there'' stuff.

We had a what when?!? I missed this interview coming home from being appreciated, but, yeah, that’s not really true. You sure he didn’t mean the PK? Because that’s actually more true about the PK but not the PP. There’s a reason one ended up 28th and the other 14th.

And at it’s best the PK had great underlying metrics and was shockingly successful considering what our goaltending was like.

The metrics of the PK always were blah even when it got hot, the GF/60 perked up because players shot incredibly well and that was literally the only reason.

They shot 15.29% between Oct 15th to Nov 15th. They had 17th GF/60 & 28th xGF/60.

They shot a crazy low 3.92% between Nov 15th to Dec 15th. They had 32nd GF/60 & 24th xGF/60.

They shot a sweet 20.00% between Dec 15th to March 15th. They had 6th GF/60 & 18th xGF/60.

They shot 7.25% since March 15th. They have 32nd GF/60 & 32nd xGF/60.

 

[Triumph]

Again we're talking semantics and asthetics. In many ways it was even more discouraging the team was this bad as a team with the big three forwards putting up the numbers they did, albeit Hughes only played like half the season. And while I'm pretty sure we'll get star numbers from Hughes going forward (assuming he plays full seasons), how do we know the numbers of the big three forwards weren't at least slightly padded by a pond hockey system and offense being up all around the league? Time will only tell if this season was a 2004-05 type sugar high abberation with Cheechoo getting 50+ goals and Gionta getting 48 or perhaps part of a new norm going forward with more offense in general in the league.

You can't be serious with this. Yeah, okay, so league scoring goes down - you realize that that means that goals against also go down too, right?

Moreover, sure, okay, attribute the scoring to pond hockey - you realize that the Devils PP sucked all year and that it probably can't suck that bad next year? That these players do have the ability to be on a decent PP and if the Devils get the right systems in place, it'll be okay, and consequently some of the scoring that happened at ES will happen on the power play?

I'm not concerned about this season being a high water mark for scoring for these guys because 2 of them are already signed to long-term contracts.

The Devils went 8-16-4 in games decided by one goal (empty net goals excluded) in 2022. This is ludicrous. Something that is bound to change next year - even if more games just go into OT and they lose the same proportion, it'll be better.

 

[Guttersniped]

Again we're talking semantics and asthetics. In many ways it was even more discouraging the team was this bad as a team with the big three forwards putting up the numbers they did, albeit Hughes only played like half the season. And while I'm pretty sure we'll get star numbers from Hughes going forward (assuming he plays full seasons), how do we know the numbers of the big three forwards weren't at least slightly padded by a pond hockey system and offense being up all around the league? Time will only tell if this season was a 2004-05 type sugar high abberation with Cheechoo getting 50+ goals and Gionta getting 48 or perhaps part of a new norm going forward with more offense in general in the league.

That scoring 2004-05 was due to a huge uptick in power plays. You have to explain why the scoring would go down before saying it will.

I have no idea how having a legitimate young core, and two of them young centers who are locked up with nice deals, is more discouraging than have nothing. That’s nonsensical to me.