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Better Call Sal

Better Call Sal

Salnalysis
Nov 24, 2011
25,040
47,529
New Jersey
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A good effort wasn't good enough last night. But don't dwell on the results.

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Take that good effort and replicate it tonight

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Your New Jersey Devils Projected Lineup:

#18 Ondrej Palat (A) - #86 Jack Hughes (A) - #63 Jesper Bratt
#28 Timo Meier - #13 Nico Hischier (C) - #11 Stefan Noesen
#47 Paul Cotter - #56 Erik Haula - #91 Dawson Mercer
#90 Tomas Tatar - #42 Curtis Lazar - #14 Nathan Bastian

#5 Brenden Dillon - #7 Dougie Hamilton
#22 Brett Pesce - #8 Johnny Kovacevic
#43 Luke Hughes - #17 Simon Nemec

#50 Nico Daws
#34 Jake Allen


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Nashville Predators Projected Lineup:

#9 Filip Forsberg (A) - #90 Ryan O'Reilly (A) - #81 Jonathan Marchessault
#91 Steven Stamkos - #40 Fedor Svechkov - #14 Gustav Nyquist
#17 Mark Jankowski - #82 Tommy Novak - #77 Luke Evangelista
#36 Cole Smith - #47 Michael McCarron - #10 Colton Sissons

#59 Roman Josi (C) - #20 Justin Barron
#76 Brady Skjei - #37 Nick Blankenburg
#8 Andreas Englund - #2 Luke Schenn

#29 Justus Annunen
#74 Juuse Saros

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LFGD

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nemec has been disappointing. he looked very good for a rookie in a tough situation last year, and he’s looked great in all of the international team games i’ve seen him in so i’m not sure why he’s so bad this year.

i don’t remember him being this slow last season and i don’t remember him having such poor defensive awareness. it’s concerning for sure. he looked like he would develop into a text book all-situations elite dman that anchors championship teams and now he looks utterly lost in professional hockey. running his mouth to the press didn’t help either.
 
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Call Me Al said:
nemec has been disappointing. he looked very good for a rookie in a tough situation last year, and he’s looked great in all of the international team games i’ve seen him in so i’m not sure why he’s so bad this year.

i don’t remember him being this slow last season and i don’t remember him having such poor defensive awareness. it’s concerning for sure. he looked like he would develop into a text book all-situations elite dman that anchors championship teams and now he looks utterly lost in professional hockey. running his mouth to the press didn’t help either.
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Sophomore slump or he’s struggling with thr change in systems or on some level that shoulder is still bothering him. At his age it’s not like his talent has evaporated.
 
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My3Sons said:
Sophomore slump or he’s struggling with thr change in systems or on some level that shoulder is still bothering him. At his age it’s not like his talent has evaporated.
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Or we’re just rubbish at developing players who aren’t ready made before they get here, now we’ve had both Mercer and Nemec go drastically backwards and that’s concerning
 
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NJDevs26 said:
Or we’re just rubbish at developing players who aren’t ready made before they get here, now we’ve had both Mercer and Nemec go drastically backwards and that’s concerning
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That’s fair. But it’s a new coaching staff in place less than a year. Beyond that Nemec picked up his play in Itica after a slow start. Hard to say what’s the root cause but I can’t see NJ poor development as the current issue based on how this season has gone for him. St least not right now. His season up to this recall has been a text book example of a guy showing up injured. Using two or three games to say the entire organization is flawed is premature.
 
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@Jersey Fan 12

To reply from the locked GDT, yes he looked just fine for Finland. 0 points in 3 games to go along with his 21 straight and counting pointless NHL games.

Perhaps it is him and he’s just burnt to a crisp?

March 1991 build date.
 
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This team has already just about sucked my recharged energy dry just one game in. And I was plugged in the entire break because I was totally depleted by them between Christmas and the break.

A loss tonight against this ancient HUMPTY team would completely drain the battery to the point that I might not even care come Wednesday to watch us get shutout by Blackwood or Wedgewood or f***in Miles Wood.

And this was actually the team Stan Fischler first called a humpty team when the Rangers lost to them in December.
 
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My3Sons said:
That’s fair. But it’s a new coaching staff in place less than a year. Beyond that Nemec picked up his play in Itica after a slow start. Hard to say what’s the root cause but I can’t see NJ poor development as the current issue based on how this season has gone for him. St least not right now. His season up to this recall has been a text book example of a guy showing up injured. Using two or three games to say the entire organization is flawed is premature.
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He's had the same coach and assistant coach in Utica since he's been here. He's had McGill as the defensive assistant up here for the same time as well, the only difference is Keefe this season.

They've been in constant communication with him since he went down with what he needs to work on. We've been significantly better defensively since last year, less chance taking from the back end, a less complicated system compared to Ruff, we're getting help from the forwards as well. I'd think that would only make things easier for him to step into and just keep it simple. He did mention his injury hampered him early on but he's past that, I have no idea why he's been struggling.
 
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You have to figure he isn’t 100%, but it is startling how bad he has been for some time now. And despite all of that, he is still our best existing option at 3C.

You see this, and games like last night from our 3rd line and all you can do is hope that Fitz addresses it as soon as possible. An upgrade to the middle six is severely needed.
 
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Better Call Sal said:


You have to figure he isn’t 100%, but it is startling how bad he has been for some time now. And despite all of that, he is still our best existing option at 3C.

You see this, and games like last night from our 3rd line and all you can do is hope that Fitz addresses it as soon as possible. An upgrade to the middle six is severely needed.
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He also turns 34 years old next month.
 
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All I’m asking for is for Keefe to stop being so stubborn and switch up the lines a bit.

The third line has been an absolute offensive void all year. The fourth line has given us some great shifts but largely hasn’t scored unless Hughes/Bratt come out on the ice. Move Tatar up to L3 to drive play and move Cotter down to L4 to play crash and bang hockey with Lazar - Bastian.

Palat - Hughes - Bratt
Meier - Hischier - Noesen
Tatar - Haula - Mercer
Cotter - Lazar - Bastian

If I had it my way, I would swap Noesen/Mercer too. If the Devils really want to throw things into the blender, I’d love to see Mercer - Hughes - Bratt.

Mercer - Hughes - Bratt
Palat - Hischier - Meier
Tatar - Haula - Noesen
Cotter - Lazar - Bastian
 
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