Everyone keeps talking about the Devils bouncing back and as a team flying under the radar, I just think they are going to be horrible. I don't see it, best of luck to Brunner, he is now hands down the fastest player on the Devils. That team is going to be dead slow.
Speed helps in certain situations, but you don't need a lot of speed to win the cup. A lot of people are picking the Devils to be bad this year, so personally I can't blame anyone for following suit.
With good coaching they can sneak into the playoffs maybe. But I agree. Especially if Elias finally slows down.
That defense --- wow. Pretty meh.
Believe it or not, the Devils defense is top 10 in the league, maybe even higher. The defense will hinge on Larsson, but even if he's not ready to break out this year, it'll still be a solid defense. Greene, Fayne, and Larsson can all hold their own. Greene and Fayne are two of the most underrated d-men in the league.
Didn't you guys go through this last year when Lidstrom retired? Everybody predicted your downfall. And look what happened. You were one win away from going to the WCF.
I agree. A bunch of people are going to have to stand on their heads if NJ has a shot at anything this year.
If everybody plays to their capabilities, they'll be dangerous team. We actually don't need any player to overachieve. Last year, a lot of players had down years or they were injured. They still dominated puck possession, and were extremely unlucky when it comes to putting pucks in the net.
Yes but they give up a ton of grade A scoring chances, it is the shots they do allow.
Well this is actually a myth in that they weren't really giving up more high quality scoring chances than the rest of the league. The Devils were easily getting many more high quality chances themselves than they were actually giving up.
Yeah, many people are underestimateing the Devils.
Jagr + Ryder + Brunner gives lots of firepower to replace Kovalchuk.
The goaltending upgrade was great and defence is solid as always.
Loktionov has some nice playmaking potential.
Great-coached, great defensive+goaltended deep system team pretty much guarantees winning hockey.
Yea that's pretty much it. I think we're comparable to Montreal. They have a deep group of forwards without any real superstar. And they have a good defense. The Devils don't have a superstar like Subban, but Larsson is capable of being that guy. We'll have to see if he does.
Well for me that was what I thought when tuning into the Devils. No their goaltending wasn't great especially during that long losing streak, but I felt like the shots they did give up were high quality shots.
I think some of this is foot-speed, their coverage just breaks down at times. You can hope Schneider bails you out more, but honestly that hasn't been either Luongo's or Schneider's strong suit in Vancouver. Very good rebound control and exceptional at playing angles, but when you hang them out problems ensue.
We will see, I think a lot of DeBour as a coach, but I think there will be some problems with this group at least how I see them fitting together. I would expect the Red Wings plan will be to transition that team to death more than likely.
The biggest question marks with the Devils is really whether or not Zajac and Henrique perform. They need to be better than they were last year. If they're not, then the Devils will be in trouble. I think those are the only two guys who we can't make up for if they're bad or injured. We can absorb bad seasons from Clowe, Ryder, and some other guys. But Zajac and Henrique we cannot.