Devils 2016-17 team discussion (player news and notes) - Part XI

[NjDevsRR]

I like the idea of a Moore Santini pairing. Santinis transition and defense prowess can cover up for Moores deficiencies. This would be solid.

Greene Lovejoy
Merrill Severson
Moore Santini

 

[Based Anime Fan]

I'm just happy to see Merrill playing good hockey.

Finally.

 

[dzubrus8]

Anybody care enough to see if the same pro-Shattenkirk UFA guys were also pro-Stamkos UFA guys last year. It seems like the argument has less to do with Shattenkirk/Stamkos' talent and everything to do with how the team should spend money.

I think if Shattenkirk wants to come here at $6.75x7 you do it. Nobody in the pipeline would crack a lineup with a right side of the 3S's (Severson, Santini, Shattenkirk). The left side continues to look like a tire fire but at least the right side is completely shored up. LHD are more readily available via trade, not to mention the Devils could just draft one with their top-10 pick this year.

On another note, I really wish Shero went for Chychrun last year over McLeod. I think Chicky is a top-2 in the making.

 

[MichaelJ]

Anybody care enough to see if the same pro-Shattenkirk UFA guys were also pro-Stamkos UFA guys last year. It seems like the argument has less to do with Shattenkirk/Stamkos' talent and everything to do with how the team should spend money.

I think if Shattenkirk wants to come here at $6.75x7 you do it. Nobody in the pipeline would crack a lineup with a right side of the 3S's (Severson, Santini, Shattenkirk). The left side continues to look like a tire fire but at least the right side is completely shored up. LHD are more readily available via trade, not to mention the Devils could just draft one with their top-10 pick this year.

On another note, I really wish Shero went for Chychrun last year over McLeod. I think Chicky is a top-2 in the making.

I liked Chychrun. There was a point last year when he was THE pick I wanted and never thought he'd fall to the Devils. Over the season I moved more towards drafting one of the forwards. In general, at this point I'm more in favor of developing forwards and trading for/signing defense. Defenseman seem to take longer to develop and their learning curve also seems to be all over the place. I'm not saying we should never draft defense - Severson is coming along, I like Santini, Merrill is finally improving, and I'm excited about the Rykov pick. At this point I'd look to exploit teams with salary cap/expansion problems for trade and also use some cap space to attempt to sign FA defensemen. I'd rather bring in someone who is young and yet has proven NHL experience than draft and hope.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Anybody care enough to see if the same pro-Shattenkirk UFA guys were also pro-Stamkos UFA guys last year. It seems like the argument has less to do with Shattenkirk/Stamkos' talent and everything to do with how the team should spend money.

I think if Shattenkirk wants to come here at $6.75x7 you do it. Nobody in the pipeline would crack a lineup with a right side of the 3S's (Severson, Santini, Shattenkirk). The left side continues to look like a tire fire but at least the right side is completely shored up. LHD are more readily available via trade, not to mention the Devils could just draft one with their top-10 pick this year.

On another note, I really wish Shero went for Chychrun last year over McLeod. I think Chicky is a top-2 in the making.

There's a big difference between the two, Stamkos was poised to make the biggest UFA contract in history. Everyone and their mother knew Buffalo and Toronto were prepared to go nuclear for him. Ultimately he decided to stay and took less money, but he was set to make BANK on July 1st.

Stamkos is an 8-9M player poised to make 12-14M on the open market. Shattenkirk is a 5-6M player set to make 7-7.5M. You can't compare them. Like I said earlier in the thread, you could sign two Shattenkirks for the price of one Stamkos.

 

[SAKS AVENUE]

Just curious devils fans. I was coming back from Turks and Caicos yesterday and saw DSP in security line. I went on NHL.com to see if he was injured, but was listed as a healthy scratch. What up with that? Is it normal to grab a mini vacation when your scratched?

 

[R8Devs]

everyone on the team was probably on vacation somewhere--they were on a 5 day break

 

[NjDevsRR]

Just curious devils fans. I was coming back from Turks and Caicos yesterday and saw DSP in security line. I went on NHL.com to see if he was injured, but was listed as a healthy scratch. What up with that? Is it normal to grab a mini vacation when your scratched?

Every team is given a five day break from all hockey operations, players association wanted this.

 

[SAKS AVENUE]

Every team is given a five day break from all hockey operations, players association wanted this.

ahhhhhhh, gotcha

 

[dzubrus8]

Does anybody have the link to Elliotte Friedman's 30 thoughts where he said the cap was going to stay flat? That could make for some interesting trade scenarios. Maybe the Devils pick up a terrible contract in order to pick up a good defenseman?

Or, maybe the Devils take on a team's 4th D so they can help them fit into the advantageous 7-3-1 mold.
-Nashville (Josi, Subban, Ekholm, Ellis)
-Anaheim (Lindholm, Bieksa-NMC, Vatanen, Fowler)
-Arizona (Michael Stone, OEL, Goligoski-NMC, Connor Murphy)
-Chicago (Seabrook-NMC, Keith-NMC, Hjalmarsson-NMC, Pokka)
-Colorado (Beauchemin-NMC, Johnson-NMC, Barrie, Zadorov)
-Minnesota (Suter-NMC, Spurgeon, Dumba, Brodin, Scandella)
-NYI (Boychuk-NMC, Leddy, Hamonic, Hickey, De Haan, Pulock)
-Pittsburgh (Letang-NMC, Maatta, Cole, Schultz, Pouliot, Dumoulin)
-Tampa (Garrison, Stralman, Hedman-NMC, Sustr),
-Winnipeg (Byfuglien-NMC, Enstrom-NMC, Myers, Trouba)

Some of these teams have 5-6 defensemen worth saving and so they'll have to trade someone unless they lose him for free. Others have 4 and could do a 4-4-1 or a 3-5-1 but that seems like terrible asset allocation. New Jersey can pounce since the only 2 D-men worth saving are Greene and Sevs.

 

[Emperoreddy]

The price for bad contracts isn't very lucrative.

Nothing of high value was moved around for the bad contracts last year.

 

[NJDevs26]

You inadvertently bring up an interesting point, if we do trade for a D before the expansion draft we'd have to then expose/trade Merrill (or Greene/Sevs).

 

[Emperoreddy]

You inadvertently bring up an interesting point, if we do trade for a D before the expansion draft we'd have to then expose/trade Merrill (or Greene/Sevs).

Merrill has no trade value. If they trade for a proper third D you just go ahead and expose the rest.

I think we could in theory get away with the other format if we really wanted to keep Merrill over some of the forwards. We really don't have very many key guys we have to protect.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Merrill has played very well this season, but until he can stay healthy for a whole year I'm not convinced he's a top-4 guy. I mean, this guy gives us 50 games a year if we're lucky. Even if he has turned the corner in terms of quality, how much can we really rely on him?

I'm happy to keep him here and hope the injury bug is behind him he can be a valuable member of this team. But I won't cry if we lose him to expansion. Obviously, I would like to keep him, but let's not pretend he's a premier asset.

I'm assuming Kinkaid and Cammalleri would be much more attractive for an expansion team that needs to reach the floor.

 

[dzubrus8]

The price for bad contracts isn't very lucrative.

Nothing of high value was moved around for the bad contracts last year.

Last year, the following were moved in cap dumps: Teuvo Teravainen, Lawson Crouse, and 2nd round picks. This year, teams will feel compelled to make a move to address a defense-heavy lineup for fear of losing them. That putts them in a way more compromising position than the other teams were in last year.

 

[Bleedred]

Guess DSP is out, my mistake. Hynes is a little smarter than I gave him credit for. Can't be icing all these possession killers against the Sharks.

I admit that I forgot the lineup for last game and forgot that DSP was out.

Would be nice for Blandisi and Parenteau to have someone better than Kalinin though. They looked good, but won't score much, due to Kalinin's terribly painful lack of skill at offense.

 

[NJDevs26]

FWIW we have a scout at the Yotes/Pens game...time for the speculation on OMGZ who are we trading for from those two teams



But seriously it is always interesting to see when a scout shows up at a game where we're not playing a team in the immediate future (our next game against Arizona is 3/11, Pittsburgh 3/17).

 

[Bleedred]

FWIW we have a scout at the Yotes/Pens game...time for the speculation on OMGZ who are we trading for from those two teams



But seriously it is always interesting to see when a scout shows up at a game where we're not playing a team in the immediate future (our next game against Arizona is 3/11, Pittsburgh 3/17).

My eyes are failing me. I read that Rob Cowie guy from Nashville as ''Ryane Clowe'' and was like ''He's a scout for us too? Oh wait, he's a scout for Nashville now?''

I forgot we have Claude Noel as a scout now, Peter Horachek is supposedly a scout for us too now haha.

 

[ScottyK]

Zomg guyz we are trading for datzyukzz

 

[Bleedred]

Zomg guyz we are trading for datzyukzz

Think he can score still?!

 

[Emperoreddy]

Merrill has played very well this season, but until he can stay healthy for a whole year I'm not convinced he's a top-4 guy. I mean, this guy gives us 50 games a year if we're lucky. Even if he has turned the corner in terms of quality, how much can we really rely on him?

I'm happy to keep him here and hope the injury bug is behind him he can be a valuable member of this team. But I won't cry if we lose him to expansion. Obviously, I would like to keep him, but let's not pretend he's a premier asset.

I'm assuming Kinkaid and Cammalleri would be much more attractive for an expansion team that needs to reach the floor.

We have zero reason to expose Camm though. Kink is really low on a list as well with the plethora of better goalie options that will end up exposed. Both starters and backups with better pedigrees will get exposed.

 

[Bleedred]

We have zero reason to expose Camm though. Kink is really low on a list as well with the plethora of better goalie options that will end up exposed. Both starters and backups with better pedigrees will get exposed.

Cammalleri is on an insane goalless drought and has had like 3 goal droughts this year that have lasted close to 15 games. I think the first one was counting however many games since his last goal from last season too, so I guess the first one wasn't 15 games of this season. Just 15 games in all.

And he could very well be terrible next year or the year after, but I don't think there's a reason to expose him either.

He's racking up all kinds of apples too, despite the insane goal droughts. I could see him going on a tear and scoring 15 goals in 10 games or something, to make up for all the goalless droughts. I'm not as worried about him as some. He could make us regret it in a year from now, but that's a chance you have to take with any 35 year old player, which is how old he'll be next year. Our offense is still weak and lacks much depth, so I am hesitant to tell him to get lost in Vegas.

 

[Bcap88]

speaking of potential trade bait. Dreger said on a AMA on Reddit that the Sens are likely to expose Bobby Ryan to Vegas.

Would love bobby Ryan but not at 7 mil a year

 

[Bleedred]

Would love bobby Ryan but not at 7 mil a year

How many more years is he signed for? Sounds like a buyout waiting to happen, or at least a buyout that we'd want to happen, if we were to pick him up.