Devils 2017-18 team discussion (player news and notes) - season begins!

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

I'd be up for trading McLeod or someone perhaps if we can get an actually good LD. Interesting to see what happens if we are still in the playoff race at the trade deadline.

I had posted a few days ago...I am curious as to what a package of our 1st round pick, McLeod, and a guy like Blandisi or Quenneville could return?

Not saying we should definitely do that, and its probably more realistic type of move in the summer. However, depending on the return, its not something I would be totally against, especially if its a young-ish top 4 LHD.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Also, Shero is responsible for legitimately our entire top 6 lol Whether it be drafting, trades, or signings.

I cannot fathom how there are still some people who are criticizing him at this point, especially after this start to the season. The rebuild is ahead of schedule.

 

[JimEIV]

And honestly the last regime didn’t do that great drafting D either.

Lars is a letdown as a 4th overall. Gely washing out, Merrill is on his way to washing out and can’t stsy healthy. Helgesen is a AHLer, Jacob’s looks like a AHLer

The only good defensive prospects Ray was given was Severson and Santini.

Jacobs has 3 points in 4 games sharing the lead in Defensemen scoring and is a team leading +7 so far this season for Binghamton. Not to mention he's younger than any Dman on our young roster and only has 55 games of minor league pro expirience.

I wouldn't be so quick to call his career. Being a RHD might be a tough situation for him though.

 

[Emperoreddy]

I'd be up for trading McLeod or someone perhaps if we can get an actually good LD. Interesting to see what happens if we are still in the playoff race at the trade deadline.

I think this would be a mistake unless the value is lopsided as we are going to need one more skilled center to replace Zajac.

Also prospects on their own don’t have much trade value. He would need to be packaged with high picks or a NHL player to get any kind of return.

 

[JimEIV]

And it prob will be more balanced now that we have the offensive pieces in place.

Hope so. But the decisions so far on defense haven't been good at all.

 

[Emperoreddy]

I had posted a few days ago...I am curious as to what a package of our 1st round pick, McLeod, and a guy like Blandisi or Quenneville could return?

Not saying we should definitely do that, and its probably more realistic type of move in the summer. However, depending on the return, its not something I would be totally against, especially if its a young-ish top 4 LHD.

That is an expensive package so it better be a good player.

 

[Emperoreddy]

And we do have some good defensive prospects in the pipeline.
Rykov looks like a good one. Walsh is another. Jocktan is off to a good start in Halifax

 

[njdevils1982]

so im guessing threads can now well over 1000 posts?

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

That is an expensive package so it better be a good player.

I agree. I am not saying we should just trade that for a 30 year old JAG

but if we could find the right partner, I think its a trade that makes sense given how our forward cupboard currently looks.

Shero has made a big trade each summer hes been here. Now he has the most assets hes ever had as far as prospects/players go.

 

[My3Sons]

yup.

I will bet a lot of money that we will try to do one if not all of the following this summer:

1) Trade for a big time LHD. We have a lot of assets as far as forward prospects and our own picks that we could potentially package
2) Go for a big name UFA (like Carlson)
3) go heavy on defense in the draft. Our forward cupboard is pretty well stocked now so we have the ability to do this. Plus, this draft seemingly is big on D prospects.

I am not sure signing an anchor contract for a UFA defender is a good use of cap. If Carlson wants to sign for five years at 7 per that is great. Not sure 7 years 7.5 per is a great investment for a UFA who isn’t at the very top of defenders and sucks up that much cap when young NJ forwards will be looking for extensions. The drafting and trading I could see - although I was shouted down when I suggested Rico as part of a package for a defender who could move the needle for NJ.

 

[Blender]

so im guessing threads can now well over 1000 posts?

Xenforo doesn't have a limit that I know of. Pretty sure VB hasn't for a long time either though, it was just routine.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

I am not sure signing an anchor contract for a UFA defender is a good use of cap. If Carlson wants to sign for five years at 7 per that is great. Not sure 7 years 7.5 per is a great investment for a UFA who isn’t at the very top of defenders and sucks up that much cap when young NJ forwards will be looking for extensions. The drafting and trading I could see - although I was shouted down when I suggested Rico as part of a package for a defender who could move the needle for NJ.

I was all about a Henrique+ for a LHD this past summer

Though, Henrique has been good so far this year

 

[Darkauron]

And we do have some good defensive prospects in the pipeline.
Rykov looks like a good one. Walsh is another. Jocktan is off to a good start in Halifax

Wish that Rykov could be here for next season. Stupid KHL contract

 

[Emperoreddy]

I agree. I am not saying we should just trade that for a 30 year old JAG

but if we could find the right partner, I think its a trade that makes sense given how our forward cupboard currently looks.

Shero has made a big trade each summer hes been here. Now he has the most assets hes ever had as far as prospects/players go.

I’m on board with this idea, especially if we keep playing well and torpedo any real chance at Dahlin

 

[My3Sons]

Which brings us to a second point that really should be obvious.....

The lack of knowledge regarding statistical success of a 2nd round draft pick, is shocking given people making these comments consider themselves "serious" hockey fans.

But to spoon feed it to some of you, there's only about a 1/3 chance a 2nd round pick turns into an NHL player who plays in >=100 games. A pretty low bar to begin with. So Mueller's already "house money" given he'll exceed that, along with the statistical 2/3 odds that whomever the Sharks draft with that Devils' pick will likely fail to make it as an NHL player.

The problem is guys like JJ and maybe Gelinas are included as successes by some games played metrics. I understand that outside the top two or three picks the odds start getting longer - even by the middle to late first round but there will always be a percentage of fans that only care about impact players and don’t value games played in and of itself - sometimes even for a solid player who is unspectacular.

 

[Blender]

I’m on board with this idea, especially if we keep playing well and torpedo any real chance at Dahlin

If we miss the playoffs we still have a chance at Dahlin no matter where we finish.

 

[JimEIV]

And we do have some good defensive prospects in the pipeline.
Rykov looks like a good one. Walsh is another. Jocktan is off to a good start in Halifax

You can't even remotely come up with an ETA for Walsh and the Rykov situation isn't that much clearer.

Chainey is on a more traditional path and he has a great name, so cheers to a 7th round pick being the prize of our pipeline.

 

[My3Sons]

Also, Shero is responsible for legitimately our entire top 6 lol Whether it be drafting, trades, or signings.

I cannot fathom how there are still some people who are criticizing him at this point, especially after this start to the season. The rebuild is ahead of schedule.

I’ll be honest - I don’t love his choice in ties. Top six or no there are no excuses for crimes against good taste.

 

[Emperoreddy]

You can't even remotely come up with an ETA for Walsh and the Rykov situation isn't that much clearer.

Chainey is on a more traditional path and he has a great name, so cheers to a 7th round pick being the prize of our pipeline.

There is really no point in having this discussion if you are going to keep changing the rules and moving the goal posts on what kids “count” and what kids don’t.

 

[My3Sons]

I was all about a Henrique+ for a LHD this past summer

Though, Henrique has been good so far this year

Agreed which maybe makes him more attractive in a trade. Unless NJ wants to hand out UFA money to MarJo and Rico and Hall at least one of them has to go eventually. My preference would be to pay Hall and save cap space for Nico and everyone else has to sign in the reasonable range or gets sent away before losing them as a UFA. The team seems to be drafting well enough up front they can do that. On defense they got a decent signing done in Severson and I don’t see huge money be demanded by anyone else for the next few years. Maybe Butcher but I’d bridge him and not have second thoughts.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Ray has an interesting choice to make this offseason.

There is a window over the next 2-3 years where you have all the kids on their ELCs, our major vets are still under their current contracts, and Greene, Zajac, and Cory still have gas in the tank to maybe take a swing at competing.

 

[My3Sons]

And we do have some good defensive prospects in the pipeline.
Rykov looks like a good one. Walsh is another. Jocktan is off to a good start in Halifax

Rykov sounds like a guy that comes in and plays at a high level very quickly. Top young defender in Russian system with WJC pedigree and minutes in a men’s league at a young age. He also has an easy path directly to an NHL spot. Unless he doesn’t want to play in North America hard to imagine NJ isn’t attractive as an NHL landing spot.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Rykov sounds like a guy that comes in and plays at a high level very quickly. Top young defender in Russian system with WJC pedigree and minutes in a men’s league at a young age. He also has an easy path directly to an NHL spot. Unless he doesn’t want to play in North America hard to imagine NJ isn’t attractive as an NHL landing spot.

I believe he is on record saying he definitely wants to play in NA. I’m curious if Ray takes steps to try and buyout the last year of his KHL contract to get him over sooner.

 

[MadDevil]

Ray had so many holes to fill when he took over that if you expected him to fix all of them in 2-3 years, you were probably going to be disappointed. He's clearly been focusing on forwards over defensemen, which given how barren our system was of forwards, makes sense. Now that we have multiple promising young forward prospects, we have depth enough to where we can focus on the defense. The fact is most teams have a surplus in one area and a deficinency in another. Rarely do you have a team coming up that is loaded both up front and on defense.

 

[TheUnseenHand]

That's a reasonable argument but by the same token I don't want to hear about how terrible Lovejoy is anymore...his being here "makes sense"

Nope. I will never stop complaining about lj. Never