Post-Game Talk: Devils 6, Oilers 4, Refs 1

[Bleedred]

Some of you get too caught up with small sample size and cherrypick stretches, as if they're exactly indicative of what a player really is or isn't.

The best example of this in recent years is the ''Cory is a .920% the last 16 games of the season. He's back. What's that? He was an .851% in the first 9 games? Nah, just a bad stretch. It's not like his play over the last 3 years is bad or anything'' so I always go back to that.

People do it when guys go on a cold stretch ''Well. he's only produced a 30 point a season pace over his last 10 or 12 games''. I mean, sometimes I've done the small sample size thing too, but only when it's apparent that it's much closer to what they really are than what they were for in the so many games before that. I even did it with Tedenby earlier today, but I think I made a good point with his final 89 games in the league being much drier than his first 31.

The point being is that nobody is terribly consistent over all 82 games. A guy that's a PPG player over a whole season? There's increments in between those 82 games (or however many they played that year) where they produced 3 or 4 points in 8 or 10 games. And then there's also increments in there where they might have scored 15 or 16 points over 10 particular games. Remember when Kovalchuk had that 9 or 10 game goalless drought in 11-12? Or maybe it even went 11-12 games? I remember it was the longest of his career up to that point. And he wound up scoring 38 goals or something that year in like 77 games. ''Well if you take out his 10 game stretch of 0, he scored 38 in 67 games!'' come on man.

When a goalie has a .920% save percentage over a full season of say 50-55 games? There's always a 10 or 12 game stretch where they were only a .895%-.900% or a 10-12 game stretch where they were a .930% or even .940% sometimes. And there's stretches where they go 15-20 games without a shutout and then they'll have 5 in between 20 games. You go to their splits and it's not October: .920%, November: .920%, December: .920%, January: .920%, February: .920%. March: .920%. April: .920%: It's not even like it's .925% for half the months and then .915% for the other half. There's .910% months, there's .930% months, sometimes there's an .898% month.

I'm sorry I always use goalie comparisons and I'm sure when (and if) Blackwood has a 10 game .920% stretch that brings his save percentage up to .905% on the season people will be doing the same thing.

 

[Jersey Fan 12]

Lol you’re wrong man. He scored zero points in his first 5 games. He’s been a more than a PPG player since.

I watch the games, not fantasy stats. Jesper played well to start the year (couldn't tell you whether he had points or not).

Until recently, the power play has been a huge part of the team's struggles and he has pretty much been a fixture on the unit.

His lack of responsibility in the transition from offense to defense (despite being one of the team's faster skaters) is especially noticeable.

 

[Billdo]

Tedenby's last 62 games in the league, which were all of his games in 11-12, 12-13 and 13-14, he scored 8 points and 2 goals. And if you go back to his rookie year, he had 14 points (7 goals) in his first 31 games. Then he wound up scoring only 8 points and 1 goal in the final 27 games of that year.

So in his last 89 games in the league he scored just 3 goals and 16 points. 14 of his 30 NHL points in 120 games played came in his first 31 games in the league. Almost half of his points and almost 65% of his goals came in his first 31 games played in the league. God, he was terrible after looking good early in the year. Especially when MacLean was the coach and everybody else was underachieving. He looked like one bright spot early that year.

And then after that first 31 games or so, he would get all these breakaways and never f***ing score on them. He just couldn't finish. He was like Adam Henrique or Kyle Palmieri in shootouts, only that's how he was in-game.

He was pretty fast when we had a slow team. That was about it.

Don't speak ill of my little swede

 

[Billdo]

I would still take him over Ruff.

I wouldn't.

 

[Guttersniped]

Tedenby's last 62 games in the league, which were all of his games in 11-12, 12-13 and 13-14, he scored 8 points and 2 goals. And if you go back to his rookie year, he had 14 points (7 goals) in his first 31 games. Then he wound up scoring only 8 points and 1 goal in the final 27 games of that year.

So in his last 89 games in the league he scored just 3 goals and 16 points. 14 of his 30 NHL points in 120 games played came in his first 31 games in the league. Almost half of his points and almost 65% of his goals came in his first 31 games played in the league. God, he was terrible after looking good early in the year. Especially when MacLean was the coach and everybody else was underachieving. He looked like one bright spot early that year.

And then after that first 31 games or so, he would get all these breakaways and never f***ing score on them. He just couldn't finish. He was like Adam Henrique or Kyle Palmieri in shootouts, only that's how he was in-game.

He was pretty fast when we had a slow team. That was about it.

Well he started off on a line with Elias and Arnott under MacLean in 2010-11, at least at the start, so that helped. That was pretty brief (~10 games) but that was likely the high point of Teddy’s NHL career, along with a even shorter lived line with Rolston/Elias (at the end of the season) and sometime with Kovy. He also got a reasonable amount of PP time that season, particularly after Arnott was traded.

After he wasn’t producing much he ended up on a Arnott/Zharkhov line and then a Josefson/Clarkson line (among others) and it got much less exciting (and less productive).

Tedenby & Clarkson didn’t play that well together, and really needed a play driver with them if it was sort of going to work, so it got ugly when DeBoer always had Teddy with Clarkie and they mostly played with Ryan Carter* in 2011-12. (And he stopped getting PP time.)

Pete didn’t have much choice, Zajac played 15 games that season and Josefson played 41 games in between various serious injuries (and was Josefson). Teddy eventually got sent to the AHL when the toxic pairing was broken up.

Lou talked Tedenby up before the 2012-13 season, and he then played 4 NHL games that year, but then again he talked up Bobby Butler too

*Perhaps forgotten fun fact: We got Ryan Carter off of waivers from the Panthers and he later scored the GWG against them in Game 1 in the playoffs.

 

[Bleedred]

Don't speak ill of my little swede

He's one of my most unfavorite draft picks by us.

I HATED the pick from the beginning (didn't like the Corrente pick whatsoever, wanted to vomit over him and I liked a couple guys picked after Josefson better than him too). I came around to him when he first broke through the league, but when he came out the next year and couldn't score at all, he frustrated me, I remembered why I didn't like this pick and I was done with him. I hated when people penciled him into the top 6 for the next year, which kept happening.

 

[Bleedred]

Well he started off on a line with Elias and Arnott under MacLean in 2010-11, at least at the start, so that helped. That was pretty brief (~10 games) but that was likely the high point of Teddy’s NHL career, along with a even shorter lived line with Rolston/Elias (at the end of the season) and sometime with Kovy. He also got a reasonable amount of PP time that season, particularly after Arnott was traded.

After he wasn’t producing much he ended up on a Arnott/Zharkhov line and then a Josefson/Clarkson line (among others) and it got much less exciting (and less productive).

Tedenby & Clarkson didn’t play that well together, and really needed a play driver with them if it was sort of going to work, so it got ugly when DeBoer always had Teddy with Clarkie and they mostly played with Ryan Carter* in 2011-12. (And he stopped getting PP time.)

Pete didn’t have much choice, Zajac played 15 games that season and Josefson played 41 games in between various serious injuries (and was Josefson). Teddy eventually got sent to the AHL when the toxic pairing was broken up.

Lou talked Tedenby up before the 2012-13 season, and he then played 4 NHL games that year, but then again he talked up Bobby Butler too

*Perhaps forgotten fun fact: We got Ryan Carter off of waivers from the Panthers and he later scored the GWG against them in Game 1 in the playoffs.

Didn't Tedenby get put on a line with Kovalchuk and Zajac for one of the first games of the 12-13 season? That was probably after game 1 or game 2 when he played with Elias and Clarkson (I think?) and I remember they had youtube videos on Devils PR or whatever back then of all the post practice interviews and when they put that line together both Kovalchuk and Zajac pumped him up, but kind of didn't pump him up. Kovalchuk was like ''Yeah, Teddy's great player. I think his fast and has good speed. His great player for us'' and then Zajac ''Well, yeah Teddy's a good player, so I think we'll enjoy getting to play him''. I think I blew my nose on myself after watching those interviews. I laughed so hard and I think they almost did saying that stuff.

And speaking of talking players up, I swear Pete even said after game 2 or 3 of that season ''Teddy's good, a lot of people are down on him and I don't know why, but I guess it's because he was sent to the American League last year. Patty Elias was sent down when he was young and he played in the American League and look at him''.

And then it was one game after that, maybe two games at most that he was once again sent back to the American League.

 

[Billdo]

He's one of my most unfavorite draft picks by us.

I HATED the pick from the beginning (didn't like the Corrente pick whatsoever, wanted to vomit over him and I liked a couple guys picked after Josefson better than him too). I came around to him when he first broke through the league, but when he came out the next year and couldn't score at all, he frustrated me, I remembered why I didn't like this pick and I was done with him. I hated when people penciled him into the top 6 for the next year, which kept happening.

Carlson and Josi both taken after stings. At least we got Henrique in that draft. I loved Tedenby but yeah, he sucked. The 2000s drafts were horrific sometimes.

 

[Bleedred]

Carlson and Josi both taken after stings. At least we got Henrique in that draft. I loved Tedenby but yeah, he sucked. The 2000s drafts were horrific sometimes.

My favorite is how we took Josefson in the 2009 draft, then we wound up with Palmieri, John Moore and Marcus Johansson, all of whom were picked merely just spots after Josefson and all 3 of those guys played on the team at the same time. And Palmieri and Moore were here for multiple years with Josefson, but Johansson came the first year Josefson wasn't here.

And then we wound up with Sami Vatanen who was picked 30-something spots behind our big pick on defense that year in Alexander Urbom LOL.

It was seriously like Shero was trying to right all of Conte's wrongs in that draft.

 

[Guttersniped]

Didn't Tedenby get put on a line with Kovalchuk and Zajac for one of the first games of the 12-13 season? That was probably after game 1 or game 2 when he played with Elias and Clarkson (I think?) and I remember they had youtube videos on Devils PR or whatever back then of all the post practice interviews and when they put that line together both Kovalchuk and Zajac pumped him up, but kind of didn't pump him up. Kovalchuk was like ''Yeah, Teddy's great player. I think his fast and has good speed. His great player for us'' and then Zajac ''Well, yeah Teddy's a good player, so I think we'll enjoy getting to play him''. I think I blew my nose on myself after watching those interviews. I laughed so hard and I think they almost did saying that stuff.

And speaking of talking players up, I swear Pete even said after game 2 or 3 of that season ''Teddy's good, a lot of people are down on him and I don't know why, but I guess it's because he was sent to the American League last year. Patty Elias was sent down when he was young and he played in the American League and look at him''.

And then it was one game after that, maybe two games at most that he was once again sent back to the American League.

Man, a memory like a trap.

Yeah, Teddy did ok with Elias & Clarkson too, he even picked up an assist on a Clarkson goal. (The magic of Elias.)

Then Pete put him with Zajac & Kovy and they actually didn’t play that much for the two game experiment before Teddy was sent down, probably because it was a complete disaster. They weren’t scored on but they never had the puck much to shoot it either, they were crushed.

It was so bad it led directly to the birth of the legendary Matteau-Zajac-Kovy line. Yep, Tedenby sucked hard enough that he made Stefan f***ing Matteau look like a keeper. That line wasn’t a continuous thing, the fates aren’t that cruel, but it’s high point was probably the Penguins game where Matteau scored his one goal (assisted by Travis & Zajac).

That was the 3-1 win at home where Bobby Butler had a goal and an assist on the PP (his only two points in 14 games), it was a magical night of unlikely occurrences. (Lol @ Butler on the PP.)

Even legends can die and the Feb 13 trade for Ponikarovsky was the main cause of death of that line.

Matteau was scratched several games but hung in there while DeBoer fiddled with the lines.

Matteau-Gionta-Bernier? Matteau-Sestito-Butler? Matteau-Loktionov-Kovalchuk? WAIT, WTF? Well, he got an assist on Loktionov goal (his 3rd point). anyway… Matteau-Henrique-Bernier? Matteau-Loktionov-Bernier? Matteau-Zajac-Bernier?

That’s just seven games worth of lines btw.

Matteau’s last game before he was sent back to juniors was on March 16th, and he played on a line with Stephen Gionta and Tom Kostopoulos. What a way to go out.

 

[Bleedred]

Man, a memory like a trap.

Yeah, Teddy did ok with Elias & Clarkson too, he even picked up an assist on a Clarkson goal. (The magic of Elias.)

Then Pete put him with Zajac & Kovy and they actually didn’t play that much for the two game experiment before Teddy was sent down, probably because it was a complete disaster. They weren’t scored on but they never had the puck much to shoot it either, they were crushed.

It was so bad it led to directly led to the birth of the legendary Matteau-Zajac-Kovy line. Yep, Tedenby sucked hard enough that he made Stefan f***ing Matteau look like a keeper. That line wasn’t a continuous thing, the fates aren’t that cruel, but it’s high point was probably the Penguins game where Matteau scored his one goal (assisted by Travis & Zajac).

That was the 3-1 win at home where Bobby Butler had a goal and an assist on the PP (his only two points in 14 games), it was a magical night of unlikely occurrences. (Lol @ Butler on the PP.)

Even legends can die and the Feb 13 trade for Ponikarovsky was the main cause of death of that line.

Matteau was scratched several games but hung in there while DeBoer fiddled with the lines.

Matteau-Gionta-Bernier? Matteau-Sestito-Butler? Matteau-Loktionov-Kovalchuk? WAIT, WTF? Well, he got an assist on Loktionov goal (his 3rd point). anyway… Matteau-Henrique-Bernier? Matteau-Loktionov-Bernier? Matteau-Zajac-Bernier?

That’s just seven games worth of lines btw.

Matteau’s last game before he was sent back to juniors was on March 16th, and he played on a line with Stephen Gionta and Tom Kostopoulos. What a way to go out.

This post did nothing but drum up bad memories of that 2013 lockout season haha. And then Hedberg playing like 20 games in a row (I don't think it was that many, but it had to be close to 15?) and completely dying out there. DeBoer refusing to start Kinkaid a game. They even sent Kinkaid back after his one game relief stint and called up Jeff Frazee, who also got to relieve Hedberg in one of his disaster starts.

Then Marty came back and that was the end of him after his first two games back. If you remember his first game back was in Carolina and he was credited for a goal in that game. He didn't die quite as quickly but slowly as Hedberg, but it was pretty sad in its own right. And to go back one season prior, Marty had a .918% save percentage for 68 games from January 24th of 2012 through March 23rd of 2013. This was playoffs and regular season combined. 24 playoff games and 44 regular season games, but an entire consecutive stretch of 68 games. I always took shit for arguing that Brodeur did bounce back after a poor 10-11 and first half of 11-12 because that was better than his 82 games of .914% (77 games of .916% in the regular season + 5 games of .881% in the playoffs) from 09-10 before the first decline year. And with his .916% regular season and .929% playoffs in 08-09 that probably comes out to about a .918% or maybe a .920% cause Marty only played 30-something games in the regular season cause of injury. So yeah, 2012 calendar year Brodeur was almost as good as 2005-2010 Brodeur and I still believe he was. I took a lot of shit for that and would battle the ''Brodeur is a below average goalie'' crowd, which was heavy on here at the time. I still argued was a top-10 goalie in the NHL up until he really fell apart to end the 2013 season and didn't really look good at all in 13-14 outside of about a month in November. And I'm being completely genuine here, not poking at the ''Well, Cory was a .920% for 16 games and a .925% at the world championships'' stuff that I always giggle at.

Remember when Loktionov looked good for like a month or two to end that season? He looked so good that a poster famously bet usage of his account that Loktionov would score I think it was 50 points the next year and I don't even think he scored 15 before he was traded for Tuomo Ruutu's cremains, along with the two remaining years on his contract that somehow didn't burn along with the rest of him. The Ruutu trade really remains one of the most pointless trades in the history of the organization, all because of the term that was remaining on his deal and how he was looking that year before we got him and how he turned out the next two.

But now I'm quickly jumping to the 13-14 season. So.... Team Marty or Team Cory? Cory may make the saves, but Marty gets the wins!

 

[Guttersniped]

This post did nothing but drum up bad memories of that 2013 lockout season haha. And then Hedberg playing like 20 games in a row (I don't think it was that many, but it had to be close to 15?) and completely dying out there. DeBoer refusing to start Kinkaid a game. They even sent Kinkaid back after his one game relief stint and called up Jeff Frazee, who also got to relieve Hedberg in one of his disaster starts.

Then Marty came back and that was the end of him after his first two games back. If you remember his first game back was in Carolina and he was credited for a goal in that game. He didn't die quite as quickly but slowly as Hedberg, but it was pretty sad in its own right. And to go back one season prior, Marty had a .918% save percentage for 68 games from January 24th of 2012 through March 23rd of 2013. This was playoffs and regular season combined. 24 playoff games and 44 regular season games, but an entire consecutive stretch of 68 games. I always took shit for arguing that Brodeur did bounce back after a poor 10-11 and first half of 11-12 because that was better than his 82 games of .914% (77 games of .916% in the regular season + 5 games of .881% in the playoffs) from 09-10 before the first decline year. I took a lot of shit for that and would battle the ''Brodeur is a below average goalie'' crowd, which was heavy on here at the time. I still argued was a top-10 goalie in the NHL up until he really fell apart to end the 2013 season and didn't really look good at all in 13-14 outside of about a month in November. And I'm being completely genuine here, not poking at the ''Well, Cory was a .920% for 16 games and a .925% at the world championships'' stuff that I always giggle at.

Remember when Loktionov looked good for like a month or two to end that season? He looked so good that a poster famously bet usage of his account that Loktionov would score I think it was 50 points the next year and I don't even think he scored 15 before he was traded for Tuomo Ruutu's cremains, along with the two remaining years on his contract that somehow didn't burn along with the rest of him. The Ruutu trade really remains one of the most pointless trades in the history of the organization, all because of the term that was remaining on his deal and how he was looking that year before we got him and how he turned out the next two.

But now I'm quickly jumping to the 13-14 season. So.... Team Marty or Team Cory? Cory may make the saves, but Marty gets the wins!

Loktionov was going to save our power play bro! The professor!

The kicker of that trade was when the 2017 draft came and we didn’t have our 3rd rounder because it was a conditional pick used in that 2014 Ruutu trade. It felt particularly pointless then.

I would have felt worse about us giving up the 5th pick in 2017 3rd round at the 2014 TDL… if Colorado hadn’t given up the 1st pick in 2017 3rd round for Eric Gelinas at the 2016 TDL.

 

[Bleedred]

And seriously, Bobby Butler? Somebody on here said his name sounded like a 50's doo wop singer and that was pretty funny. Too bad he wasn't funny, he sucked. Almost as much as Matteau. And the decision to start the season with Matteau was so f***ing dumb. Someone else once suggested that we only had him up so we could justify keeping that pick and not forfeiting. ''See? Look, he's contributing! He's making the team right out of juniors and at 18 years old! With no AHL experience yet! He's good! And you wanted us to forfeit this pick?'' but in reality it actually probably made us hate the pick even more, having to watch him play with Kovalchuk and look terrible and not even be able to score shit outside of the Penguins game. Didn't he have one more goal that year? Like against Buffalo? Maybe he just had an assist that game? Is Bobby Butler even playing pro hockey anywhere anymore? Like overseas? It's funny to think the guy is probably only early 30's and I haven't heard his name in years and he's been completely out of this league for probably 9 years.

Ponikarovsky 2.0 was so terrible. Holy shit he sucked. And I liked the trade, even the second one, but it turned out to be bad. That was the end of him in the NHL, but he lasted in the KHL for about 5 or 6 years after that I think? I started heavily making the prediction that he wouldn't even play in the NHL the next year probably by about the time there were still 10-15 games left in the season. He was the first player I famously started calling Space Junk around here and I also called him OTP for the One Trick Poni because he was a one trick poni (2012) and by the next year he was nothing.

And then after beating that drum, I had to listen to Lou come out and say ''We still haven't decided yet if we're gonna bring him back. We're still waiting to see what we're doing with other players (probably Clarkson and Elias, not that Elias was probably ever a question in 2013) before making a decision on him'' and that he wasn't ''Closing the door'' on Ponikarovsky ''Yet'' and that was only like a week before free agency LOL.

 

[billingtons ghost]

Carlson and Josi both taken after stings. At least we got Henrique in that draft. I loved Tedenby but yeah, he sucked. The 2000s drafts were horrific sometimes.

I really think his entire reputation was built off of that one spinerama highlight where he danced through like 3 guys from the blueline in.

It makes me wary of drafting guys with nutty highlights now.

 

[Devs3cups]

I really think his entire reputation was built off of that one spinerama highlight where he danced through like 3 guys from the blueline in.

It makes me wary of drafting guys with nutty highlights now.

That’s the goal I remember lol.

 

[My3Sons]

Some of you get too caught up with small sample size and cherrypick stretches, as if they're exactly indicative of what a player really is or isn't.

The best example of this in recent years is the ''Cory is a .920% the last 16 games of the season. He's back. What's that? He was an .851% in the first 9 games? Nah, just a bad stretch. It's not like his play over the last 3 years is bad or anything'' so I always go back to that.

People do it when guys go on a cold stretch ''Well. he's only produced a 30 point a season pace over his last 10 or 12 games''. I mean, sometimes I've done the small sample size thing too, but only when it's apparent that it's much closer to what they really are than what they were for in the so many games before that. I even did it with Tedenby earlier today, but I think I made a good point with his final 89 games in the league being much drier than his first 31.

The point being is that nobody is terribly consistent over all 82 games. A guy that's a PPG player over a whole season? There's increments in between those 82 games (or however many they played that year) where they produced 3 or 4 points in 8 or 10 games. And then there's also increments in there where they might have scored 15 or 16 points over 10 particular games. Remember when Kovalchuk had that 9 or 10 game goalless drought in 11-12? Or maybe it even went 11-12 games? I remember it was the longest of his career up to that point. And he wound up scoring 38 goals or something that year in like 77 games. ''Well if you take out his 10 game stretch of 0, he scored 38 in 67 games!'' come on man.

When a goalie has a .920% save percentage over a full season of say 50-55 games? There's always a 10 or 12 game stretch where they were only a .895%-.900% or a 10-12 game stretch where they were a .930% or even .940% sometimes. And there's stretches where they go 15-20 games without a shutout and then they'll have 5 in between 20 games. You go to their splits and it's not October: .920%, November: .920%, December: .920%, January: .920%, February: .920%. March: .920%. April: .920%: It's not even like it's .925% for half the months and then .915% for the other half. There's .910% months, there's .930% months, sometimes there's an .898% month.

I'm sorry I always use goalie comparisons and I'm sure when (and if) Blackwood has a 10 game .920% stretch that brings his save percentage up to .905% on the season people will be doing the same thing.

i remember when that crazy poster @Bleedred kept harping on that small sample size resurgence by Schneider before he fell apart to insist the team should extend him at top dollar. That guy was way out there and totally fooled by that short hot streak. I wonder whatever happened to that poster?

 

[billingtons ghost]

That’s the goal I remember lol.

Ha! Totally found it. That's the one.

 

[RememberTheName]

And seriously, Bobby Butler? Somebody on here said his name sounded like a 50's doo wop singer and that was pretty funny. Too bad he wasn't funny, he sucked. Almost as much as Matteau. And the decision to start the season with Matteau was so f***ing dumb. Someone else once suggested that we only had him up so we could justify keeping that pick and not forfeiting. ''See? Look, he's contributing! He's making the team right out of juniors and at 18 years old! With no AHL experience yet! He's good! And you wanted us to forfeit this pick?'' but in reality it actually probably made us hate the pick even more, having to watch him play with Kovalchuk and look terrible and not even be able to score shit outside of the Penguins game. Didn't he have one more goal that year? Like against Buffalo? Maybe he just had an assist that game? Is Bobby Butler even playing pro hockey anywhere anymore? Like overseas? It's funny to think the guy is probably only early 30's and I haven't heard his name in years and he's been completely out of this league for probably 9 years.

Ponikarovsky 2.0 was so terrible. Holy shit he sucked. And I liked the trade, even the second one, but it turned out to be bad. That was the end of him in the NHL, but he lasted in the KHL for about 5 or 6 years after that I think? I started heavily making the prediction that he wouldn't even play in the NHL the next year probably by about the time there were still 10-15 games left in the season. He was the first player I famously started calling Space Junk around here and I also called him OTP for the One Trick Poni because he was a one trick poni (2012) and by the next year he was nothing.

And then after beating that drum, I had to listen to Lou come out and say ''We still haven't decided yet if we're gonna bring him back. We're still waiting to see what we're doing with other players (probably Clarkson and Elias, not that Elias was probably ever a question in 2013) before making a decision on him'' and that he wasn't ''Closing the door'' on Ponikarovsky ''Yet'' and that was only like a week before free agency LOL.

Fun fact. The pick that the Hurricanes got from the first Aleksi Ponikarovsky trade turned out to be Jaccob Slavin.

 

[billingtons ghost]

Where has ZBC been?

I was kinda hoping to revisit the 'value of Bastian' debate too...

 

[billingtons ghost]

Where does Smith fit? Short/ mid/long term?
Ham/Graves
Siegs/Sev

I think he'll be great if they give him a Graves equivalent to cover up for him.

 

[TBF1972]

I think he'll be great if they give him a Graves equivalent to cover up for him.

i am worried about the aquisition costs. graves cost the devils only a late second plus prospect (maltsev) because of the circumstances (expansion draft, disappointing po performances, flat cap). cap space is still scarce, but available rhd of graves' quality are traded even rarer. i also believe the quality of smith's defensive partner needs to be even better, as hamilton is much better than smith.

if the devils are able to acquire a late first at the trade deadline, they might have the right currency to acquire, if the such a rhd is made available at the draft.

 

[billingtons ghost]

i am worried about the aquisition costs. graves cost the devils only a late second plus prospect (maltsev) because of the circumstances (expansion draft, disappointing po performances, flat cap). cap space is still scarce, but available rhd of graves' quality are traded even rarer. i also believe the quality of smith's defensive partner needs to be even better, as hamilton is much better than smith.

if the devils are able to acquire a late first at the trade deadline, they might have the right currency to acquire, if the such a rhd is made available at the draft.

Of course Hamilton is better, but we are talking about a youngster that has alot of growing to do, and I don't anticipate we need him to eat 1st pair minutes.

Hell, I think it was apparent that Smith actually had a better game paired with Geersten and Tennyson than he did with Subban, or Dougie or Severson.

One of his big problems has been positioning when his partner pinches or goes into the zone.

I'm not saying let's pair him with garbage, but sticking him with a defense first 3rd pairing guy and just letting him grow would be fine.

Find me another Siegs, and shelter them for a year or two and let the kid cook, plus get PP minutes.

 

[TBF1972]

Of course Hamilton is better, but we are talking about a youngster that has alot of growing to do, and I don't anticipate we need him to eat 1st pair minutes.

Hell, I think it was apparent that Smith actually had a better game paired with Geersten and Tennyson than he did with Subban, or Dougie or Severson.

One of his big problems has been positioning when his partner pinches or goes into the zone.

I'm not saying let's pair him with garbage, but sticking him with a defense first 3rd pairing guy and just letting him grow would be fine.

Find me another Siegs, and shelter them for a year or two and let the kid cook, plus get PP minutes.

so he needs the treatment, which probably l.hughes needs, when he makes it to the nhl in 1.5 years.

i just don't see the fit for smith. the devils have alternatives of hopefully better quality in their system.

 

[Oneiro]

It's a relevant question if you believe Luke Hughes is going to be better and that someone from the group of Mukhamadullin, Bahl, Okhotyuk, etc. is a player, let alone two of them.

We have plenty of time to find out, but from a roster construction / role playing standpoint, it's tough to see the team going with all three of Hamilton, Luke Hughes and Smith for 5+ years.

 

[TBF1972]

It's a relevant question if you believe Luke Hughes is going to be better and that someone from the group of Mukhamadullin, Bahl, Okhotyuk, etc. is a player, let alone two of them.

We have plenty of time to find out, but from a roster construction / role playing standpoint, it's tough to see the team going with all three of Hamilton, Luke Hughes and Smith for 5+ years.

that's exactly my point.

hamilton can't be traded, if short/mid term the devils don't want to tank and with the lack of rhd in the organization.
it's senseless to trade luke hughes and his potential before giving him a look.
this leaves smith as a trade candidate, for whom we lack the proper defensive partner now and a fitting role mid/long term. his trade value could go up again, but if there is demand the devils should listen to the offers.