Devils Alternate History

[Tretyak 20]

This is getting ridiculous.

 

[Classic Devil]

Penguins tanked, like on purpose. There's already been a few documentaries on this. This was like a PLANNED and perfectly calculated and executed tank job. I remember the GM would come downstairs a few times, after a 1st or 2nd period where the team was either tied/winning or not losing bad enough, and I think he even demanded the coach put in some jabroni goaltender or give tons of ice time to the bums on the team, in the event they weren't trailing by enough goals. Just to ensure they didn't ''Accidentally'' win or give themselves a chance to make the game close.

So they got Mario Lemieux and the second worst, who would have probably been THE worst team (the Devils) picked Kirk Muller second.

This was actually looking like a damn good consolation prize early on, but Muller's offense fell off the face of the earth, sometime before his 30th birthday, a few years after we traded him for Richer.

Muller almost fell out of the league in 99, before Dallas signed him in December of that year, after he had been a UFA all summer, with no interest. He was coming off a 15 point in 82 game season with the Panthers. He wound up playing the rest of that year and 3 more years after that, but only as a shutdown guy/checking line specialist.

The Bob Carpenter career track.

 

[JrFischer54]

Haha you put a lot of thought into this!

What happens if Brent Sutter didn’t feel the need to sell the **** out and party like it was 2003, when he decided to play the **** out of Maddolfo in game 7 of 2009?

This one is really gonna sting but.... what if they called offsides on that Adam Foote goal in the 1st period of game 6 in 2001? That was a deflating goal and just took the wind out of our sails. Killed all momentum and the game was over right then and there. It’s been argued that this was offside.

The real what if is Gomez no goal for kicking moition that was honestly the backbreaker. Team and the building never recovered. Devils probably cruise to that cup 4-1 final


Or what if mattuea doesn't get that wrap around goal? Devils make the finals and win cup. Do they continue it in 95? Do the rangers win one by now?

 

[Bleedred]

Surprised nobody's brought up the original what-if/alternate history - whether we got Mario the way we should have in 1984.

Oddly enough, Mario was not in the league when we won our first two cups. He missed the entire 94-95 season, and was still in his first retirement in 99-00. He did score 91 points in 67 games, on the worst team in the league in 02-03, and we did beat his team in the ECF on the way to the 2001 finals.

I'm fine with not having him, but he would have made us much better in the late 80's and early 90's. Like if we had him for the 88 playoffs when we went to the ECF? We probably would have made the finals and our team wouldn't have been as good as the Oilers, so we probably wouldn't have won. That would have been a huge SCF historically though, with Gretzky against Lemieux. That would have been the only time they ever faced each other in the finals.

 

[Lindys Lazy Eye]

What if we don't trade for Cory and picked Horvat or Weinnberg or Domi instead?

Outside of the obvious being that Marty would of (most likely) gotten his 300 wins and probably stayed another year.


We very well could be rolling with Domi/Horvat in our top 6 and Wedgewood as our starter

But do we still gain Nico and Zacha with that route?

 

[Bleedred]

The Bob Carpenter career track.

Definitely a great comparison! I do think Muller might have been slightly better at his offensive best than Carps was, but maybe not. Carpenter was a 3rd overall pick, while Muller was a 2nd overall pick. Their career's were very similar. Top 2/3 picks, nice offensive upside early, then their offense really dropped off drastically at a young age, but they saved their career's with their shutdown prowess.

The real what if is Gomez no goal for kicking moition that was honestly the backbreaker. Team and the building never recovered. Devils probably cruise to that cup 4-1 final


Or what if mattuea doesn't get that wrap around goal? Devils make the finals and win cup. Do they continue it in 95? Do the rangers win one by now?

I thought the Foote goal was the backbreaker in game 6, if anything in that 2001 finals.

If we beat the Rangers in 94, I think we beat Vancouver that year. Maybe we don't make it the next year though. I don't think the Rangers would have won another cup, if they hadn't in 94 and we won instead. The only way they would have, is if we altered the rest of their history too. But if the only difference was us winning the cup in 94, I don't they win another cup since then.

Their three best chances since then have been in 2012 and 2014. They also did make it to game 7 of the ECF in 2015.

They made the conference finals in 97, 12, 14 and 15, with the cup finals in 2014. Aside from 2012, none of it had anything to do with us. Although they did beat us in round two of 97, to get to the conference finals.

 

[Bleedred]

What if we don't trade for Cory and picked Horvat or Weinnberg or Domi instead?

Outside of the obvious being that Marty would of (most likely) gotten his 300 wins and probably stayed another year.


We very well could be rolling with Domi/Horvat in our top 6 and Wedgewood as our starter

But do we still gain Nico and Zacha with that route?

Marty wasn't any good anymore. If we had kept Marty in 14-15, it would have been one of the biggest cases of ''Signing a guy, just to sign him'' or ''Signing a guy, just because of what he WAS and not who IS now''. Yeah, he probably could have won another 12 or 13 games, between 13-14 and 14-15 if he had stayed, even if he had been worse than anything we had witnessed up to that point.

Wedgewood as our starter might not be a good thing. I'm pretty confident that if Wedgewood had become our starter, he wouldn't stayed our starter for very long.

I'll never second guess parting ways with Marty or Lou, it was really time to move on. We probably could have gotten another year out of Patty, but it may not have been a full/healthy season, as he was already breaking down physically by that point. He also didn't play long enough to have a clunky season or two, like Marty did. So he very well could have been pretty bad had he played another year. He didn't play into his 40's, like Marty did. He played fine when he actually played, but he only played 16 games in 15-16 and wasn't even healthy enough to have started the season on time last year.