Devils team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - 2023-24 season begins!

[My3Sons]

They're not the same. Events for and against... possession.

But if one was poor in zone exits, would you expect them to be a positive possession players? Virtually his entire career?

They're not the same but it would be silly to believe that there isn't a relationship reflected in those numbers.

I don’t think Sverson struggled with zone exits but I’m skeptical what amounts to a team stat is necessariky a correlation with a micro stat like zone exits which as I understand it are tracked individually. I guess you don’t need corsi if you can just look at the individual actual stat?

 

[glenwo2]

Seems like that has been the case for almost 20 years now

Pretty much.

Devils just seem to get the better of Pittsburgh more often than not.

 

[PizzaAndPucks]

Agreed, but it was just a thing I noticed. I do agree with you that Nashville is a very bad roster for Bruno's style, they'll need a few years to develop into the high flying attack that Florida had.

Nashville has some cool young players with Tomasino , Evangelista , Novak , Parssinen etc...They did a good job salvaging Cody Glass too and making him an NHL regular. Brunette has some good skilled young players to work with. Aside from them upfront it's really just Forsbeg and O'Reilly. They have one of the best goalies in the NHL and a pretty veteran heavy defense. I can see them being a bubble team. Brunette was a good hire for them IMO.

 

[Guttersniped]

The Pens beating the Canes would be such a gigantic thing in the Devils favor, it's not even funny.

Devils would have a better time of it against Pittsburgh than Carolina, tbh.

Seems like that has been the case for almost 20 years now

Hardest rink to play in (61 votes)
Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, 15; Bell MTS Place, Winnipeg, 6; PPG Paints Arena, Pittsburgh, 6; TD Garden, Boston, 5; Scotiabank Arena, Toronto, 4; Bell Centre, Montreal, 4; SAP Center at San Jose, San Jose, 4; T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas, 3; United Center, Chicago, 3; Prudential Center, Newark, N.J., 2; Staples Center, Los Angeles, 2; Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, Minn., 2; American Airlines Center, Dallas, 1; Barclays Center, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1; Enterprise Center, St. Louis, 1; Madison Square Garden, New York, 1; PNC Arena, Raleigh, N.C., 1

Pittsburgh forward Evgeni Malkin picked Prudential Center, home of the New Jersey Devils, for the same reason.

"I know for me it's New Jersey," Malkin said. "We never win in Jersey. It's not just rink, it's team too. It's hard to win."

The Penguins are 11-16-3 in 30 appearances at Prudential Center, including a 4-2 loss on Tuesday.

Malkin was a rookie in 2006-07, the start of the Pen’s 16 year playoff streak.

At the time of this article, Malkin had been to the playoffs 12 times and that includes 3 Cups (2009, 2016, 2017), a SCF loss (2008) and a ECF loss (2013).

The Devils had made the playoffs 6 of 12 times and made it out of the 1st round twice, 2007 (2nd Rd) & 2012 (SCF loss).

And he’s being a little bitch about the Devils and Prudential Center lol. I’ll probably go to my grave remembering this dumb little NHL.com article.

I always wondered which other (Penguin) player picked Prudential in this poll.

NHL.com players poll: Toughest rink to play in | NHL.com

Nashville, Winnipeg, Pittsburgh cited as most difficult venues for visiting teams

www.nhl.com

 

[PKs Broken Stick]

To me they should use this PP as the first unit, it's got the best faceoff man on it, but after the first clear, that's it for them until there's another offensive zone faceoff. I doubt that's how they'll do it, though.

Yep, that's how it probably will go.

Curious to see everyone's expectations before the season starts. Personally I'd be happy with a Conf Finals appearance, would be an improvement over last year and typically you and upcoming teams need to taste a bit of adversity before breaking through.

I think they're objectively better, improved this offszn while none of their competitors did anything to improve that much or got worse. Carolina to me is the biggest challenge, on paper the Devils are better but the matchup itself is not ideal. They play team defense, excel 5v5 and are one of the few teams left with a true shutdown line.

Just improvement from last season. I still don't (and never will) think Ruff is the right guy to win the cup, but we'll see.

 

[Guttersniped]

Lololololol


Can’t please everyone tho.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Lololololol


Can’t please everyone tho.

God our fanbase pressing people to heighten their point totals for the year. We've wandered mediocrity and trash teams for so long that if anyone says bad or something amiss about the current roster, we go to hell and back for this Devils roster.

 

[Aurinko]

Season projection of Devils leading with 107 points might sound greedy, but then again there is room for improvement in last years home record:

I do agree with the projections. I think they look good educated guesses. I would also not put the Devils as top contender, but the depth alone should carry through the misfortunes of regular season.

 

[Clam Jensen]

A Devils/Oilers final would be must see TV

All the games would have to be in the morning because there’s no chance anyone would be able to sleep after watching a 2.5 track meet.

 

[Hisch13r]

Being 1st after one year of contention on a model that values priors is so funny. Our present and future just looks silly

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Lololololol


Can’t please everyone tho.

If you were to ask me the 5 best teams in the league I think I'd choose those 5. I expect the sabres to be better that's the only thing that really leaps out at me but I guess the model doesn't really respect Devon Levi / Their three headed goalie tandem.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Despite the high regular season point totals, his model still projects us to have significantly less chances of advancing deep in the playoffs as compared to other top teams.

His model puts a lot of stock into prior performance and absolutely HATES young goalies. it assumes that all young goalies will struggle when they first enter the league (because historically many do). If a young goalie performs well, it assumes that he will regress the following year (because historically many do). Basically, his model will assume that Schmid is lucky/a fraud and due for a slide until it has a much larger sample size to evaluate his true quality (probably something like 80-100 career starts).

His model also doesn't like the fact that we exceeded its expectations last year - it thought we would be a bubble team and we dramatically overperformed. Instead of the model thinking that itself was wrong and we were a great team all along, it assumes that it was right and we just got lucky and overachieved. And therefore that we will regress back down to what it 'thinks' we should be.

And yet even with this skepticism and regression taken into account, it still thinks we'll win the President's trophy lmao.

 

[Hisch13r]

Despite the high regular season point totals, his model still projects us to have significantly less chances of advancing deep in the playoffs as compared to other top teams.

His model puts a lot of stock into prior performance and absolutely HATES young goalies. If a young goalie performs well, it assumes that he will regress the following year. Basically, his model will assume that Schmid is lucky/a fraud and due for a slide until it has a much larger sample size to evaluate his true quality (probably something like 80-100 career starts).

His model also doesn't like the fact that we exceeded its expectations last year - it thought we would be a bubble team and we dramatically overperformed. Instead of the model thinking that itself was wrong and we were a great team all along, it assumes that it was right and we just got lucky and overachieved. And therefore that we will regress back down to what it 'thinks' we should be.

And yet even with this skepticism and regression taken into account, it still thinks we'll win the President's trophy lmao.

It’s really funny because when he initially put it out he laid out the reasons why we’re ranked lower and IIRC personally believed the model had us too low. Then he discovers a bug and realized the model agreed

 

[Guttersniped]

If you were to ask me the 5 best teams in the league I think I'd choose those 5. I expect the sabres to be better that's the only thing that really leaps out at me but I guess the model doesn't really respect Devon Levi / Their three headed goalie tandem.

If there was an established Seattle fanbase then there would be more bitching about the drop from 100 to a non-playoff 88.

I get the reasons for the prediction but it’s the other thing that stands out. (Florida might be low but who f***ing knows with them.)

And everyone, including a good portion of their fans, think the Bruins are too high but it’s hard to predict how huge their (potentially historical) drop will be.

(Edit: this isn't exactly Devils discussion. My bad.)

 

[Jersey Fan 12]

Curious to see everyone's expectations before the season starts. Personally I'd be happy with a Conf Finals appearance, would be an improvement over last year and typically you and upcoming teams need to taste a bit of adversity before breaking through.

I think they're objectively better, improved this offszn while none of their competitors did anything to improve that much or got worse. Carolina to me is the biggest challenge, on paper the Devils are better but the matchup itself is not ideal. They play team defense, excel 5v5 and are one of the few teams left with a true shutdown line.

Expectations of a conference finals seems a bit high - both because of the improved lineup in Carolina but also because of the improvements made in some other divisional rivals as well as the uncertainty on the defensive end.

The Devils will again be fun to watch during the regular season but not sure there is the heaviness necessary for the post-season.

If you look at last season objectively, the Islanders gave Carolina much more competition during the playoffs and could see the Devils having trouble with either of those teams in a playoff series.

While I don't see them being a New York Giants-like disappointment, could see them taking a step back before becoming legitimate Cup contenders.

 

[MasterofGrond]

I like the Kraken, they're a fun team. I hope they beat the odds and shoot an insane percentage again this season and crank one of the other west teams out of a playoff spot (again).

Unlike the Sabres, against whom I bear no ill will, but just think it would be very funny to watch them fall on their face (and I want cheaper tickets).

 

[Hisch13r]

I think Seattle had the 4th best SH% season on record. There’s a lot of room for them to fall

 

[Guttersniped]

 

[Saugus]

I would prefer to wait until after the season to gloat. Some of the memes could look silly if we do underperform.

 

[Cheddabombs]

Lololololol


Can’t please everyone tho.

Finally, a realistic model

 

[Guttersniped]

I would prefer to wait until after the season to gloat. Some of the memes could look silly if we do underperform.

I interpreted that meme as good natured ribbing of Dom’s modeling mistake.

We’re now 1st in his rankings after coming in 7th in his original Season Previews.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Thoughts on the contending teams, in spoiler tags so it doesn't stretch the page and piss off people viewing on mobile.

Spoiler

Seattle - For as much as I like their skater group (Beniers is super legit, exceptional player) I still have major questions about their goaltending. I also don't like Hakstol as a coach.

Vegas - Great team, solid chance to repeat. not much more to say.

Buffalo - Devon Levi will probably be an improvement over UPL and Anderson, but I don't think he'll be the savior Sabres fans expect. He will look mortal and have some struggles. Still though, with BOS and TBL likely to fall, this is a golden opportunity for them.

Boston - Crazy to predict. Even if they dropped 50 points from last season, they would still be a bubble team. Outrageous. But surely #1 center Pavel Zacha will lead them to glory.

Colorado - Top contender. Hopefully their key guys continue to stay healthy.

Florida - No clue. If they win the President's trophy it wouldn't surprise me, if they miss the playoffs it wouldn't surprise me. Outstanding skaters, most inconsistent goaltending I've ever seen.

NYR - Trending down, barring a major and unexpected step forward from from Laf and Kakko. Shesterkin will drag them to the playoffs kicking and screaming, but I didn't think they were great last year and now they're a year older and slower.

Edmonton - Yeah McDrai put up a lot of points and that's very cool. In terms of playoff success, I'll believe it when I see it.

Toronto - Ditto

Dallas - I think they should be right with NJ and CAR. Incredible team and very underrated. Top end skill, quality depth, good balance of youth and vets. When Oettinger plays well they always will be a threat.

Tampa - The dynasty is running on fumes. They will probably make the playoffs through sheer willpower and experience, but the Vasilevskiy injury will expose a lot of flaws.

LA - They have consistently improved their roster over the past few offseasons. I think they're good, I don't think they're great. At least not yet. If Turcotte and Clarke can turn into the players we thought they would be at the draft, they become very dangerous.

Ottawa - I think their young talent (outside of Stutzle) is a bit overrated. A healthy Chychrun will help, but it won't be enough. Bubble team.

Detroit - Lacking top end talent. They need a top-end alpha dog forward and they don't have that. I think buying low on DeBrincat was a shrewd decision. But they simply don't have enough talent to trade punches with the best teams in the east.

No man's land: MIN, CGY, WIN, PIT, NSH, NYI. Might sneak in with a wild card spot, but I expect them all to get roasted immediately.

As far as the Devils are concerned, anything less than making the 2nd round will be a disappointment to me. There is no reason to suspect we'll be worse than we were last year, at least in terms of playoff runs. ECF should be the goal.

My prediction is a NJ/DAL finals. Lindy Ruff revenge series where he finally gets his first Cup.

 

[JimEIV]

How deep you go in the playoffs isn't always about talent. Matchups, injuries...A 3 or 4 game hot streak or cold streak could change everything.

I have no expectations for how deep the Devils will get in the playoffs. Another good season of 40+ wins, 100+ points with a lot of goals and good play is all I care about.

 

[Call Me Al]

yeah, i’d like to go deep in the playoffs but it’s not a necessity. the reality is as good as this team is, we’re still a couple years from our peak. jack isn’t even entering his prime yet, nicos is just beginning, and luke and nemec have a good 3-4 seasons of expected continued improvement.

i want them to be a good, even dominant regular season team, and not lose to the rangers, but it’s not cup or bust this year. it will be by 2026 though

 

[Peter Sidorkiewicz]

im curious why Holtz would get to play with Meier and Hischier all preseason but wont get game one?

Lindy Ruff special