GDT: Jimmy Hayes Plays - New Jersey Devils at New York Rangers 7PM MSG+, MSG2

[R8Devs]

Hot take central right there

You’re basing 3 years of Vatanen off of 5 games of play instead of his career. But yeah prout, Santini, Lovejoy are equal to him. Pretty ridiculous statement. I’m sure the devils rather have Henrique than Zajac too but it takes quality to get a like Vatanen who was pretty heavily desired by multiple gms just a couple months ago. It’s a long term deal, devils don’t have much quality when it comes to defenseman both on the nhl roster and prospects wise but they do have that when it comes to LW/C

 

[Maine Fan]

I have been excited about the Devils play this season as I didn't expect much but now I feel we are getting back to reality and that's tough to take because of being overly optimistic. We are still in the middle of the pack loss wise in the Metro but slipping. This next week is make or break IMO. Play Cory not that is is always great but better chance than KK

 

[Emperoreddy]

Pretty sure Rico was doing a whole lot of nothing here before the trade.

 

[MadDevil]

Hot take central right there

The complete lack of patience some fans have is incredible. Vatanen hasn't put up a bunch of points in 5 games. Clearly that must mean he's trash. Meanwhile three weeks ago people wanted Henrique benched and/or traded as soon as possible, and now we should have kept him.

 

[NJ07102]

Hot take central right there

You’re basing 3 years of Vatanen off of 5 games of play instead of his career. But yeah prout, Santini, Lovejoy are equal to him. Pretty ridiculous statement. I’m sure the devils rather have Henrique than Zajac too but it takes quality to get a like Vatanen who was pretty heavily desired by multiple gms just a couple months ago. It’s a long term deal, devils don’t have much quality when it comes to defenseman both on the nhl roster and prospects wise but they do have that when it comes to LW/C

Vatanen hasn't played well for a long time, not just these 5 games. It would have been a minor miracle if he'd returned to the form of 3 years ago once he wears our jersey. Vatanen is nothing special, really, at this point in his career. If you can't see that, than this is your problem.

 

[NJ07102]

The complete lack of patience some fans have is incredible. Vatanen hasn't put up a bunch of points in 5 games. Clearly that must mean he's trash. Meanwhile three weeks ago people wanted Henrique benched and/or traded as soon as possible, and now we should have kept him.

I never liked this trade and I like it even less at this point. And besides, in a division like the Metropolitan how long can you wait for a guy? You lose 4 out of 5 and you drop 4 spots.

 

[Bleedred]

Actually, you could've kept Henrique and not resign him. 1,5 years of Henrique might just be twice as good as 3 years of Vatanen. At this point I would much rather have Henrique back and in instead of Zajac, who is totally useless at this point. And Vatanen is simply no improvement at all over Santini, Lovejoy or even Prout. He is just as good or as bad as the rest.

You're telling me that Vatanen isn't an improvement over any of those guys you named? He's not an improvement over Lovejoy? Or Prout? Really? Prout?

 

[Bleedred]

The ranger announcers even said they were shocked how many uncontested shooting opportunities the rangers compiled. Like I said, Cory would have been lit up like a Christmas tree with all those odd man breaks. Stopping 1 on 1s isn't his strength.

I watched all the goals again, and even if you wanna argue that Cory would have also allowed 5 goals tonight, there's no way you can convince me that Cory would have allowed all 5 of those, plus 2 or 3 other goals. Let's just say he allows a breakaway goal or two, that Kinkaid stopped. If he did, I'm pretty sure he would have also stopped a couple of these other shots that were goals tonight. His positioning is one of his biggest strengths, so I can see him stopping the first goal tonight, just by being more squared up to the shooter. Same with maybe one of the others. The Vesey goal is a shot that sometimes can hit Cory in his chest and not even look that dangerous.

 

[Devilswede]

This is more of the reality for this team. They're not better. Inconsistent as always. True colors starting to show and a lot of underperforming players.

Of course it was nice to be at the top while it lasted but it's time to realize that the playoffs are probably wishful thinking for this team considering the division we're in.

 

[BurntToast]

"Super Happy" that the Devils managed to play 2 competitive months before crapping all over the fans. Hopefully Next year the can make it through December. Jokes aside, fans reactions are legit. The unfortunate truth about the situation the Devils are in is this:

1) Metro is stacked. Unlike other divisions, a few losses has already put the team out of the playoffs or on the bubble. The format which takes 3 from each division and may leave out a few better teams this year.

2) I feel like the Henrique trade was a combo of them putting pressure on him to be a scorer (which he obviously can do) and him being one of the last peices from Lou Lam. They took a huge risk, by hoping secondary scoring would hold up. To piggyback on my own thought, look at how they handle prospects (Zacha/Quenville) pre Castron. Are you telling me these guys are worse than Stafford/Hayes?

 

[VoidCreature]

I think we need a little perspective here. This team is way ahead of where we thought we'd be going into the year. It's way ahead of what other rebuilding teams in Buffalo, Florida, Arizona, Detroit, Colorado, the list goes on. Expecting this team to fall apart the way they did last year is an overreaction. This is a better team than that one was. If we fall back, the worst I can imagine is what we saw in 2015-16. That wasn't that bad in my opinion. Another example might be Boston a couple years ago when they were on the bubble. Shero and Castron will continue making shrewd draft picks and signings, and the team is only going to get better. Zajac and Greene are the only coreish guys who are likely to fall off, or are falling off already.

We're way ahead of where I expected us to be. It's fantastic. Making the playoffs would be amazing, but it's not a deal breaker if they don't. This is still a team in the growth stage, I'm going to enjoy the wins as they come and remind myself of where we are in our development when they lose.

 

[RememberTheName]

Hall has got to step up and start producing. I think we need to spread our offensive wealth around the lineup more, our depth is beginning to show.
Hall - Zacha - Bratt
Quenneville - Hischier - MoJo
Wood - Zajac- Noesen
Gibbons - Boyle - Coleman

 

[tr83]

Some of you are killing the goalies. So let me restate..

THE. TEAM. DEFENSE. SUCKS.

Look at the shot chart.

Any goalie is going to look like swiss cheese

 

[Bleedred]

Some of you are killing the goalies. So let me restate..

THE. TEAM. DEFENSE. SUCKS.

Look at the shot chart.

Any goalie is going to look like swiss cheese

I’m only killing one goalie here and that’s Kinkaid, who has been supremely inferior (is that an oxymoron?) to Schneider this season.

The disparity between the two goalies is one of the largest between two goalies on the same team in the entire league. Luongo and Reimer are even further apart, as are Vasilevskiy and Budaj. Rinne and Saros are another, although I don’t believe Saros has played as many games as Kinkaid this year, neither has Budaj. There aren’t many more with a save percentage that far apart on the same team.

 

[Ripshot 43]

Some of you are killing the goalies. So let me restate..

THE. TEAM. DEFENSE. SUCKS.

Look at the shot chart.

Any goalie is going to look like swiss cheese

Wow, it’s like they decided to not protect the most important part of the ice last night.

 

[Bleedred]

With every passing game, Zajac’s relative corsi looks worse and worse. And he doesn’t get loaded up close to 70% of defensive zone starts like Andy Greene does, who has a pretty bad relative corsi himself. This is especially troubling, as Zajac has always been a + in that regard throughout his career, save for barely being below 0 in 15-16 and 15 games in 11-12, which still weren’t nearly as bad. Zajac is playing like the Miles Wood we saw last season. It’s not just the 1 point in 12 games that’s troubling.

Miles Wood has been unbelievably good this year, he’s also starting in the D-zone quite a bit more than the O-zone and has vastly improved from last year.

Coleman’s numbers are studly for getting close to 70% defensive zone starts. It’s a shame that he’s so poor at scoring points. I think too many bad players get too much credit for “Doing all the right things, despite not bringing enough points to the table”, but he certainly would not fit this category. I’m still skeptical he has an offensive ceiling that’s much higher than this, but maybe with different usage he might.

Hall has got to step up and start producing. I think we need to spread our offensive wealth around the lineup more, our depth is beginning to show.
Hall - Zacha - Bratt
Quenneville - Hischier - MoJo
Wood - Zajac- Noesen
Gibbons - Boyle - Coleman

Hall has a PPG though. He’s not gonna score every game.

 

[tr83]

I’m only killing one goalie here and that’s Kinkaid, who has been supremely inferior (is that an oxymoron?) to Schneider this season.

The disparity between the two goalies is one of the largest between two goalies on the same team in the entire league. Luongo and Reimer are even further apart, as are Vasilevskiy and Budaj. Rinne and Saros are another, although I don’t believe Saros has played as many games as Kinkaid this year, neither has Budaj. There aren’t many more with a save percentage that far apart on the same team.

I posted the shot chart from last night, which looked eerily similar. How many goals did Cory give up? Marty's giving up five if he were peppered like that too

 

[Bleedred]

And I hate to say it but.... Lovejoy hasn’t been that bad this year. At least not in the role he’s currently in.

So everyone I laughed at for trying to convince me that he would be fine in a bottom pairing role, it looks like they were very right.

 

[Billdo]

Hall has got to step up and start producing. I think we need to spread our offensive wealth around the lineup more, our depth is beginning to show.
Hall - Zacha - Bratt
Quenneville - Hischier - MoJo
Wood - Zajac- Noesen
Gibbons - Boyle - Coleman

Hall is the least of our worries

 

[Bleedred]

I posted the shot chart from last night, which looked eerily similar. How many goals did Cory give up? Marty's giving up five if he were peppered like that too

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

I thought we’ve had games where Cory stood on his head and only allowed 1-3 goals in games that could have been blowouts. Even that stupid shutout against Vancouver, where we stayed in the D-zone playing with fire for almost the entirety of the 3rd.

 

[Better Call Sal]

As always, come get your hot takes the day after a loss. Fresh out the oven!

Thankfully there's some in here with more perspective.

 

[Bologna 1]

I think to reduce the amount of agitation, we all just need to face the facts. They aren't making the playoffs. Division is far too strong and they are just so inconsistent. Also, poor coaching factors in there as well. Now the key is they can't let this spiral out of control. Or else it ends up just the same as last season, which is not what you want to see - you want to see improvement every year at the very least. And clearly there is still a lot of flaws - the defense is still the biggest issue. and now that they lost henrique, they could prolly use some depth up front, say a legit top 9 guy. And still some deadweight clearly.

 

[guitarguyvic]

The complete lack of patience some fans have is incredible. Vatanen hasn't put up a bunch of points in 5 games. Clearly that must mean he's trash. Meanwhile three weeks ago people wanted Henrique benched and/or traded as soon as possible, and now we should have kept him.

Why would you assume that the same people who wanted Henrique benched are the same people complaining about Vatanen?

 

[Tundra]

Let us accept reality.

We have two undersized teenagers manning the first line.
Zajac and Greene are on their last legs.
Zacha is in limbo.
The team is constructed to hemorrhage shots based on it's personnel.

 

[Bleedred]

Let us accept reality.

We have two undersized teenagers manning the first line.
Zajac and Greene are on their last legs.
Zacha is in limbo.
The team is constructed to hemorrhage shots based on it's personnel.

The two undersized teenagers should not be mentioned in this post. They aren’t part of the problem at all.