Hey guys, saw your game as it was carried on national television in Canada.
Your team is incredibly fast and creative, but it feels like they have no fallback. Like if the quick up, and the extra move or drop pass doesn't work, they don't have much of a fallback. Not winning many battles.
I'm a big fan of Jack Hughes and he's always prominent but he (or the system around him) looked a bit strange last night. Like he looked like a ringer on a peewee team where no matter who had the puck he would skate over and receive a little dump pass that wasn't very helpful as it meant that Hughes and the player he just took it off of were both covered by the same D.
Now, Hughes is a superlative talent and I have no long-term concerns over him. But, while dangerous every time he touched the puck, he just looked a little bit strange to me off of the puck and like he was playing a little...selfish isn't the right word, but like puck chasing/obsessed.
Big fan of Bratt and think he's very underrated. So slippery and evasive.
Right now Meier looks like a poor fit because I think a lot of his success in San Jose came off of the cycle and from low to high plays with Karlsson, whereas the Devils play an incredible fast off the rush transition game.
Falling back this year was largely inevitable when you let Graves and Severson go for Nemec and Hughes. It's the right call not to be locked into long term deals with them, but D is a hard position to learn even for the wonderkinds. Our Quinn had a rough year in 2021 trying to learn the league where a lot of our moron fans were calling for him to be dealt.
Fitzgerald couldn't predict that Hamilton would go down with injury, but I'm still confused that he thought that going with two unproven guys in Daws and Schmid behind a mediocre platoon goalie in Vanicek (not a believer in Vitek at all) would pan water. Like, no kidding your rookie D need a general back there.
I think Markstrom will/would serve you guys well whether you acquire him before the deadline, or in the off season. He was an absolute leader for our young team a few years ago. We were right to let him go (Tanev and Toffoli are other stories, but we had Demko coming), but he's exactly what your young team needs.
That Ducks team sucks and was incredibly diminished missing Zegras, Carlsson, and Fowler from an already depleted roster, and losing McTavish in the game, so it's wild that your boys managed to lose. But with that said, as frustrating as I'm sure it was to watch as a fan living and dying with every play as you try to squeeze into the playoffs, you guys did have like 10-12 shots that were 5 alarm saves by Dostal.
Those things happen occasionally, but it's tough when you're behind the 8 ball and can't afford to lose the points.
Anyway, will be following the Devils progress the rest of the season and very curious to see what your deadline looks like.
Good luck boys and girls.
