GDT: Your New Jersey Devils @ Philadelphia Flyers, 5 PM, MSGSN

[NjdevilfanJim]

No. We've done this already. Get a legit starter.

Who though and at what cost?......

 

[My3Sons]

I'm not gonna tell you in this thread what I was chanting the entire time the goalie was pulled.

By the way, Graeme Clarke BLOWS. I don't understand why people like this guy.

He's not an NHL player.

We all know “God I hope Grern is the coach next season and he can convince Fitz to bring back Vitek and Blackwood”.

 

[KovalchukFistPump]

The biggest question I have is how did it not happen until the deadline. People were mentioning him in like December

Team was still hoping to get Markstrom (a trade was even agreed) or maybe Saros. KK was also being slightly outplayed by Blackwood in SJ. No guarantee he is the kind of guy that can have success starting 50 games a year and in the playoffs.

I was at the Devils game at San Jose and right after Blackwood stoned us and then got hurt, KK looked BRUTAL. A bunch of awful goals including to Smith and Miller.

 

[My3Sons]

Allen .906 sav%, 3.04 gaa

I'll be in favor of signing KK for next season and trading Allen

I don’t want to give up a second to MTL and to be fair Allen has been very good.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Allen .906 sav%, 3.04 gaa

I'll be in favor of signing KK for next season and trading Allen

We could probably get at least a 3rd rounder back for him given his tiny cap hit

 

[NjdevilfanJim]

Markstrom should not cost a lot. If he does you slam the phone down and tell Conroy to eat shit. His numbers have not been good since the TDL fiasco and he has a NMC. Then if you offer to take him at 100% of salary plus do the deal before July 1 you would be absorbing a pretty sizable bonus. So yeah you want siegenthaler and a 3rd?

He will cost 6 plus per the next two years and has come back to earth quick the last month or two...

 

[MadDevil]

Who though and at what cost?......

Saros, Markstrom, Ullmark. There are options. It may not be easy or cheap but gambling another season on "hey maybe these two backups can actually be good enough" shouldn't be a route Fitz is considering.

 

[Bleedred]

We all know “God I hope Grern is the coach next season and he can convince Fitz to bring back Vitek and Blackwood”.

WHO IS GRERN?

Better than Green, I'm sure!

 

[HughesCorporation]

whats wrong with marino? he looks like hes spent or disinterested

 

[Bleedred]

Allen .906 sav%, 3.04 gaa

I'll be in favor of signing KK for next season and trading Allen

I think you're not accounting for sample size here.

If Kahkonen had gotten more starts, you don't think he would have had a lower save percentage than he does now?

Allen had a .923% here until like 2 games ago. And Allen was also played at a rate that's much greater than he should be playing (Thanks Marty and goalie department! I LOVE YOU!) and at greater rate than he'll be playing next year.

At the best these goalies are probably a wash.

It's like when Corey Schwab had a .940% save percentage, which was considerably better than Marty's the same year, which probably had something to do with Schwab not even starting 10 games.

 

[RNCDevil]

Just home from the game. It was great to see some Devils fans and one guy was singled out on the scoreboard. Good work sir!

It was a meh game with a few positive moments. Holtz retrieved a couple pucks and fluffed a breakaway. Bratt made the biggest defensive hit against a Flyers player drawing raves from the Philly Phaithful, Timo's puck possession is really something to behold and Luke's pace is scary; and still so young.

It will get better.

 

[Bcap88]

Mercer needs a long hard look in the mirror this off season. He has been awful all year.

I didn’t get to watch the game but saw the only goal highlight.

Did he really try to do a between the legs touch pass to the middle of the ice ? Or was it a bad board bounce ?

 

[Guadana]

Team was still hoping to get Markstrom (a trade was even agreed) or maybe Saros. KK was also being slightly outplayed by Blackwood in SJ. No guarantee he is the kind of guy that can have success starting 50 games a year and in the playoffs.

I was at the Devils game at San Jose and right after Blackwood stoned us and then got hurt, KK looked BRUTAL. A bunch of awful goals including to Smith and Miller.

Markstrom is 89.7% goalie last two month 5 on 5. Kahkonen had good year overall. As Allen. Both cheap, Kahkonen is young. Markstrom already had bad year, we don’t need two potential years of old bad goalie. We already had it in previous year.

 

[RNCDevil]

Mercer needs a long hard look in the mirror this off season. He has been awful all year.

I didn’t get to watch the game but saw the only goal highlight.

Did he really try to do a between the legs touch pass to the middle of the ice ? Or was it a bad board bounce ?

Mercer went from a simple, smart player to trying to make a highlight reel pass EVERY single shift. He became quite frustrating to watch. I think he needs a summer off and some old tape review....and a new coach. I have hope for Dawg.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Saros, Markstrom, Ullmark. There are options. It may not be easy or cheap but gambling another season on "hey maybe these two backups can actually be good enough" shouldn't be a route Fitz is considering.

It’s a pretty tough situation. Nashville is going to ask for an unbelievable haul for Saros and probably won’t budge. And then we need to pay him. Markstrom is at a dangerous age, hasn’t been very good after the hot start and was awful last year. And he makes 6 million with term and they don’t seem keen on retaining. Ullmark has played over 40 games twice in his career, is 30, and needs to get paid too.

 

[NJDevs26]

Allen .906 sav%, 3.04 gaa

I'll be in favor of signing KK for next season and trading Allen

Kahkonen's stats would have been that underwhelming with more games too, we've seen it with Daws and Allen already this season, the more these guys get exposed to our 'defending' and in KK's case also lack of goal support, the worse it eventually gets.

 

[NJDevs26]

Saros, Markstrom, Ullmark. There are options. It may not be easy or cheap but gambling another season on "hey maybe these two backups can actually be good enough" shouldn't be a route Fitz is considering.

Put it this way, if he does he better spend the assets he's saving on a goalie for an all-star physical LD, which probably isn't available.

 

[Bleedred]

Kahkonen's stats would have been that underwhelming with more games too, we've seen it with Daws and Allen already this season, the more these guys get exposed to our 'defending' and in KK's case also lack of goal support, the worse it eventually gets.

I honestly think both guys are/were on a heater.

Allen's numbers have regressed down more to the goaltender he really is.

Kahkonen's probably would have if he played more.

In fact, I wouldn't be shocked if these goalies were reversed and Kahkonen played as many games as Allen has played and Allen played as few games as Kahkonen played, if the numbers were reversed.

I wouldn't be against Kahkonen here instead of Allen, but I honestly think it's one or the other. I don't honestly think Kahkonen is better than Allen, but they may be the same or about even.

I'd rather have Allen at $1.9 million next year than Kahkonen at $2.5 million or more. Maybe Kahkonen doesn't even get that much though. I'm not sure.

Kahkonen wasn't performing this well on San Jose, which he probably wasn't supposed to, as they're almost historically bad, but he wasn't playing horribly there either. He was probably average to slightly above average. Not last year he wasn't. He was abysmal.

 

[HersheyBob27]

Travis Green is without any doubt a significantly worse coach than Lindy Ruff. We may well have snuck in the playoffs if we didn’t make the change. The goalies have been more than good enough.

Sounds like a condemnation of the GM

 

[Guttersniped]

Allen .906 sav%, 3.04 gaa

I'll be in favor of signing KK for next season and trading Allen

Seriously? Goalies have better stats when our coaches don’t play them all the f***ing time

If we used these guys in a tandem Allen’s number would have been better but got with the hot hand! (And play that hot hand right into the ground.)

 

[MadDevil]

It’s a pretty tough situation. Nashville is going to ask for an unbelievable haul for Saros and probably won’t budge. And then we need to pay him. Markstrom is at a dangerous age, hasn’t been very good after the hot start and was awful last year. And he makes 6 million with term and they don’t seem keen on retaining. Ullmark has played over 40 games twice in his career, is 30, and needs to get paid too.

I agree, but at some point the goaltending needs an actual fix. Putting band-aids on it year after year and praying they hold enough to win isn't a viable long term plan, unless you're a team like Vegas that seems to be able to plug anybody in. If that's the plan, then they better bring in the right coach and depth to make us such a good team we can afford to cheap out in goal (relatively speaking anyway since I forgot Hill makes almost 5 million a year).

 

[Bleedred]

Travis Green is without any doubt a significantly worse coach than Lindy Ruff.

 

[Emperoreddy]

It's going to be a blessed day when the press release saying all the coaches are fired hits

 

[Emperoreddy]

It’s a pretty tough situation. Nashville is going to ask for an unbelievable haul for Saros and probably won’t budge. And then we need to pay him. Markstrom is at a dangerous age, hasn’t been very good after the hot start and was awful last year. And he makes 6 million with term and they don’t seem keen on retaining. Ullmark has played over 40 games twice in his career, is 30, and needs to get paid too.

I don't think Saros is going to be worth it as some of those trade chips are probably going to be needed for roster upgrades, whether it's a big winger for Jack or a top 4 D to push Siegs down the lineup.

Markstrom or Ullmark are risks but they will also be more cost controlled. Saros is going to cost the farm and f*** our cap up

 

[Bleedred]

Travis Green is without any doubt a significantly worse coach than Lindy Ruff. We may well have snuck in the playoffs if we didn’t make the change. The goalies have been more than good enough.

We probably still would have missed by a couple of points, which may be a bigger kick in the balls. Especially with the way our season series against the Capitals went, who we had already went 1-3-0 against and finished the season series with before Ruff was fired.

I could see us having lost today's game and that being the final kicker, whereas the final kicker definitely came weeks ago. The Buffalo game at the very latest.

It would have been interesting to see Ruff get a chance with the new goalie acquisitions. Thinking Ruff as a human, I'm sure he felt a giant kick in the balls when he found out the team acquired two new goalies 4 days after he was fired. That may have been a bigger insult to him than getting fired in the first place.

He was probably mercy fired after the chants started again. I was never for firing him just to promote Green. I still think Green as ASSOCIATE (remember that word, I'm sure they have more pull than just the plain old assistant coach) is to blame for a lot of the struggles this year, even before Ruff was fired. Just losing Brunette may not have been as big of a blow as losing Brunette and replacing him with Travis Green, who really shouldn't work in this league again, but I'm sure he will as an assistant. He may even get a head coaching job sooner than we think. I hope it's with one of our rivals, but it will most likely have to be with a bottom feeder if it's happening anytime soon, just like when David Quinn got a chance after the Rangers, but it was with the Sharks.