2021 Binghamton Devils and ECHL talk

[NJDevs26]

Not sure if there even is an ECHL this year but the other thread was at about 1000 so continue

Click to read more...

 

[Tao Jersey Jones]

Not sure if there even is an ECHL this year but the other thread was at about 1000 so continue

Affiliate Adirondack opted out this season.

Binghamton has loaned Colby Sissons to the Florida Everblades who should make the playoffs, and loaned Brandon Gignac the the Jacksonville Icemen who will probably miss the playoffs. Gignac last played on 4/9 and was placed on reserve 4/10.

Other NHL/AHL contracted players can be loaned to ECHL clubs before May 16th and play five games before season's end on June 5th to be eligible for the Kelly Cup playoffs.

 

[My3Sons]

Affiliate Adirondack opted out this season.

Binghamton has loaned Colby Sissons to the Florida Everblades who should make the playoffs, and loaned Brandon Gignac the the Jacksonville Icemen who will probably miss the playoffs. Gignac last played on 4/9 and was placed on reserve 4/10.

Other NHL/AHL contracted players can be loaned to ECHL clubs before May 16th and play five games before season's end on June 5th to be eligible for the Kelly Cup playoffs.

Thanks so much for sharing the minor league updates. Very much appreciated.....

 

[Jason MacIsaac]

As posted in the Holtz thread, this is a little better roster than in recent weeks.

Holtz - Street - Clarke
Martel - Seney - Zetterlund
Greer - Schnarr - Thompson
Thomson/Talvitie - Schmelzer - St Denis

Bahl - Walsh
Okhotiuk - Jacobs
Vukojevic - Carrick
Hellickson​

 

[Guadana]

As posted in the Holtz thread, this is a little better roster than in recent weeks.

Holtz - Street - Clarke
Martel - Seney - Zetterlund
Greer - Schnarr - Thompson
Thomson/Talvitie - Schmelzer - St Denis

Bahl - Walsh
Okhotiuk - Jacobs
Vukojevic - Carrick
Hellickson​

I don’t know why you didn’t put White in this roster. Only thing I can do is agree with you. Watched couple of past games. He isn’t good even on ahl level.

 

[My3Sons]

I don’t know why you didn’t put White in this roster. Only thing I can do is agree with you. Watched couple of past games. He isn’t good even on ahl level.

So, next season, assuming NJ signs a couple of vets for a season to play on the wings, the right side in Bingo/Utica can look like:

Holtz
Mercer
Clarke

Similarly if another stopgap vet is signed in NJ and Siegenthaler is given next season to show he belongs on at least a third pair, the left defense in Bingo/Utica can look like:

Okhotiyuk
Vukojevic
Bahl

Those are two nicely stacked positions from a prospect perspective. Hopefully NJ can add some right defenders and left wings in the draft this season.

 

[Jason MacIsaac]

I don’t know why you didn’t put White in this roster. Only thing I can do is agree with you. Watched couple of past games. He isn’t good even on ahl level.

I forgot about him but really, he has been terrible every game I have watched.

 

[OmNomNom]

 

[Guttersniped]

I don’t know why you didn’t put White in this roster. Only thing I can do is agree with you. Watched couple of past games. He isn’t good even on ahl level.

During Bing’s run last season White was paired a lot with Cumiskey, a 30 something tweener vet now playing in Germany.

Jacobs was paired a lot with Mermis until the big club swapped him out with Tennyson. Jacobs was mostly paired Cumiskey when White got Tennyson at the end, though Jacobs got a few games with Sissons.

The young FA signing Groleau played a little with Jacobs but he was paired a lot with Melchiori, another well traveled tweener vet whose also taken his talents to Germany. Paliotta was another tweener vet, who is not playing in Germany and may be most memorable for being the tall righthanded one. (I think Jacobs and Tennyson were the only two other righties in this mess.) He was paired with Melchiori at the end.

The point is Jacobs, White and Groleau all played with a whole crew of professional tweener AHL defensemen last season, particularly at the back half. And Mermis and Tennyson are pretty high end ones, Mermis played great when he was called up. I’m guessing life got a lot more difficult for them without these type of guys around. I guess this season is stark reminder of why those guys aren’t really considered viable prospects. I’m guessing the younger guys who look good this season would look even better paired with a vet like Mermis. (We don’t really have the extra space for more tweener vets, I’m not complaining I’m just pointing out their absence.)

 

[Tao Jersey Jones]

Does this mean the twitter account is not going to follow the remaining games?

Rob Lippolis is a Tom Mitchell employee not an HSBE employee. No more broadcasts?

 

[Tao Jersey Jones]

As posted in the Holtz thread, this is a little better roster than in recent weeks.

Holtz - Street - Clarke
Martel - Seney - Zetterlund
Greer - Schnarr - Thompson
Thomson/Talvitie - Schmelzer - St Denis

Bahl - Walsh
Okhotiuk - Jacobs
Vukojevic - Carrick
Hellickson​

Hopefully Okhotiuk and Street are good to go.

 

[Guttersniped]

Does this mean the twitter account is not going to follow the remaining games?

Rob Lippolis is a Tom Mitchell employee not an HSBE employee. No more broadcasts?

I assume they are contractually required to finish out this season in terms of broadcasts and the announcement is for STH and people interested in attending games when they came back. It would be pretty wild if the Twitter account was shut down but maybe that’s also part of the contractual agreement.

 

[Tao Jersey Jones]

The New Jersey Devils opted to station their AHL affiliate in Newark for the abbreviated 2021 season, in deference to COVID-19 concerns — a fact Binghamton Mayor Rich David directly relates to the B-Devils’ departure.

“It’s disappointing but not surprising,” David said. “A couple months ago when the team made the announcement that they wouldn’t be playing in Binghamton, I was very concerned. I made some statements at that time that once a team leaves, the likelihood of them returning drops significantly. The message that was given at the time by county officials was, don’t worry, they’ll be back, this is just temporary. I’ve seen this movie before.”

He added, “This is what I worried about, that either they would stay downstate or they would relocate somewhere else. Now my understanding is that they are going to Utica and that the Utica team is going out west. One of the primary reasons that Utica was so attractive was a series of high-profile investments made recently in their facility.”

Binghamton Devils will cease to exist effective the 2021-22 AHL season

 

[Darkauron]

Like yeah I feel a bit sorry for Bing but all I hear from them is a bunch of vague stuff about NJ putting unrealistic expectations on them ect ect. Hard for me to really feel any one way with out more information of what happened.

 

[Tao Jersey Jones]

Like yeah I feel a bit sorry for Bing but all I hear from them is a bunch of vague stuff about NJ putting unrealistic expectations on them ect ect. Hard for me to really feel any one way with out more information of what happened.

Apparently Robert Esche was able to meet the "impossible demands" that Tom Mitchell couldn't make happen.

 

[UticaHockey]

Apparently Robert Esche was able to meet the "impossible demands" that Tom Mitchell couldn't make happen.

Pure speculation on my part but I wonder if this had to do with not playing this season in Binghamton and what the real story is. Was it a decision by NJ to proactively move the B-Devils to Newark or did Tom Mitchell push back on the idea of playing in Binghamton with little to no ticket revenue?

I think Robert Esche won himself a lot of goodwill within the hockey community when he decided to opt in this season knowing it would be financially difficult. Not only did he give the Canucks prospects a place to play but the Comets also worked out an agreement with St Louis to send players to Utica because their AHL affiliate in Springfield opted out this season. If Esche had decided to not have the Utica Comets participate this year it would likely have been the end of AHL hockey in Utica.

 

[PizzaAndPucks]

It sucks to see the Devils farm team moving around so much. I for one miss going up to Albany to see them play, especially during the lockout year in 2012-13. That being said their attendance in Albany was really bad and it made sense to move to Binghamton. Better Hockey city and a smaller building that probably had better attendance. I really wanted to go see them play on the road up in Utica (which is a 3 hour drive from where Iive by Poughkeepsie, NY). Was hard to get people to go because of the limited games they played there on the road but now that they are moving there I cant wait to make the trip up there. The Utica Auditorium looks like a fantastic smaller arena to watch some hockey. The ceiling kind of reminds me of MSG with its design too. Feel bad for Binghamton fans but looking forward to the Devils future up in Utica.

 

[UticaHockey]

Just another thought. We will never know the full financial details of these NHL/AHL affiliation contracts because of non disclosure agreements but it is probably a good guess that Vancouver lowered the cost to Esche this season. Especially since Vancouver supplied the Comets with fewer player this year and St Louis supplied the other half of the roster. Maybe New Jersey didn't offer to lower the affiliation fee to Mitchell which could be "unrealistic expectations" he refers to.

 

[TheDuke93]

So, next season, assuming NJ signs a couple of vets for a season to play on the wings, the right side in Bingo/Utica can look like:

Holtz
Mercer
Clarke

Similarly if another stopgap vet is signed in NJ and Siegenthaler is given next season to show he belongs on at least a third pair, the left defense in Bingo/Utica can look like:

Okhotiyuk
Vukojevic
Bahl

Those are two nicely stacked positions from a prospect perspective. Hopefully NJ can add some right defenders and left wings in the draft this season.

We 100% retooled the LD and RW and they are positions of strength. I think we hit RD and LW hard this draft and swing for the fences on some later picks because players will fall. The best part about all of this is that it's before factoring in the litany of high character and high compete guys in the system like Pytlik, Thompson, Gritsyuk, Moynihan, Talvitie, Studenic and Pasic. Or Foote, Boqvist and Mukhamadullin who all have a legitimate chance to make a serious impact in a top 9/6 roll at the NHL level with Mukhamadullin having two-way top pairing upside.

 

[RSeen]

We 100% retooled the LD and RW and they are positions of strength. I think we hit RD and LW hard this draft and swing for the fences on some later picks because players will fall. The best part about all of this is that it's before factoring in the litany of high character and high compete guys in the system like Pytlik, Thompson, Gritsyuk, Moynihan, Talvitie, Studenic and Pasic. Or Foote, Boqvist and Mukhamadullin who all have a legitimate chance to make a serious impact in a top 9/6 roll at the NHL level with Mukhamadullin having two-way top pairing upside.

That is pretty optimistic for Muk...I don't believe he is widely regarded as being a top prospect.

 

[TheDuke93]

That is pretty optimistic for Muk...I don't believe he is widely regarded as being a top prospect.

The kid can skate, has displayed imo good iq, is big, has underrated hands and a big shot. I don't really care if he is widely regarded as a top prospect because he has all the tools of one. Not giving you shit or anything like that, I just think as @StevenToddIves pointed out about scouting bias, if he was Swedish he would probably be considered a great prospect with immense IQ.

 

[Nubmer6]

That is pretty optimistic for Muk...I don't believe he is widely regarded as being a top prospect.

I think he's divisive. Some writers seem to really like him and others really think it was a horrible pick.

 

[Eye of Ra]

Have Zetterlund been good?

 

[Guttersniped]

I think he's divisive. Some writers seem to really like him and others really think it was a horrible pick.

He’s still too boom or bust to be a blue chip prospect.

Going by his comments and those from his coach, he sounds very coachable, very driven to better and make the nhl, and a hard worker. (If anything it’s sounds likes he might be too hard on himself which might be the cause of frustration or overthinking things when struggling.)

Learning all that about him made more optimistic, and he certainly doesn’t deserve the derision that came from some people because one dude at web site decided he was worst thing ever in game in Juniors tournament in Dec ‘19 or whatever.

I won’t lie, it would very satisfying if this kid succeeded just so his weirdo critics could be constantly reminded of what they said about him in 2020.

 

[NJ Fan 12]

That is pretty optimistic for Muk...I don't believe he is widely regarded as being a top prospect.

Widely regarded by whom? Russia's top defenseman at the WJC and a regular in the KHL as an 18-year-old. While no prospect is 100% guaranteed to reach his potential, all of his progress to this point suggests the future is bright for him.