Around The League 2020-21 off-season

[Bleedred]

The fact that we signed Crawford and not some JAG like Aaron Dell, tells me management wants to at least be somewhat competitive.

I think at worst we should probably be no worse than the first Hynes/Shero year. We should probably be a bit better though, because that team wasn’t any good either. It just had an elite version of Schneider, a career year from Adam Henrique and Lee Stempniak really overachieving. That team also had no bottom 6, other than Bobby Farnham and his 8 fluky goals.

 

[NJDevs26]

Its:
Hall ---> Nobody
Coleman ---> Johnsson
Vatanen ---> Murray
Greene ---> Kulikov
Schneider ---> Crawford

I give them -10 points for the season from roster changes and +20 point to the season for coaching changes.

I’d say coaching staff +10, goalie improvement +10, other skaters -10, harder schedule -10 so a little better perhaps but it probably won’t show in the record because of the schedule situation.

 

[Brodeur]

Qualifying offer after the second year might be a little ugly.

Also was amused be an Athletic article today which suggested that Boston should sign Mikhail Sergachev to a 6.5 mil AAV offer sheet. A couple hours later they re-sign DeBrusk and have about 3 mil in cap space to work with.

 

[VoidCreature]

Its:
Hall ---> Nobody
Coleman ---> Johnsson
Vatanen ---> Murray
Greene ---> Kulikov
Schneider ---> Crawford

I give them -10 points for the season from roster changes and +20 point to the season for coaching changes.

No coach in the league is worth 10 wins. According to GAR, Connor McDavid is worth 4.

If there were such a coach, he'd be the highest paid man in the sport by leaps and bounds.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

10 points is 5 wins, not 10.

 

[Goptor]

No coach in the league is worth 10 wins. According to GAR, Connor McDavid is worth 4.

If there were such a coach, he'd be the highest paid man in the sport by leaps and bounds.

Hynes is easily worth -15 points. He even managed to take a talented Nashville team to lose to Arizona.

 

[Billdo]

I think people are underestimating how much a league average backup goaltender would've changed last years team. If we didn't have the absolute suckage that Domingue and Cory provided we would have had a few more points. We were "only" behind MTL by 3 points for a play in spot.

 

[tailfins]

I think people are underestimating how much a league average backup goaltender would've changed last years team. If we didn't have the absolute suckage that Domingue and Cory provided we would have had a few more points. We were "only" behind MTL by 3 points for a play in spot.

Based on points percentage, as I understand it, if the devils had won their last game, they would have been in the play in round.

 

[BurntToast]

A few months ago everyone was raving about Blackwood’s second half numbers. This team started off great but everything was bad from the 2nd half of the Jets game, until Hall was traded, and the coach/GM were fired. Remember, Goose’s first half? It was terrible. Hynes refused to play Bratt. Greene lost many steps. Vats was injured. The only real loss was Coleman. It will be a young team but lets hope some of Bing Devils’ juju wears off on the NHL roster.

 

[glenwo2]

But we got to play the bad teams last year. If this format holds, we won't be visiting the Detroits and Arizonas to get cheap wins.

Yep. We could end up with another Top 10 pick in the next draft again.

 

[glenwo2]

Based on points percentage, as I understand it, if the devils had won their last game, they would have been in the play in round.

Meh. That's okay.

I prefer Holtz to having no chance in hell of winning a Cup.

 

[njdevils1982]

10 points is 5 wins, not 10.

25 or 6 to 4?

 

[VoidCreature]

10 points is 5 wins, not 10.

And +20 points from coaching is 10 wins.

 

[Guttersniped]

The fact that we signed Crawford and not some JAG like Aaron Dell, tells me management wants to at least be somewhat competitive.

I think at worst we should probably be no worse than the first Hynes/Shero year. We should probably be a bit better though, because that team wasn’t any good either. It just had an elite version of Schneider, a career year from Adam Henrique and Lee Stempniak really overachieving. That team also had no bottom 6, other than Bobby Farnham and his 8 fluky goals.

Cammalleri was terrific with 38 points in 42 games until he got some complicated hand injury that knocked him for the year and continued to be an issue later on. Those stats don’t even do Cammy justice because he tried to play with the injury, he was still getting assists but he literally stopped getting any shots on goal in his last several games before he was shut down for the season.

It was the double 30 goal season of Henrique and new arrival Palms which was part of very productive power play that was 9th best in the league. Another strength was, shockingly, the defense because it was by far Larsson’s best year and David Schlemko was very solid as the random one year defensive fill-in wonder. Schneider was the MVP again obviously, and even though Kinky wasn’t particularly good, the team was stingy and 23rd in goals against.

That was a pretty enjoyable season overall despite some tough losing streaks. When the kids got to play more it was the most we ever got out of Boucher and Blandisi for what that’s worth LOL. We had trouble scoring but not getting lit up like a Christmas tree because of terrible goaltending is always a treat so hopefully the new tandem is a real strength.

Some of my nostalgia for that season may stem from the fact that the season ending game against Toronto is one my favorite all time memories as Devils fan. It was the debut of Zacha and Wood, with Henrique hitting 30 goals with 2 that game, then Palmieri hitting 30 with a goal and then Elias ending it with a goal which was so satisfying it almost felt scripted.

 

[JrFischer54]

The shortened, condensed schedule + the Devils' having two great goaltenders should make them challenge for a playoff spot. If the team is clearly better this year it will mostly be due to Crawford/Ruff/Hughes imo. Still a very real chance they stink again next year, sell Palmieri/Gusev at the deadline to the highest bidders and seem 3 years away from being even competitive.

there is legit 0% chance this team is in a playoff hunt unless covid strikes teams down. only way they could compete is if they catch fire like they did first year under hynes but still that took a massive effort to just hit the 8th seed on game 81!