Around The League 2021 season - part VII

[VoidCreature]

As soon as I got on board with him being a bad coach Nashville started winning. You guys can blame me.

We clearly needed a change though.

 

[TheUnseenHand]

Hynes is still garbage.

 

[SpeakingOfTheDevils]

100 points in 53 games for McDavid.

40 goals in 53 games for Matthews.

Some crazy shit going on this year. Unbelievable.

 

[JrFischer54]

100 points in 53 games for McDavid.

40 goals in 53 games for Matthews.

Some crazy shit going on this year. Unbelievable.

giant * just like gionta and his 48 goals or cheehco and his 50+ Yes matthews and mcdavid are good but I doubt in a regular season we would’ve seen that type of production.

 

[JrFischer54]

Adding on...

They are paying Logan Couture (32) $8m AAV for 6 more years, Brent Burns (36) $8m AAV for 4 more years and Marc-Edouard Vlasic (34) $7m AAV for 5 more years. Christ are they in a bad spot.

No they aren’t. So they will be bad with a high cap hit as opposed to being bad with a low cap hit like us. There really isn’t a difference. Did us being a bottom cap team during all these years change our ability to not be bad? Nope just as being a high cap team won’t change theirs. Only difference is their billionaire owner has to pay more. One bright side is when these contracts get lower in years you could make an argument that they will be able to ship these pieces off for better quality assets

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

John Hynes made the playoffs, guess it wasn’t just his fault

John Hynes made the playoffs because of Juuse Saros

thats basically it

 

[Devils731]

One bright side is when these contracts get lower in years you could make an argument that they will be able to ship these pieces off for better quality assets

So it’s a positive that they have no hope of being good for years because their most expensive players aren’t good but in 3-5 seasons they can flip some of these guys for a 3rd round pick?

Edit: Though they likely won’t be able to get anything for those guys ever. Contracts are so long that they may be actively bad at a high dollar once the contract is short.

 

[Triumph]

So it’s a positive that they have no hope of being good for years because their most expensive players aren’t good but in 3-5 seasons they can flip some of these guys for a 3rd round pick?

Edit: Though they likely won’t be able to get anything for those guys ever. Contracts are so long that they may be actively bad at a high dollar once the contract is short.

I mean, hey, Shero took over in 2015 and it took the Devils almost 5 years to get a 2nd round pick for Andy Greene and maybe they got the equivalent of a 3rd for Travis Zajac after almost 6 years. Sounds like it worked out great for New Jersey.

 

[Call Me Al]

No they aren’t. So they will be bad with a high cap hit as opposed to being bad with a low cap hit like us. There really isn’t a difference. Did us being a bottom cap team during all these years change our ability to not be bad? Nope just as being a high cap team won’t change theirs. Only difference is their billionaire owner has to pay more. One bright side is when these contracts get lower in years you could make an argument that they will be able to ship these pieces off for better quality assets

there are actually a lot of differences between our situation and theirs but it’s hardly worth engaging

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

John Hynes made the playoffs because of Juuse Saros

thats basically it

Not sure what happened with Dallas too this year, weird year for them. In any case let's see how Hynes does in the 1st round, will he make proper adjustments or panic and have his team lose handily in 5?

 

[jkrdevil]

Not sure what happened with Dallas too this year, weird year for them. In any case let's see how Hynes does in the 1st round, will he make proper adjustments or panic and have his team lose handily in 5?

the schedule and injuries happened to Dallas. They missed the start of the season due to Covid, and then lost more games because Texas can’t manage its power grid properly. Combine that with guys like Seguin out a significant time and they barely missed.

 

[Guttersniped]

i don’t doubt he’d be good in certain situations with certain players but he was awful for us and should have been canned after the first week of last season. with all the hype going into the season he squandered it all in 3 games and it was obvious to anyone who was paying attention

Hell, Shero deserved to be fired just for sending Fitz down to observe Hynes for a month as an extra assistant HC instead of firing him after the awful start killed the team’s spirit. (And after Hall clearly checked out, played like garbage and was likely a locker-room cancer.) I don’t know what Ray thought the various future scenarios were other than him having to fire Hynes when it got ugly again.

I’ve mentioned it a bunch of times but I’m still flabbergasted by it, was he expecting Fitz to give him the thumbs up? And then he and Hynes would live happily ever after here in NJ?

The whole team had glassy eyed stares after those six game losses. I’m not a sky is falling, everything sucks, fire everybody type but man, for a smart guy Shero’s loyalty really effected his ability to read the room. Not upgrading the goaltending was playing with fire after spending a ton of assets pretending we were a good team. But leaving that coaching staff as is, our unimpressive old AHL coach, Hynes sidekick from the AHL Pens and Johnny four time loser was huge mistake too.

And here’s the thing, I don’t exactly know how good a coach Hynes is. Unless they’re great, like Lemaire or something, it’s not always easy to separate the talent of the players and the situation from the coach. I don’t think he’s a terrible coach, he was often knee-capped by terrible goaltending once the rest of the talent started to improve. But players can only lose so much with a one guy, especially if one of his main selling points is his being a good motivator.

 

[Guttersniped]

the schedule and injuries happened to Dallas. They missed the start of the season due to Covid, and then lost more games because Texas can’t manage its power grid properly. Combine that with guys like Seguin out a significant time and they barely missed.

Everyone overrated Dallas because of the bubble playoffs. We scored more goals then Dallas last season.
NJ 185 goals (25th) 2.68 GF/G (25th)
Dallas 178 goals (28th) 2.58 GF/G (26th)

edit: prematurely posted but, yeah, Dallas lived and died on it’s goaltending and defense last season. Like the NYI they were in a big slump when the season ended, that’s a tough way to survive and their offense disappears even more often than the Isles does.

 

[NJDevs26]

Only on HF would someone try to make the argument that having $40 million tied up in six hideous long-term contracts that aren't exactly going away in 2-3 years makes no difference in the speed or efficiency of a rebuild in a world with an $80 million cap.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Only on HF would someone try to make the argument that having $40 million tied up in six hideous long-term contracts that aren't exactly going away in 2-3 years makes no difference in the speed or efficiency of a rebuild in a world with an $80 million cap.

IDK SJ's spot isn't far from where LA was 3 years ago, now LA looks pretty loaded. Guys like Hertl and Meier can be definitely moved for futures, they will wait out the bad deals and stockpile assets. If they get lottery luck in 3 years they will start to be interesting. All that deadweight really might not matter too much. On the margin they can't do stuff like sell cap space for draft picks, or sign 1 year deals and try to trade them for draft picks, but those moves don't seem to move the needle much regardless.

 

[NJDevs26]

You pretty much have no margin for error in drafting when your main pieces are contracts you can't trade for one reason or another, and the Kings seem to have hit on just about every pick - but we haven't seen these guys on the pro level yet either.

It also makes it harder to bottom out completely if you have too many vet players who are good enough to keep you from bottoming out but not good enough to justify their contracts or have trade value.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

You pretty much have no margin for error in drafting when your main pieces are contracts you can't trade and the Kings seem to have hit on just about every pick, but we haven't seen these guys on the pro level yet either.

Well Hertl and Meier can definitely be moved at least for futures. They have a few other players with debatable trade value. It's not ideal but people seem to be in consensus that the only way to rebuild is through the draft so, collect draft picks and try to get lucky I guess what else is there to do? Having cap space doesn't seem to matter when rebuilding (except for when your young studs' ELC end) and having bad contracts seems overrated in terms of the harm it brings you.

 

[JrFischer54]

So it’s a positive that they have no hope of being good for years because their most expensive players aren’t good but in 3-5 seasons they can flip some of these guys for a 3rd round pick?

Edit: Though they likely won’t be able to get anything for those guys ever. Contracts are so long that they may be actively bad at a high dollar once the contract is short.

Even if that happens it doesn’t matter like I said they will be a bad high cap hit team. No different then a bad low cap team like us

 

[JrFischer54]

Only on HF would someone try to make the argument that having $40 million tied up in six hideous long-term contracts that aren't exactly going away in 2-3 years makes no difference in the speed or efficiency of a rebuild in a world with an $80 million cap.

if that was the case how are we currently going on year what 8 of our rebuild when we had no cap

 

[JrFischer54]

You pretty much have no margin for error in drafting when your main pieces are contracts you can't trade for one reason or another, and the Kings seem to have hit on just about every pick - but we haven't seen these guys on the pro level yet either.

It also makes it harder to bottom out completely if you have too many vet players who are good enough to keep you from bottoming out but not good enough to justify their contracts or have trade value.

pretty sure if you are finishing in the bottom 5 of the nhl you need to hit on your draft picks regardless of how much cap space you have tied up. Again did us having little cap space used make any of our early round picks less important to hit on? Answer is no

 

[NJDevs26]

if that was the case how are we currently going on year what 8 of our rebuild when we had no cap

Because it's year six of actually trying to rebuild and I have criticized Shero for not taking enough advantage of using the cap space we had to expedite the process in the first four.

 

[JrFischer54]

there are actually a lot of differences between our situation and theirs but it’s hardly worth engaging

Sure there might be difference but that’s not going to change the end result both teams will have x amount of time rebuilding cap isn’t going to change that. Sharks having 100 million in salary isn’t going to make their rebuild go slower then a team with 50 million. What makes the difference is what they do with their draft picks.

 

[JrFischer54]

Because it's year six of actually trying to rebuild and I have criticized Shero for not taking enough advantage of using the cap space we had to expedite the process in the first four.

it takes two to tango. The market is never what hf thinks it will be for these “weaponized cap” trades everyone dreams of. Then even if you find it you still have to run it past your owners who went to shell out $$$ for those picks or prospects. The fact that there are other bottom cap teams willing to take on cap dumps you will never get the return you dream of

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

No they aren’t. So they will be bad with a high cap hit as opposed to being bad with a low cap hit like us. There really isn’t a difference. Did us being a bottom cap team during all these years change our ability to not be bad? Nope just as being a high cap team won’t change theirs. Only difference is their billionaire owner has to pay more. One bright side is when these contracts get lower in years you could make an argument that they will be able to ship these pieces off for better quality assets

This is absurd

how can you possibly think that a bad team with no cap space is the same as a bad team with a boatload of cap space?

they also do not have nearly the promising young players that the Devils do

 

[JrFischer54]

This is absurd

how can you possibly think that a bad team with no cap space is the same as a bad team with a boatload of cap space?

They didn’t have those prospects 6 years ago when they started the rebuild just like the sharks now.