Devils 2018-19 team discussion (news and notes) - part XVIII

[MadDevil]

Your right I guess we can just judge him by his success here? Which surprisingly is pretty loooooooong time ago too. Weird right

We were one of the winningest teams in the league for the better part of two decades. You're digging up the years in there that we didn't win the Cup or get to the Final as "failures", which is ridiculous given there were also 3 Cups and 5 total Cup Final appearances over that span.

If you want to be critical of him post 2012 playoff run, which many of us are, that's perfectly understandable.

 

[Bleedred]

Your right I guess we can just judge him by his success here? Which surprisingly is pretty loooooooong time ago too. Weird right

Fine. He was bad here the better part of his last decade.

But using some of his low points here that happened during our highest times as a franchise is a poor way to illustrate what Lou did wrong here. There's enough material later in his Devils tenure that you don't need to even touch things that happened 16-19 years before (and preceded multiple cups in between one prior cup) his tenure ended.

I would say the 96 playoff miss and the 97-99 disappointments and floundering's were the catalysts for moves Lou made to get us a cup winner in 2000. Same goes for the disappointing 2002 first round exit team, which was the catalyst that brought about changes for the 2003 cup winner. After that? It was mostly downhill, not all downhill, but downhill by the previous standards Lou had set. Certainly not downhill for a team that had little success in franchise history, but a bit downhill for what we were.

 

[NJDevs26]

Yeah it's one thing to rag on even the post-lockout record but some of this is pure hater nonsense...if you're gonna rag Lou for the team being upset in the playoffs a few times in the 1990's, then show me the GM who hasn't ever had playoff upsets or dissapointing seasons. What GM would you put over him in the last 30 years? Stan Bowman and Ken Holland are the only ones you can make an argument for and you can poke as many swiss cheese holes in Holland's resume - a lot of playoff upsets there, won his first Cup inheriting the defending champ and another with the best team money could buy in 2002. If Bowman was your GM you'd be ragging on how he mismanaged the cap after the three Cups and trading guys like Panarin. Everyone else you could poke worse holes in.

 

[jkrdevil]

Lou’s work in 2012 in building that team throughout the year was brilliant and a text book case of how a GM can take an ok team and turn them into a good to great team by making some savvy depth moves.

In fairness to him the post-Marty plan was there in plain site, it just blew up because of financials. One does have to wonder how the early 2010’s playout if Lehman Brothers and the Financial crisis doesn’t happen.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Lou’s work in 2012 in building that team throughout the year was brilliant and a text book case of how a GM can take an ok team and turn them into a good to great team by making some savvy depth moves.

In fairness to him the post-Marty plan was there in plain site, it just blew up because of financials. One does have to wonder how the early 2010’s playout if Lehman Brothers and the Financial crisis doesn’t happen.

Honestly it’s very debatable if it would have worked post-2012. If everything went his way both Zach and Kovy would be signed to some huge contracts. You wouldn’t have known at the time, but in hindsight avoiding those contracts was a good thing. Neither guy was able to live up to it.

In hindsight that might have left us like the Kings are now, but without the cups to fall back on.

 

[NJDevs26]

Yeah if we're really being honest I'd say the post-2012 team would have died a slower death, probably would have made the playoffs a couple more times but it would have been uglier in the end. If people think Lou left the team in bad shape after 2015 with few bad contracts imagine Lou leaving after say 2016 or 2017 with those two contracts eating up cap space and someone not named Shero as the GM.

 

[glenwo2]

If the NJD drafts Hughes and signs Panarin then we win the offseason. You can’t have much better an offseason.

If they get to draft Hughes, we win the offseason.

Any other signings would only be window-dressing as far as I'm concerned.

Panarin would be a nice signing but the main prize would be Hughes.

 

[Bleedred]

Lou’s work in 2012 in building that team throughout the year was brilliant and a text book case of how a GM can take an ok team and turn them into a good to great team by making some savvy depth moves.

In fairness to him the post-Marty plan was there in plain site, it just blew up because of financials. One does have to wonder how the early 2010’s playout if Lehman Brothers and the Financial crisis doesn’t happen.

I think the best part of that year was that he got rid of a lot of the deadweight in Pelley and Fraser, which was long overdue. He flipped for another bad player, but not quite as bad a player in Kurtis Foster. Then Foster and a bunch of fodder were flipped for Zidlicky, which was a steal trade, probably because Zidlicky had Minnesota handcuffed and it leaked that he was publicly lobbying to come to New Jersey. The Ponikarovsky deal was really good too, because our bottom 6 was brutal that year. Mostly because Tedenby was trash and Josefson's injury. Josefson's injury might have been one of the best things that happened that year, because if not for that, Henrique doesn't get his chance and with how bad Josefson was at offense, we would have suffered for it and scored fewer goals because of it.

Honestly it’s very debatable if it would have worked post-2012. If everything went his way both Zach and Kovy would be signed to some huge contracts. You wouldn’t have known at the time, but in hindsight avoiding those contracts was a good thing. Neither guy was able to live up to it.

In hindsight that might have left us like the Kings are now, but without the cups to fall back on.

The problem with Zach's contract is how long the term is. If that contract were only 7-8 years, we would either be in the final year of it or the second to final year of it. I think Zach at $8 million for 7-8 years wouldn't have been a bad contract. It would have seemed high at the time it was signed, at least the cap hit would have, but it would have worked out okay, since he still seems to be good, but has also struggled to stay healthy.

The fact that contract is 13 years long and there's still 6 more years left of it (that contract is only halfway as of a few months ago) is really a killer.

Kovalchuk is still a useful (but not great) player, but for how many more years? That contract would still have 6 more years left on it too. Zach turns 35 this summer and Kovy turns 36 about a week or so after the regular season ends.

 

[SpeakingOfTheDevils]

Severson's progression and Smith's potential emergence next season really helps Shero in terms of his to-do list this summer regarding the defense. The goal is to add a steady, defensive top-4 LHD; beyond that, I don't think there is room for much else, if we're planning on incorporating Smith.

XXX - Severson
Smith - Vatanen
Greene - Butcher
Santini

That isn't that bad, especially if you consider many of Severson's warts will be masked by his new, defensively stable partner.

 

[SpeakingOfTheDevils]

If they get to draft Hughes, we win the offseason.

Any other signings would only be window-dressing as far as I'm concerned.

Panarin would be a nice signing but the main prize would be Hughes.

Or Kakko. Hughes may be the consensus 1OA, but Kakko would still be a godsend for this franchise.

Imagine his Laine-lite shot opposite Hall and next to Hischier? One-timers for eternity.

 

[Scooooooooooooot]

I'm sorry - before 2017, did you think Blake Coleman would ever score 20 goals? Did you think Stefan Noesen was an NHL regular? Did you know who Jesper Bratt was? Did you think Brian Gibbons would add 26 points? Did you think that Will Butcher would just step into an NHL role? Did you think we'd get 13 goals from Boyle and anything from Pavel Zacha? Kinky? Even just the fact that we had guys play 70 or 80 games when they hadn't in the past and we had to sit Mueller and Santini speaks volumes over what we looked at this year. Zajac had his best year in a while at both ends of the ice and bounced back from a year where we were pounding him on a daily basis on this board as being done.

Maybe 'career' years wasn't the proper word choice - but the point was we got some WAY over-the-top unexpected production from unproven sources. Seriously, a perfect storm of all things going right for about 20 of our guys.

As great as everything went last year, injuries and just regressions to the mean were the story this year - and the team had no depth (or maybe no drive) to compete and overcome, and our goalies paid the price.

Yes I knew who Bratt was before the year since he was very impressive in preseason, Coleman scored 20+ goals this year not last year. Boyle has scored more goals this year than last, Zacha was a 6th overall pick and was even more inconsistent last year than this year. Gibbons had a career first 40 games and then was irrelevent in the second half but he did provide a spark early on. Butcher definitely was better last year and so was wood in terms of goal scoring. Zajac was pretty bad last year so that's just an insane statement, clearly he struggled to get back to his game after injury and he has even said that. Many players are having better years this year which is basically my point. Bratt, Nico, Palmieri, Coleman, Zajac, Severson, Boyle (until he left) all having better years this year. Goaltending and injuries to me are the two biggest problems we had this year and not the fact that players had better years last year.

 

[JrFischer54]

We were one of the winningest teams in the league for the better part of two decades. You're digging up the years in there that we didn't win the Cup or get to the Final as "failures", which is ridiculous given there were also 3 Cups and 5 total Cup Final appearances over that span.

If you want to be critical of him post 2012 playoff run, which many of us are, that's perfectly understandable.

its not digging up anything.

03/04 finished 2nd in division 100pt season 1st round ko
05/06 finished 1st in division 101pt season 2nd round ko
06/07 finished 1st in division 107pt season 2nd round ko
07/08 finished 2nd in division 99pt season 1st round ko
08/09 finished 1st in division 106pt season 1st round ko
09/10 finished first in division 103pt season 1st round ko

those are legit great regular seasons some are top 5 in the nhl during that span and you can't get past the first round more then a couple times? can't get past the second round ever?

and going back which people say why? i say why not? those playoff flops in the late 90s? the devils were the second best team in the nhl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! both years! lol i'm sure i would've brought it up back then if this place was around lol.

you can't just cherry pick the good with lou i'm sorry. he got us 3 cups yes but theres also a lot of bad mixed in there to go with a HORRIBLE last 4 years

 

[JrFischer54]

Fine. He was bad here the better part of his last decade.

But using some of his low points here that happened during our highest times as a franchise is a poor way to illustrate what Lou did wrong here. There's enough material later in his Devils tenure that you don't need to even touch things that happened 16-19 years before (and preceded multiple cups in between one prior cup) his tenure ended.

I would say the 96 playoff miss and the 97-99 disappointments and floundering's were the catalysts for moves Lou made to get us a cup winner in 2000. Same goes for the disappointing 2002 first round exit team, which was the catalyst that brought about changes for the 2003 cup winner. After that? It was mostly downhill, not all downhill, but downhill by the previous standards Lou had set. Certainly not downhill for a team that had little success in franchise history, but a bit downhill for what we were.

thats fine i can get behind that. but after the 03 run he gets an F. i'm sorry but we became the capitals before they won the cup during that span. constantly finishing in the upper parts of the standings and not being able to get past the 2nd round with the greatest goalie of all time in his prime? thats just bad GM right there. if lou didn't have the cups to live off of i wouldn't have been shocked if he wasn't booted probably sometime after the suter fiasco

 

[Triumph]

The Devils weren't one of the best teams in the league in the late 00s decade. Their results were inflated by their record in overtime and shootouts and the fact that they played their goalie an insane amount.

In shootouts from 2006 to 2010, the Devils were 39-23. They were 25-13 in games decided in overtime. Overall, this means they were +28 points in 4 on 4 OT and shootout, situations that do not exist in the playoffs. Count all games going to OT as ties, the Devils were 176-134-72. Which is obviously good, but not great.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Yes I knew who Bratt was before the year since he was very impressive in preseason, Coleman scored 20+ goals this year not last year. Boyle has scored more goals this year than last, Zacha was a 6th overall pick and was even more inconsistent last year than this year. Gibbons had a career first 40 games and then was irrelevent in the second half but he did provide a spark early on. Butcher definitely was better last year and so was wood in terms of goal scoring. Zajac was pretty bad last year so that's just an insane statement, clearly he struggled to get back to his game after injury and he has even said that. Many players are having better years this year which is basically my point. Bratt, Nico, Palmieri, Coleman, Zajac, Severson, Boyle (until he left) all having better years this year. Goaltending and injuries to me are the two biggest problems we had this year and not the fact that players had better years last year.

Zajac was not bad last year, he had a slow start after a major injury and then played great hockey to close out the season. Zajac has been very good since 2015. 0.5 ppg with providing top end defensive play. If you ignore his first 20 games after injury last season he is actually around 0.57 ppg since 2015.

Travis did a great job to transform himself in order to adapt to this faster NHL. He lost some muscle mass in order to be a quicker skater but it did not effect his board or zone play. He has been great for us for the last few seasons. I hope he can continue this into his twilight years of his career.

 

[Scooooooooooooot]

Zajac was not bad last year, he had a slow start after a major injury and then played great hockey to close out the season. Zajac has been very good since 2015. 0.5 ppg with providing top end defensive play. If you ignore his first 20 games after injury last season he is actually around 0.57 ppg since 2015.

Travis did a great job to transform himself in order to adapt to this faster NHL. He lost some muscle mass in order to be a quicker skater but it did not effect his board or zone play. He has been great for us for the last few seasons. I hope he can continue this into his twilight years of his career.

Can't ignore that, I agree with what you said but if you play bad for 1/3 of the season and miss 1/4 of the season due to injury then you had a down year. The guy was saying Travis played his best year in a while last year which I cannot agree with. I love Trav and he's actually having his best year in a long time this year, but I can't agree with the point of him having his best year in a while last year when Travis admits he struggled for a large part of the year after missing a big chunk of it.

 

[zharkenby]

Im actually really growing on Kevin Rooney as a 4c for us.

Really knows how to let his wrister go, and actually has a pretty quick first step. I expect him to start with the big club next year. Probably the only guy I actually like that we called up this year. Gabriel is a fine 13th forward.

 

[New Jersey Devils]

Im actually really growing on Kevin Rooney as a 4c for us.

Really knows how to let his wrister go, and actually has a pretty quick first step. I expect him to start with the big club next year. Probably the only guy I actually like that we called up this year. Gabriel is a fine 13th forward.

Gabriel is a great guy and all, but he shouldn't be anywhere an NHL roster.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Can't ignore that, I agree with what you said but if you play bad for 1/3 of the season and miss 1/4 of the season due to injury then you had a down year. The guy was saying Travis played his best year in a while last year which I cannot agree with. I love Trav and he's actually having his best year in a long time this year, but I can't agree with the point of him having his best year in a while last year when Travis admits he struggled for a large part of the year after missing a big chunk of it.

He’s actually been great since 2013-2014, only blemish was that awful 2014-2015 season and thats when he really started to transform his game. I think that contract ended up to be fair value.

 

[SpeakingOfTheDevils]

Rooney has played 30 games this year. That was in reference to the recent players (if you can call them that) that we've recalled. Not sure why you feel the need to nitpick. If you don't have any input on a post, there's a good chance nobody wants to read your response.

That's not what you said yesterday, but whatever. You said that this horrific stretch can't be justified because they're "AHL call-ups," and that they don't compete and the organization is a "joke" because of it.

I'm not nitpicking - just trying to find some logic amidst your claims from opposite extremes. Yesterday, they're garbage call-ups who suck and don't compete. Today, you know what, I like the sound of Rooney as the 4C. Pardon me for not following... ?

Rooney would be a fine 4C, but I think that only happens if there are no additions at forward.

 

[tailfins]

The Devils were in the Cup finals in 2012. Lou is a moron.

The Devils are now one of the worst teams in the league. Shero is a genius.

Lou philosophy: Who wants to see a team that tries to win and gets stuck in mediocrity? You can't draft elite talent between #10OA - #25 OA. Team would have been stuck in a death spiral.

Shero philosophy: Thankfully, they're losing big. That way they can draft elite talent. This team is losing so much that it's clearly on the rise.

Lou / Conte drafting: It was terrible. We only got 1 NHLer per draft in the last few years. And look what we missed. Plus, we should have picked someone, not traded for one of the best goalies in the league. And who trades #11OA in 2014 for #29OA in 2012 + #30OA in 2014. Clear idiots.

Shero / Castron drafting: They did great considering what their options were. I know the Devils missed on Barzal, McAvoy, Boesser, Petterson, Heiskenan, but they were drafting much higher than those players were picked. How can you expect them to draft those players?

Or did I misunderstand?

 

[Triumph]

Rooney has above-average speed even in the NHL but I don't see a lot of other things there. He's getting more confident with the pace of the game but I am afraid the Devils are thinking of this guy as a full-time player next season and they shouldn't be. Of course the 4th line doesn't matter a whole lot, but player evaluation mistakes there tend to manifest on the rest of the roster too.

 

[SpeakingOfTheDevils]

Can we please stop this stupid, ticky-tack comparison?

The two regimes are operating under polar opposite principles. There is nothing to compare. It's nonsensical.

 

[Triumph]

The Devils were in the Cup finals in 2012. Lou is a moron.

The Devils are now one of the worst teams in the league. Shero is a genius.

Lou philosophy: Who wants to see a team that tries to win and gets stuck in mediocrity? You can't draft elite talent between #10OA - #25 OA. Team would have been stuck in a death spiral.

Shero philosophy: Thankfully, they're losing big. That way they can draft elite talent. This team is losing so much that it's clearly on the rise.

Lou / Conte drafting: It was terrible. We only got 1 NHLer per draft in the last few years. And look what we missed. Plus, we should have picked someone, not traded for one of the best goalies in the league. And who trades #11OA in 2014 for #29OA in 2012 + #30OA in 2014. Clear idiots.

Shero / Castron drafting: They did great considering what their options were. I know the Devils missed on Barzal, McAvoy, Boesser, Petterson, Heiskenan, but they were drafting much higher than those players were picked. How can you expect them to draft those players?

Or did I misunderstand?

Pretty much everyone besides one person is defending Lou's record overall as a Devils GM. That said, yes, Conte's drafting was quite bad after 98, even in the last few years - the last few years were better than disasters like 05 and 07, but they weren't great either. Look at the number of players the Devils picked who didn't even go on to have professional careers. There was something philosophically wrong there.

 

[tailfins]

Hockey is a team sport. How players play together is critical to success. Look no further than Edmonton for proof. They have the best player in the game and can't do anything.

If you look at Devils rosters in the past, they regularly performed above expectations - and not because of a single player exceeding expectations. In fact, the team was able to weather injuries from key players at times and still deliver.

My concern is that this is no longer true. This team does not play better than its parts. This team cannot withstand injuries particularly well.

I think this is a core issue - and a bigger one than talent. Vegas went to the Cup finals last year with one #1OA pick on their roster, and no one on the roster than anyone would have called elite. The Islanders are doing well this year and in a similar situation. These teams have structure, role clarity, and a shared vision for what they are doing. I'm concerned I don't see that with the Devils.