Devils 2018-19 team discussion (news and notes) - Preseason

Don’t read too much into the pairings right now. I could easily see Lovejoy and Santini sharing RD3. I could see Butcher on a second pair with Mueller if Mueller can hold up defensively. I’m not suggesting those pairs are written in stone. I think Smith can watch a regular season game or two before you throw him to the wolves. Maybe a couple of regular season practices and see how the regular defenders look to open the season then pick a good spot for Smith?

If Greene Butcher and Smith formed the left side of the defense that might be the smallest top three left defense group in NHL history. If Mueller can play with Vats and Butcher can handle increased defensive responsibility on a pair with Sevs or Santini then the way is open for a third pairing with Smith. Greene can have a few games off early in the season which will benefit him later in the season. Smith can go back to juniors if there is any question of him holding up physically. Skill wise he has looked great to me in the preseason. Pity he’s not a 6 foot 195 pound guy. He’d be an opening day starter potentially.

 

Beats me, but my guess is that Mueller and Severson are going to make the team and they’re still deciding where they’ll be, while Lovejoy (to my knowledge) hasn’t played at all this preseason.

 

I doubt we see Greene as a healthy scratch at any point this season, let alone to start the year.

I think Smith has earned a few games to start the year, but I'm not sure how to configure him in. Mueller would be the likely lhd to sit, but we need him for pk2 duties.

I think playing Smith will likely entail moving Butcher to rhd and sitting either Sev's or Lovejoy. And I'd imagine Sev's is the more likely candidate.

 

Lovejoy has played in 1 game thus far.

Mueller and Sev's are locks to make the team.

 

In 150 minutes of 5v5.

Corsi says they were decent. 49%.

5v5 goals for% was 10 for 11 against. So decent there as well.

Sev's #'s were pretty much in line with Greene as they were with other d-partners.

 

The problem with Greene-Severson is that often go against the other team top line, and Severson can't handle that

 

I kind of assume that that combo was not matched against opposing top lines. If they were the #'s say they performed very well. Much better then Greene performed with anyone else.

 

assuming vatanen and mueller will get top line duty

 

Maybe this is a showcase game for one of the defensmen.

 

Because Santini isn't that good.

Should he play over Lovejoy though? Probably, at least to start the season.

 

And I'll never understand the ''But did anybody think Gibbons and Coleman would do anything last year? Everyone hated it when they made the team!'' in regards. I forgot if I read that in this thread or another one. It was hours ago and I just never had time to reply back to it and get into that conversation.

Gibbons had 22 points in 66 career NHL games before last year. Not to mention 3 points in 8 playoff games. So this was a player that had 25 points in 74 games played before last year. That's not that bad of a player, even though he overachieved last year and it was a fluke. Especially with goal scoring. He's still way better than Rooney.

Blake Coleman? You got me there, I wasn't a believer in him at all a year ago, but consider he had a much better pre-NHL career than Rooney did. He was heralded at one time for his offense in his pre-NHL career.

 

@Aethon was the only one. He owned us all.

 

When people were melting down about Gibbons and Coleman I said something like "fans don't care about the penalty kill until pucks start going in the net"

 

See my post about BC on March 7 2015

 

Yeah he was the only one. Coleman has been pretty impressive, but there were people using him and his success last year to also say that the same could happen for Nick Lappin, now it's the same can happen for Rooney. It's not often that a player breaks into the league and comes on strong at the age Coleman was last year, which is the age Lappin is now and I think Rooney has an early 1993 birthdate, so he's barely younger than Coleman was last year, if I'm not mistaken?

He's got a May 1993 birthdate, not sure why I recalled January. Still just half a year younger than Coleman was going into last season.

 

There's no need to guess...

 

You've brought that up re: Gibbons before personally, but the majority of people here WERE aghast that they made the team over the likes of Quenneville and whoever else we were stifling (Blandisi?).

Admittedly I probably would have been aghast too if I thought they were going to play, but I was under the faulty assumption they were going to serve as 13th/14th forward type plugs or occasional players so I would rather have had them do that, then the young kids people wanted to play in the top six.

It's not so much that every career minor leaguer is going to break out, it's that when one or two guys do I tend to trust the staff more with the next one that I don't particularly like. I'm a bit of a skeptic on Rooney too but the parallels are there so I'm more willing to extend benefit of the doubt now.

 

Yeah, at the time I wasn't big on him making the team either, but I also didn't hate it as much as most of this board did.

From what I've seen of Rooney, he's just too reminiscent of some Rod Pelley try-hard type that just isn't at all good at the NHL level. I don't think that about Lappin, I just think Lappin has no upside really, but Rooney has always looked like a real liability to me.

And if last year taught us anything for the first in a long time, it's important to have 4th line and bottom 6 scoring and to not water down your roster with complete nobodies and I'm heavily skeptical Rooney can provide that.

 

I think the D is settled outside of whether we carry 7 or whether we carry 8.

Smith or Gryba will be added to Vatanen, Greene, Severson, Mueller, Butcher, Santini and Lovejoy on the roster.

Now who plays in the first game of the season in Sweden? That's probably still to be determined.

Hoping Gryba stays away, until at least we start needing call ups. He and Rooney remind me way too much of the 16-17 goofballs that we were fortunately devoid of last year.

 

I'm fairly confident in saying that, like it or not, we are rolling Greene, Vatanen, Severson, Butcher, Mueller, Santini, and Lovejoy in some form or another. I really don't see the need in having Smith around any longer than a cup of coffee and Gryba is Binghamton bound or injury call up insurance.

 

Also goes back to one of my favorite sayings, that has also been echoed on this board before. No one cares about face-off percentages until you need to win one.

It's the little things.

 

Kowalsky coached Rooney in Binghamton, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if he makes the roster. I certainly don't expect him to be Gibbons or Coleman though.

 

Would Rooney as the spare forward really be the worst thing in the world?

 

I'm simply saying that after Coleman and Gibbons last year, if the coaching staff decides to keep Rooney, I have to give them the benefit of a doubt that they see something or are looking for something that I don't see.

The Lappin comment was because DD implied that he expected those two to do well last year because they managed to score in the AHL.

-edit-
And for God's sake, enough with the playoff avatar

 

This board still has PTSD from the Pelley/Sestito/Sislo days.