Devils 2019-20 team discussion (news and notes) - part V

[Emperoreddy]

Every single version of this team between 2003-2012 was better than the sum of its parts, plus several fro before that. I think that more than makes up for a a few ones at the end that didn't work out.

As of right now it certainly does not because of how badly of a state it left the franchise in.

 

[Devils090]

109 goals against in 29 f***ing games

 

[guitarguyvic]

Shero took over an expansion team-level roster and an expansion team-level prospect pool. I think we all wish the rebuild would go faster but maybe it makes sense that it hasn’t.

And I don’t get the “those teams were better than the sum of their parts” empty platitude. Maybe in 2003 sure. 2012 was a pretty solid team with Koch, Parise, and Elias all being in the top 25 in scoring. Those teams in between weren’t bad but I think also rode Marty’s coattails, hence the good regular seasons and early bow outs n the playoffs. All the while the team was either trading away picks for just whiffing on them.

That 2012 team had no name defense and not a single one of them would have been a #1 on any other contender. Also a goalie who was one year away from the end of his career.

The 2013 team almost made the playoffs despite losing Parise and missing Kovy for half the shortened season due to injury.

The team didn’t become truly mediocre until 2014. Years of drafting in the 20’s due to team success combined with questionable drafting from Conte on those late picks eventually led to them eventually reaching the end of that road and it was too much to overcome. But let’s not pretend that the culture and leadership and attitude was not an absolutely enormous factor in all that success up to that point.

 

[Emperoreddy]

That 2012 team had no name defense and not a single one of them would have been a #1 on any other contender. Also a goalie who was one year away from the end of his career.

The 2013 team almost made the playoffs despite losing Parise and missing Kovy for half the shortened season due to injury.

The team didn’t become truly mediocre until 2014. Years of drafting in the 20’s due to team success combined with questionable drafting from Conte on those late picks eventually led to them eventually reaching the end of that road and it was too much to overcome. But let’s not pretend that the culture and leadership and attitude was not an absolutely enormous factor in all that success up to that point.

I am looking at the 2015 roster and I am not seeing a whole lot of culture and leadership left for the future.

Looking at the farm system. Still not seeing it. Looking to see if he was maybe cultivating some culture and leadership with coaches in the AHL...nope none there either.

 

[NJDevs26]

A lot of those 2006-10 teams were better than the sum of their parts mostly because of Marty. He and the system carried those no-name defenses after the lockout. 2012 they were actually a good team that played at a very good level in the second half once Parise got his skating legs and they made acquisitions like Zidlicky, Poni and CBGB. Plus a couple of the better teams in the East got bounced early. 2003 I love more than any of the Cup teams but they had two HOF defensemen, a HOF goalie and a should-be HOF winger. It's not like they were totally bereft of talent, even with a should-be HOF coach almost willing them past Ottawa that year.

 

[Emperoreddy]

A lot of those 2006-10 teams were better than the sum of their parts mostly because of Marty. He and the system carried those no-name defenses after the lockout. 2012 they were actually a good team that played at a very good level in the second half once Parise got his skating legs and they made acquisitions like Zidlicky, Poni and CBGB. Plus a couple of the better teams in the East got bounced early. 2003 I love more than any of the Cup teams but they had two HOF defensemen, a HOF goalie and a should-be HOF winger. It's not like they were totally bereft of talent, even with a should-be HOF coach almost willing them past Ottawa that year.

The Julian effect was in full force in 2012. We were fortunate to avoid Boston.

He should have given up that 29th pick. Not a lot of leadership or culture in that bone-headed move.

 

[guitarguyvic]

I am looking at the 2015 roster and I am not seeing a whole lot of culture and leadership left for the future.

Looking at the farm system. Still not seeing it. Looking to see if he was maybe cultivating some culture and leadership with coaches in the AHL...nope none there either.

At some point the the lack of talent is going to catch up. It’s a valid criticism, never said it wasn’t. It is you, not I, that is wholly dismissing the opposing viewpoint.

 

[guitarguyvic]

There’s something else to this too. Someone like @Emperoreddy seems to resent Lou for his shortcomings in the last few seasons. As a long time fan of this franchise, I can’t fathom this kind of bitterness towards the man that built and maintained not just a an incredibly successful hockey team in terms of wins losses and championships, but also a team that embodied the kind of values and leadership that made me fall in love with them in the first place.

To me it would be like holding a lasting grudge towards Marty because he sucked in his last couple of years and the signed with another team for two minutes. It’s crazy.

 

[NjDevsRR]

There’s something else to this too. Someone like @Emperoreddy seems to resent Lou for his shortcomings in the last few seasons. As a long time fan of this franchise, I can’t fathom this kind of bitterness towards the man that built and maintained not just a an incredibly successful hockey team in terms of wins losses and championships, but also a team that embodied the kind of values and leadership that made me fall in love with them in the first place.

To me it would be like holding a lasting grudge towards Marty because he sucked in his last couple of years and the signed with another team for two minutes. It’s crazy.

Again, one can admire and love Lou and still point out how he buried this franchise at the end of his tenure here.

THIS ISNT HARD.

 

[MadDevil]

I will be forever grateful to Lou for building the successful franchise for 2+ decades that he did. But I can also see that he didn't do a great job the last few years of his time here and it left the organization in a rough spot that it's still trying to recover from. That doesn't invalidate what he did before.

He did a very smart thing with the Islanders by hiring a coach coming off winning the Cup. But the majority of that team was already brought in under the previous regime. Barzal, Nelson, Bailey, Beauvillier, Lee, Pulock, Leddy, Boychuk, Toews, Mayfield, etc. Yes, they lost Tavares, but they still had good players that Trotz could work with. Many of whom had previously been on 100 point Islanders teams.

Do I think merely by being Lou Lamoriello that he brings respectability and competency to an organization? Absolutely. I just think some people are leaning too heavily into the culture thing while downplaying the fact that the Islanders have been a pretty good team the last 5 years, with one hiccup with Doug Weight, who pretty much everybody agrees was an awful coach. So maybe the Islanders were a pretty good team that merely needed a good coach to get the most out of it?

 

[KovalchukFistPump]

I will be forever grateful to Lou for building the successful franchise for 2+ decades that he did. But I can also see that he didn't do a great job the last few years of his time here and it left the organization in a rough spot that it's still trying to recover from. That doesn't invalidate what he did before.

He did a very smart thing with the Islanders by hiring a coach coming off winning the Cup. But the majority of that team was already brought in under the previous regime. Barzal, Nelson, Bailey, Beauvillier, Lee, Pulock, Leddy, Boychuk, Toews, Mayfield, etc. Yes, they lost Tavares, but they still had good players that Trotz could work with. Many of whom had previously been on 100 point Islanders teams.

Do I think merely by being Lou Lamoriello that he brings respectability and competency to an organization? Absolutely. I just think some people are leaning too heavily into the culture thing while downplaying the fact that the Islanders have been a pretty good team the last 5 years, with one hiccup with Doug Weight, who pretty much everybody agrees was an awful coach. So maybe the Islanders were a pretty good team that merely needed a good coach to get the most out of it?

Agreed with the first part. Lou was awful his last few years here and made some incredibly awful decisions (not giving up the pick in 2012 and the Ruutu trade come to mind). Can we maybe move past that and appreciate the 20+ years of excellence he brought to a franchise with limited resources? Wrong guy for a rebuild, but perfect guy to fix clown show franchises like Toronto and NYI were when he came in. NYI was really bad the season before and he did bring some structure to make the team overachieve after losing their best player.

 

[The Devil In I]

There’s something else to this too. Someone like @Emperoreddy seems to resent Lou for his shortcomings in the last few seasons. As a long time fan of this franchise, I can’t fathom this kind of bitterness towards the man that built and maintained not just a an incredibly successful hockey team in terms of wins losses and championships, but also a team that embodied the kind of values and leadership that made me fall in love with them in the first place.

To me it would be like holding a lasting grudge towards Marty because he sucked in his last couple of years and the signed with another team for two minutes. It’s crazy.

As a long time fan of hockey in general, I can't fathom being blinded enough by his successes to willfully ignore his failures. Lou is the reason this franchise was so great from ~94-2012. Lou is also the reason why this franchise was in such a mess when Shero took over.

There are fantastic things he did, in terms of both trades and free agent signings and also instituting a culture that leads towards winning...but also things he did that left us in the worst state a sports franchise could be, a pro team with no worthwhile talent and a barren farm team.

The Marty comparison doesn't hold up because the effects of the last few poor years of a declining player are limited to only those few years, they don't echo through the proceeding ~5-10 years.

 

[VoidCreature]

Zajac only 4 points away from sole possession of 3rd most in franchise history now

At least this is something to look forward to in the coming weeks. Zajac's been a soldier for us forever.

He was never good enough to have his number retired, but if they ever start a ring of honor or some similar program (which I would love to see) he would definitely be a recipient.

 

[NJDevs26]

Again, one can admire and love Lou and still point out how he buried this franchise at the end of his tenure here.

THIS ISNT HARD.

Honestly I'm starting to think it was more post-2000 Conte that buried the franchise than Lou. Lou's been fine when he's parachuted into organizations that already know how to draft. Yeah he'll throw around the bad contract here and there (Marleau) but what winning team doesn't? He didn't cripple us with a ton of bad contracts, Schneider and Cammalleri became bad contracts but nobody thought of them that way at the time. Clowe was a bad contract that they inevitably got out of.

His two worst moves of the last several years were keeping the Matteau pick, and trading for Cory after he knew Kovalchuk was out the door. The former was based on his blind faith of the team forever winning (and that the league would eventually make good on having to lose a pick), the latter was based on trying to win. Since he left we haven't tried to win until this offseason and that's been a disaster too.

As a long time fan of hockey in general, I can't fathom being blinded enough by his successes to willfully ignore his failures. Lou is the reason this franchise was so great from ~94-2012. Lou is also the reason why this franchise was in such a mess when Shero took over..

The Lou thing I compare to Tom Landry a bit...I don't think Cowboy fans are more annoyed at Landry's last few years as opposed to grateful over his entire tenure, in fact they were still annoyed he got fired. The main reason fans bash Lou is he wasn't very fan-friendly a la lack of publicity and social media plus letting popular players go or trading them, so it doesn't buy him as much rope with the fans when things finally start going bad even though his track record should buy him more rope.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Honestly I'm starting to think it was more post-2000 Conte that buried the franchise than Lou. Lou's been fine when he's parachuted into organizations that already know how to draft. Yeah he'll throw around the bad contract here and there (Marleau) but what winning team doesn't? He didn't cripple us with a ton of bad contracts, Schneider and Cammalleri became bad contracts but nobody thought of them that way at the time. Clowe was a bad contract that they inevitably got out of.

His two worst moves of the last several years were keeping the Matteau pick, and trading for Cory after he knew Kovalchuk was out the door. The former was based on his blind faith of the team forever winning (and that the league would eventually make good on having to lose a pick), the latter was based on trying to win. Since he left we haven't tried to win until this offseason and that's been a disaster too.



The Lou thing I compare to Tom Landry a bit...I don't think Cowboy fans are more annoyed at Landry's last few years as opposed to grateful over his entire tenure, in fact they were still annoyed he got fired. The main reason fans bash Lou is he wasn't very fan-friendly a la lack of publicity and social media plus letting popular players go or trading them, so it doesn't buy him as much rope with the fans when things finally start going bad even though his track record should buy him more rope.

Conte works for Lou though. Lou has a say in who is drafted and he could have fired the scouting staff a long time ago. He didn’t make any effort to bring in younger talent in those final years through other means either.

It was just more old guys and retreads. Not forfeiting the pick cost us a top 15 pick just so we could draft Matteau and JQ? Two players no longer in the league.

 

[MichaelJ]

Conte works for Lou though. Lou has a say in who is drafted and he could have fired the scouting staff a long time ago. He didn’t make any effort to bring in younger talent in those final years through other means either.

It was just more old guys and retreads. Not forfeiting the pick cost us a top 15 pick just so we could draft Matteau and JQ? Two players no longer in the league.

Potentially one of Larkin/Vrana/Tuch/Pastrnak....for those two

 

[tailfins]

Potentially one of Larkin/Vrana/Tuch/Pastrnak....for those two

That’s ridiculous. It’s also potentially Fiala, Honka, Perkins, Milano, Ho-sang, DeAngelo, or Bleakley for those two.

In the end, it worked out to #29OA in 2012 and #30OA in 2014 for #11OA in 2014. That’s not terrible at all. The outcomes for the two picks were terrible, but the outcome from the one pick could have been terrible too.

People are upset about that move. It makes sense. But Lou never believed the NHL was in the right and was unwilling to accept the punishment. He went against the NHL so many times and won (Koharski, Stevens, etc) that it’s hard to fault him for being pig headed here. And it turned out ok from a value perspective. It’s just the outcome didn’t work out for the Devils.

 

[Triumph]

Honestly I'm starting to think it was more post-2000 Conte that buried the franchise than Lou. Lou's been fine when he's parachuted into organizations that already know how to draft. Yeah he'll throw around the bad contract here and there (Marleau) but what winning team doesn't? He didn't cripple us with a ton of bad contracts, Schneider and Cammalleri became bad contracts but nobody thought of them that way at the time. Clowe was a bad contract that they inevitably got out of.

His two worst moves of the last several years were keeping the Matteau pick, and trading for Cory after he knew Kovalchuk was out the door. The former was based on his blind faith of the team forever winning (and that the league would eventually make good on having to lose a pick), the latter was based on trying to win. Since he left we haven't tried to win until this offseason and that's been a disaster too.

The only reason Lou didn't cripple us with a bunch of bad contracts is because he couldn't - the players he was signing were so old that it wouldn't've been reasonable to sign them to longer deals than they already had. The Devils still had to buy out Cammalleri, they will have to buy out Schneider, they bought out Zubrus, they let Ruutu play his final season here scoring 0 goals, Clowe was on IR for 3 seasons, and Volchenkov was compliance bought out while Lou was still here - his deal would've extended to 2015-16 otherwise. Literally none of the multi-year UFA deals that Lou Lamoriello signed with players from another team ever returned an asset. Not one. Not Matvichuk, not Mogilny, not Malakhov, not Vishnevski, not Rolston, not Tallinder, not Volchenkov, not Zubrus, not Clowe, not Ryder - most of these either had to be bought out, traded for nothing or less than nothing, or ended up with the player not being an NHL-quality player at their conclusion.

I support most of these moves and still do. It's just that it has to be understood what they would do. This is part of what they would do.

 

[glenwo2]

God damn it PK, put the friggin snow globes down and work out or watch film. There's no time for hobbies like snowglobing.

I'm done defending him.

Just damn tired of continously pointing out the same thing over and over and over again to those complaining about his social media presence....


...just do whatever you want (and this is also directed to everyone else). I'm done.

 

[MichaelJ]

That’s ridiculous. It’s also potentially Fiala, Honka, Perkins, Milano, Ho-sang, DeAngelo, or Bleakley for those two.

In the end, it worked out to #29OA in 2012 and #30OA in 2014 for #11OA in 2014. That’s not terrible at all. The outcomes for the two picks were terrible, but the outcome from the one pick could have been terrible too.

People are upset about that move. It makes sense. But Lou never believed the NHL was in the right and was unwilling to accept the punishment. He went against the NHL so many times and won (Koharski, Stevens, etc) that it’s hard to fault him for being pig headed here. And it turned out ok from a value perspective. It’s just the outcome didn’t work out for the Devils.

Yes it is terrible. I’d gladly trade a #29 one year and a #30 another for a near top #10 pick. The chances of hitting on that pick are much greater. That’s the point. There’s nothing ridiculous about pointing out who the Devils could have picked because it illustrates the amount of talent available. Who came out of the 2nd round in 2012 that was really worth much? How about 2014? What’s ridiculous is acting like it wasn’t a stupid move to keep the 2012 pick lmfao.

 

[devilsfan35]

Binghamton devils are currently last place. New Jersey devils are currently second last place. This is so embarrassing

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Binghamton devils are currently last place. New Jersey devils are currently second last place. This is so embarrassing

I simply keep coming back to the fact that Shero had 5 years to accumulate assets, won the draft lottery twice and this is what we have to show for it. It currently seems inexcusable.

 

[My3Sons]

The draft lottery narrative is a false economy. How did BUF do last year with Dahlin or EDM the first few years with their high picks? Shero deserves criticism for roster management although I think his biggest mistake was trying to appease Hall.

 

[Emperoreddy]

The draft lottery narrative is a false economy. How did BUF do last year with Dahlin or EDM the first few years with their high picks? Shero deserves criticism for roster management although I think his biggest mistake was trying to appease Hall.

I don’t think offseason moves were made to appease him. They all made sense and the costs weren’t outrageous

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

The draft lottery narrative is a false economy. How did BUF do last year with Dahlin or EDM the first few years with their high picks? Shero deserves criticism for roster management although I think his biggest mistake was trying to appease Hall.

It points to how few of his other moves have lead to meaningful assets for the team. Those two no.1 overall picks are the only real things at this point we have to build around despite a directive to acquire assets for 5 years. His biggest mistake was hoping Schneider would rebound this year, his second biggest mistake looks like the Subban deal and hoping Ty Smith would make the team to fix the defense. Those two mistakes murdered this season and any hope of Hall staying.