Devils 2020-21 team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - part VI

[Blackjack]

first of all, Severson and Subban have drastically different values. Even Subban at 50% is not nearly as valuable as Severson is.

Second of all, some of you guys are so obsessed with Laine and its kind of weird. The dude is an elite goal scorer, no questions asked. The rest of his game stinks to high heaven and he is going to want a huge contract. I am not on board with gutting our potential tradeable assets on top of needing to pay $9-10 million per year for a player that is not a DMan.

That's how I felt last offseason too. Then this season he was on pace for 42 assists. Guy is 6'5 and yes he has his warts, but if he didn't there's no way he would be available. I think you take the chance that a 22 year old can figure it out.

 

[My3Sons]

He’s a scoring machine and that’s what you pay a 22 year old kid who can light the lamp about 40 times a year. I’m not comparing the two players, even if they do have similarities, but Ovechkin wasn’t know for his overall game for the first 10 years of his career and became a more complete player under Trotz.

Labeling someone when they’re 22 is way premature.

See, I disagree with that last point. At 22 my oldest was labeled as "The Human Landfill". How one person can accumulate so many plastic water bottles in one bedroom boggles the mind. Here we are approximately one year later and the label was spot on. Nothing has changed despite repeated warnings and even letting Golden Retrievers into the room who cause havoc with the water bottles. Some people are what they are. For example, my wife's sister is some combination of the worst aspects of Bernie Madoff and a self obsessed celebrity who does not have any real talent and is just famous for being famous, with some cleverness but little real intellect and no wisdom at all. She is labeled as the Wildebeast and it's spot on.

 

[Blackjack]

See, I disagree with that last point. At 22 my oldest was labeled as "The Human Landfill". How one person can accumulate so many plastic water bottles in one bedroom boggles the mind. Here we are approximately one year later and the label was spot on. Nothing has changed despite repeated warnings and even letting Golden Retrievers into the room who cause havoc with the water bottles. Some people are what they are. For example, my wife's sister is some combination of the worst aspects of Bernie Madoff and a self obsessed celebrity who does not have any real talent and is just famous for being famous, with some cleverness but little real intellect and no wisdom at all. She is labeled as the Wildebeast and it's spot on.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

5 potential trade destinations for Laine

TheScore posted some greasy Laine trades. The Devils proposal wasn’t shabby though. Wouldn’t do the Sevo trade. I’d definitely do a retained Subban + Van 1st + Zacha though.

The Jets used to be stacked on RD with Buff/Trouba/Myers. Weird that position is a need for them now.

The Subban trade would be a total no brainer. We’d win that trade easily. We could replace Subban with Brodie (lefty but he plays on the right side).

 

[Hischier and Hughes]

first of all, Severson and Subban have drastically different values. Even Subban at 50% is not nearly as valuable as Severson is.

Second of all, some of you guys are so obsessed with Laine and its kind of weird. The dude is an elite goal scorer, no questions asked. The rest of his game stinks to high heaven and he is going to want a huge contract. I am not on board with gutting our potential tradeable assets on top of needing to pay $9-10 million per year for a player that is not a DMan.

Needing defenseman and Trades aside - Laine’s playmaking is pretty underrated from what I have seen. I also get the feeling the Winnipeg locker room has never been too tight and this could hamper a 22 year olds want to improve in other areas. Also lets imagine Laine next to Jack - thats a 50g man

Id take Laine on this team and Id move Severson++ to do it, however like you have stated I would need to know we plan on adding a defenseman via free agency or trade

 

[Billdo]

There’s no top pairing dman on the market outside of Pietrangelo who’s looking to test the market. Severson isn’t a top pairing and we can add someone like him via a trade or free agency. Smith can be a solid replacement as well and let’s not kid ourselves, we’re probably 2 to 3 years away from making some noise anyways.

We’ll find someone to play defence, there’s no denying that but we don’t have to fix all our issues this offseason.

Banking on Smith is premature.

 

[MartyOwns]

things that are true:

- laine will score a minimum of 40 goals a year for the duration of his next contract
- hughes/laine and nico/bratt would give us one hell of a top 6

things that are also true:

- laine is somewhat one dimensional
- our defense would actually be worse without severson, if you can imagine such a thing

so the only way a trade around severson for laine would work is if we also (separately)acquired a top 4 defenseman to replace severson. without that, the trade doesn’t make sense because it makes us a worse team. we would be like the maple leafs, and i know nobody wants that.

 

[JimEIV]

I love Damon Severson and I believe that he is drastically underrated here. That said, I'd trade him in a second for Laine...It doesn't matter that Severson is essentially all we have on D...because with him or without him the entire D needs to be rebuilt...Does it really make a difference between needing 5 capable D men or 6?

 

[Blackjack]

Banking on Smith is premature.

If Smith doesn't become a #2 or at least a strong #3 we are absolutely f***ed. We need Smith to be a legit 2/3, and we need Severson to continue his gradual ascension to quasi top-pairing defenseman.

We need both of those things to happen, and then we need two more quality defensemen on top of that. It's honestly kind of scary to think of trading Severson for a forward, even an elite one.

 

[NJDevs26]

so the only way a trade around severson for laine would work is if we also (separately)acquired a top 4 defenseman to replace severson. without that, the trade doesn’t make sense because it makes us a worse team. we would be like the maple leafs, and i know nobody wants that.

We wouldn't even be the Maple Leafs, we'd be a Maple Leafs-lite.

It has to be an absolute no-brainer to justify trading Severson for a forward. Like Severson for Laine one-for-one type no-brainer. Or we'd need to make other moves first, but we've been waiting years for moves to improve the D so...

 

[Cheddabombs]

things that are true:

- laine will score a minimum of 40 goals a year for the duration of his next contract
- hughes/laine and nico/bratt would give us one hell of a top 6

things that are also true:

- laine is somewhat one dimensional
- our defense would actually be worse without severson, if you can imagine such a thing

so the only way a trade around severson for laine would work is if we also (separately)acquired a top 4 defenseman to replace severson. without that, the trade doesn’t make sense because it makes us a worse team. we would be like the maple leafs, and i know nobody wants that.

This is why I'm against this hypothetical trade for Laine. Because then we'd need to find a replacement for Severson, which might be hard, and even if we do our defense is still bad. It's bad with Severson already.

Then what assets would we even have to acquire those defensemen? One of our later firsts and who... Bratt? He probably has some good value but a package like that may only find us a Severson replacement nevermind the defensemen we need to get that would be better than that. It's just bad asset management.

 

[Billdo]

If Smith doesn't become a #2 or at least a strong #3 we are absolutely f***ed. We need Smith to be a legit 2/3, and we need Severson to continue his gradual ascension to quasi top-pairing defenseman.

We need both of those things to happen, and then we need two more quality defensemen on top of that. It's honestly kind of scary to think of trading Severson for a forward, even an elite one.

I completely agree which is why trading Severson AND banking on Smith is such a dumb idea.

 

[ScottyK]

Friedman on his 31 thoughts podcast brings up that teams have been telling him some feel the devils go askarov at 7

 

[Rebel Devil]

Friedman on his 31 thoughts podcast brings up that teams have been telling him some feel the devils go askarov at 7

That would be horrible and should get everyone fired.

 

[Guttersniped]

I love Damon Severson and I believe that he is drastically underrated here. That said, I'd trade him in a second for Laine...It doesn't matter that Severson is essentially all we have on D...because with him or without him the entire D needs to be rebuilt...Does it really make a difference between needing 5 capable D men or 6?

The thing is Greene is gone. Vatanen is gone. I’m not sure even what to expect under Ruff but if you take out Severson and some of the few assets that could be moved to improve the defense, this team could be very bad. Laine is eligible for arbitration next off-season. Unless you’re offering him 12m or something why doesn’t he just get yearly deals through arbitration until he’s 25 and then get the hell out of here? That’s what’s I would do if this team is bad.

We aren’t buying a toy, we’re getting a player that this team arguably can’t keep because we could have the worst defense in the NHL. It would be an understandably unhappy P.K., an overwhelmed Ty Smith in a fetal position, Butcher in the top four... You can’t fill a defense with UFAs, I mean you can, but it’s just not going to end well.

Plus people seem to think we have magical endless cap because we have a ton after trading five roster players and only having 13 guys signed. Nico is making 7.25m (8.9% of the cap) and other raises are coming, we can’t just sign a ton of UFAs to multi-year deals either.

I’m not dead set against it but this team is going to be a work in progress next year and too much is wrong with the defense to dismantle even more and to still expect to sort of resemble even a bad NHL team. I can’t see Laine thriving here with the mess we made worse getting him here. It’s bad enough trying to put together a respectable top four with Severson.

 

[MadDevil]

I'm not sure it's "for sure" Laine will score 40+ every year when he's hit 40+ once and 36, 30, and 28 in his other three seasons in the NHL.

 

[imMagnum]

By acquiring Laine, it makes up for the goals we lose from Palms. Makes him a lot more expandable. Palms should easily net us a Top 3D alone now or a B+ D prospect at the deadline. We could realistically walk way with Laine/Bratt on our RW and get a D out of it.

 

[Eggtimer]

We have no real finishers on the team and Laine would be exactly that and fits age wise .
If (that’s a huge if) we got Laine and needed to rebuild the D (even more) , we could use Palms as trade bait.
I don’t think building the D would be impossible considering what assets we have .
1.Trade for Zadorov. Ask won’t be crazy as he will be lost to expansion anyways so Aves almost need to move him if they cannot get some of their other D to waive NTC.
2. Offer sheet Sergachev . No way Bolts can match . There are only certain players on the bolts that do not have a ntc. It would require a miracle for them to retain all the players they want. An offer sheet would put them in a huge bind and I believe Sergachev could be had if you offered the correct amount that the Bolts could not match. All we need is Sergachev to sign the offer lol.Perhaps just a straight up trade would work .
3. Offer Palms plus a prospect for another D . Boston was rumoured to of wanted him at the trade deadline . Offer Palms (extended ?) plus Boqvist or ?? for Carlo .
All of these have to happen before moving one of Severson or Subban .

Subban Zadorov Sergachev Carlo Smith Butcher seems pretty damn good to me .
Nico and Bratt
Hughes and Laine
Plus whoever we get at 7 .
That’s a damn impressive core for a team .
Easy peasy ....lol ya not going to happen .

 

[Forge]

Friedman on his 31 thoughts podcast brings up that teams have been telling him some feel the devils go askarov at 7

So I'd kick and scream and talk about how horrible Fitz is and it would use up a lot of goodwill that Fitz got last year.

That being said, a few days later, I'll be 100% on the askarov bandwagon....I just need a few days to process and let out my grief, anger and frustration at the selection lol

 

[Eggtimer]

The thing is Greene is gone. Vatanen is gone. I’m not sure even what to expect under Ruff but if you take out Severson and some of the few assets that could be moved to improve the defense, this team could be very bad. Laine is eligible for arbitration next off-season. Unless you’re offering him 12m or something why doesn’t he just get yearly deals through arbitration until he’s 25 and then get the hell out of here? That’s what’s I would do if this team is bad.

We aren’t buying a toy, we’re getting a player that this team arguably can’t keep because we could have the worst defense in the NHL. It would be an understandably unhappy P.K., an overwhelmed Ty Smith in a fetal position, Butcher in the top four... You can’t fill a defense with UFAs, I mean you can, but it’s just not going to end well.

Plus people seem to think we have magical endless cap because we have a ton after trading five roster players and only having 13 guys signed. Nico is making 7.25m (8.9% of the cap) and other raises are coming, we can’t just sign a ton of UFAs to multi-year deals either.

I’m not dead set against it but this team is going to be a work in progress next year and too much is wrong with the defense to dismantle even more and to still expect to sort of resemble even a bad NHL team. I can’t see Laine thriving here with the mess we made worse getting him here. It’s bad enough trying to put together a respectable top four with Severson.

That’s why you do the Laine trade depending on other moves being made first .
If you have agreements in place to acquire D , then make the Laine move depending on the D deals first .
Just don’t acquire Laine then hope to slap something together. Other GMs would know you need to overpay and are desperate for D if you just moved one of your best D and obviously need more.
I posted here on how to grab more D .
If a player like a 22 year old goal scoring machine is available , I say go for it but of course not before patching up other needs first .
I honestly believe 2-3 upgrades at D could be had this offseason that will not rob the Devils of all their assets .

 

[NJDevs26]

Friedman on his 31 thoughts podcast brings up that teams have been telling him some feel the devils go askarov at 7

That would be worse than trading 9 for Cory. At least Cory was ready-made to be an NHL starter.

 

[beekay414]

So I'd kick and scream and talk about how horrible Fitz is and it would use up a lot of goodwill that Fitz got last year.

That being said, a few days later, I'll be 100% on the askarov bandwagon....I just need a few days to process and let out my grief, anger and frustration at the selection lol

 

[Forge]

Once the pick is made, there's nothing I can do about it lol (I like how i say that as though I can actually do something about the pick now). I'll be angry about it, but at some point, I have to let it go.

Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to the dark side.

 

[MartyOwns]

Friedman on his 31 thoughts podcast brings up that teams have been telling him some feel the devils go askarov at 7

i can’t imagine other teams would know who we are planning to take specifically at 7.

By acquiring Laine, it makes up for the goals we lose from Palms. Makes him a lot more expandable. Palms should easily net us a Top 3D alone now or a B+ D prospect at the deadline. We could realistically walk way with Laine/Bratt on our RW and get a D out of it.

forget replacing palms, we never replaced hall

 

[beekay414]

Once the pick is made, there's nothing I can do about it lol (I like how i say that as though I can actually do something about the pick now). I'll be angry about it, but at some point, I have to let it go.

Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to the dark side.

What about disgust? What does disgust lead to? This is exactly like the Giants taking Saquon. Yeah, great player, terrible value.