GDT: Devils at Jackets

[Emperoreddy]

Oh, we’ve got to be desperate,” left wing Taylor Hall told The Record/NorthJersey.com. “We’re hungry for points. The season is slipping by here and we’re not even grabbing shootout losses or overtime losses. We’re losing in regulation and we’ve got to put an end to it. You can say what you want about we got chances or we’re facing hot goalies. We’re not winning games, so we need better from a lot of guys in this room.”

“They came out and took the play to us,” said Hall, who went without a point for the first time in 13 games. “We’ve got to be better. Kinkaid is fighting for his life down there on second and third opportunities. We’ve got to do a better job.

“It’s tough,” Hall added. “You lose 6-1, it’s easy to lose confidence in yourself and our group but that’s the way things go sometimes. Other teams have taken some big losses this year and come back from it. A 3-2 loss is the same as a 6-1 loss for us now. There’s a lot of guys in we need better from, including myself.”

 

[Bleedred]

This tweet is useless without a video blog from AG in his hotel room, with said noises being heard in the background.

"

 

[Emperoreddy]

So if Lovejoy sits all will magically be okay, right?

I mean icing your best lineup usually makes you a better team... that should be obvious.

Lovejoy is an anchor and having to hide him with low minutes throws the other pairs out of wack as everyone else has to pick up his slack.

We already have to protect Butcher, hiding another defender makes it all the harder.

Moore should be sitting along with Lovejoy but Hynes will never scratch Moore. His love affair with Moore and Lovejoy is stupid.

Even Zajac eventually got demoted, but Hynes keeps rewarding Moore and Lovejoy with more games and minutes despite them sucking. There is zero accountability with those two.

 

[Bleedred]

I just came here to post something like ''You know, we're gonna finish with more points than last year, quite easily, but if we don't kick it into gear soon, we might actually not finish with more points (or many more points) than we did in 15-16 in Hynes first season here. Especially not at our pace from the last 20 games.

Then I thought about it and was like ''Well, we're probably gonna finish with more than 84 points no matter what, that's a bit of a stretch and an exaggeration right there''. So then I went and looked at how many points we had after 54 games into the 15-16 season and I was flabbergasted to see that we had 59 points, just 3 fewer points than we do right now after 54 games. As I've said, we were actually in a playoff spot with 65 points after 57 games, on pace for 94 points. That was on Valentine's Day of 2016. Game #55 of 15-16 was actually Marty jersey retirement night, so if we lose tonight, we will have had 1 more point after 55 games than we had after 55 games in 15-16, when we finished with 84 points. So it's not really at all impossible to think we might not finish with more points than we did that season.

Now that's when you put it into perspective, that we won't have improved since Hynes first season here and that's 3 straight seasons of being in the playoffs at various times either at Thanksgiving or Valentine's Day in each of those seasons. While I've been defending Hynes a little bit recently, I still ask, how do you reward this coaching staff (the original Hynes three) with new contracts after that? Because we've yet to finish in the bottom 2 since they've been here and finished around the bottom 10 in two of those years?

 

[MadDevil]

Lovejoy is 7th among our defensemen in EV TOI per game. He's averaging only 30 seconds more than Butcher. The majority of his ice time is inflated by his PK usage.

 

[BahlDeep]

There's no reason whatsoever for Lovejoy to play over Mueller and/or Santini. Mueller and Santini are part of the future. I rather lose with them and let them learn, than losing with a player who might not even make it past the deadline, especially considering he isn't better than any of them.

 

[Bleedred]

I think it’s okay that Santini is in the minors, at least he’s playing.

What’s not okay is forcing him into the top pairing role for 2+ months, then scratching him for almost a month (I know the bye week was in there) and then finally sending him down.

The handling of him was very suspect, from the competition they forced him to play against for months, then sitting him for a month.

 

[MadDevil]

There's no reason whatsoever for Lovejoy to play over Mueller and/or Santini. Mueller and Santini are part of the future. I rather lose with them and let them learn, than losing with a player who might not even make it past the deadline, especially considering he isn't better than any of them.

Honestly, I have more of a problem with Moore than I do Lovejoy. Lovejoy has actually, for the most part, been fine in his role. To me, Moore getting 20 minutes a night has more of a negative impact than Lovejoy's third pairing + PK minutes. If it were up to me I'd trade Moore, call Santini up, and drop Lovejoy back to a #7 role.

 

[BahlDeep]

Honestly, I have more of a problem with Moore than I do Lovejoy. Lovejoy has actually, for the most part, been fine in his role. To me, Moore getting 20 minutes a night has more of a negative impact than Lovejoy's third pairing + PK minutes. If it were up to me I'd trade Moore, call Santini up, and drop Lovejoy back to a #7 role.

It still does not make sense to have him play over Mueller and Santini. I realy think he's simply getting showcased.

 

[MadDevil]

It still does not make sense to have him play over Mueller and Santini. I realy think he's simply getting showcased.

With Santini I think it's simply the fact that with Mueller back we've got too many bodies and given only Santini and Butcher can get sent down without waivers, he's the odd man out. With Mueller they seem hesitant to move Butcher to the right side, which would have to happen to play Mueller and sit Lovejoy. Lovejoy also gets more rope because of his PK role, which nobody else on the right side other than Santini is really very good at.

We basically need to get rid of somebody to call Santini back up, or carry 8 defensemen and have 2 as healthy scratches every night. It won't happen, but Moore probably should get traded, especially if we're not planning on re-signing him (given how much this staff seems to love him I'm actually worried we will).

 

[Bleedred]

It still does not make sense to have him play over Mueller and Santini. I realy think he's simply getting showcased.

Sadly, I think it's a case of Hynes wanting to lean on some ''Experienced'' veteran who ''Knows how to win'' or some dumb cliche. It's almost like when we started the season, he was thinking ''Yup, it s a development year! We're gonna play the kids!'' now with us being in (and absolutely CLINGING) to a playoff spot down the stretch, it's ''We're in win-now mode and we're playing these greasy vets at all cost!''. Stafford hasn't left the lineup in about a month either.

 

[BurntToast]

Blue Jackets, showing everyone's mom how to spank adults..

 

[Ripshot 43]

How any can finish watching a game and effort like that I will never know. That’s the type of game where if I wake up in the morning and see that we had a miraculous comeback I will be content with watching the highlights. The effort we were showing didn’t earn this team more of my time (which just makes watching a loss like this burn even more). They better bring the fire tomorrow or I expect a letter to our season ticket holders.

 

[MartyOwns]

13-15-5

We lose more then we win when he is in the lineup. He isn’t fine. He is an anchor and the exact opposite of team identity, more so then anyone else on the team outside of maybe Boyle.

Greene and Zajac fit this team better then Lovejoy does.

uhhhh how dare you use wins to justify your position wins are a team stat a defenseman is only responsible for 16.2% of a win autistic screeching

 

[MadDevil]

uhhhh how dare you use wins to justify your position wins are a team stat a defenseman is only responsible for 16.2% of a win autistic screeching

Oh please. It's clearly 17.5%, but only on the second Tuesday of every month, and only if John Hynes wears a red tie, otherwise it's only 16.2%.