Speculation: Devils Defense

[zharkenby]

anyone whose watched this season knows, about half of their D can’t cut it in the nhl anymore. Realistically they need to find replacements for:
Lovejoy
Moore
Greene

Then you have severson, who unfortunately they locked up long term, but he’s awful. No awareness and a terrible decision maker.

Who knows if mueller will pan out, although Hes looked good.

That leaves vatanen and butcher as our only serviceable defesemen.

Ideas on what they do here?

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[Bjornar Moxnes]

anyone whose watched this season knows, about half of their D can’t cut it in the nhl anymore. Realistically they need to find replacements for:
Lovejoy
Moore
Greene

Then you have severson, who unfortunately they locked up long term, but he’s awful. No awareness and a terrible decision maker.

Who knows if mueller will pan out, although Hes looked good.

That leaves vatanen and butcher as our only serviceable defesemen.

Ideas on what they do here?

What exactly happened to Severson? Also would you like a Dman prospect from the Flames? We have tons.

 

[izzy]

i think they need to give severson a bit more time

 

[Stephen Gionta]

Severson is far from awful. He's 23 years old. lets be a little bit patient? they guy scored 9 even strength goals this season.

Greene is still a top 4 defenseman. he's not what he was 2 years ago but he is still a very solid NHL shutdown defenseman.

Moore should be let go as UFA and Lovejoy is a 7th/8th D at this point. Mueller is a 6th/7th D.

As far as ideas. You have Santini who is a stud. probably going to be a top 4 defenseman. and you can throw big money at Carlson, or wait until 2019 UFA class which looks like it will be loaded with defensemen. Also, Reilly Walsh looking like he could be a late round steal.

 

[Keep Sorokin Me Babe]

Picking Zacha over Werenski/Provorov has been a colossal mistake

 

[Big Daddy Cane]

John Carlson.

Otherwise, I’m not sure the Devils have the trade capital to seriously chase a core caliber defender if he becomes available.

 

[Stephen Gionta]

The pick should have been Barzal. but yes Zacha over Werenski/Provorov is ridiculously awful drafting. The entire NJD fan base was hoping they would select Barzal at 6th overall. Then when Barzal fell to 16 everyone thought ok maybe these professionals knew something we don't. turns out all the fans were right. Absolutely awful selection. Zacha is still a solid NHLer, but compared to the players taken around him who are all elite players, this Zacha selection has proved to be miserable

 

[Magic Man]

Zaitsev?

 

[Ajaton Azer]

Sami Vatanen is a very nice big (or literarely small) piece for a succesful defensive unit. So there the Devils have a strong start for years to come, it's only matter of filling rest of the spots with nice complementary players.

 

[72hockey guy]

the obvious answer is Carlson, not only is he a local he's a perfect scheme fit...

ill be shocked if Shero doesnt go all in on Carlson,

 

[Shootertooter]

Vatanan looked good going to the net and putting one home against his own team
last night

 

[duffy9748]

You have to draft them if you truly want to solve that issue.

 

[zharkenby]

What exactly happened to Severson? Also would you like a Dman prospect from the Flames? We have tons.

Who are we looking at there? Wouldn’t mind parting with Mikey Mcleod or JQ, honestly we don’t have much after those two

Severson is just too dumb to be in the nhl. Always makes a bad pinch and is very prone to game changing turnovers. His offense does not nearly make up for his flaws, he really isn’t a good offensive dman either

 

[zharkenby]

The pick should have been Barzal. but yes Zacha over Werenski/Provorov is ridiculously awful drafting. The entire NJD fan base was hoping they would select Barzal at 6th overall. Then when Barzal fell to 16 everyone thought ok maybe these professionals knew something we don't. turns out all the fans were right. Absolutely awful selection. Zacha is still a solid NHLer, but compared to the players taken around him who are all elite players, this Zacha selection has proved to be miserable

Zacha is barely an NHL player, another incredibly low IQ guy who can’t finish to save his life

 

[zharkenby]

Vatanan looked good going to the net and putting one home against his own team
last night

This is the problem, Vats needs to play perfect hockey or the team is f***ed. Too many mistakes being contributed outside of him

 

[Puckclektr]

Picking Zacha over Werenski/Provorov has been a colossal mistake

I agree. most fans on the board wanted Barzal.

 

[Puckclektr]

Zaitsev?

No. Especially after his game yesterday.

 

[Gecklund]

anyone whose watched this season knows, about half of their D can’t cut it in the nhl anymore. Realistically they need to find replacements for:
Lovejoy
Moore
Greene

Then you have severson, who unfortunately they locked up long term, but he’s awful. No awareness and a terrible decision maker.

Who knows if mueller will pan out, although Hes looked good.

That leaves vatanen and butcher as our only serviceable defesemen.

Ideas on what they do here?

You seem to expect perfect games from every single defender...

 

[SpeakingOfTheDevils]

Picking Zacha over Werenski/Provorov has been a colossal mistake

You can make an argument about taking BPA (which was probably one of the defensemen), but at the time the organization needed a forward.

Remember, this was when we were supposedly stacked with Larsson, Severson, Gelinas, Merrill, etc in the wings. I couldn’t even name you our best forward prospect at the time. Reid Boucher? Graham Black? Gross.

 

[Oneiro]

Melodramatic thread. I'm not happy with Zacha or Severson either but they're just inconsistent.

We need a No. 1 on the left side who can play half the game along with Vats. Butcher is fine middle pairing, Greene is fine as a bottom pairing guy.

 

[zharkenby]

You seem to expect perfect games from every single defender...

Don’t contribute to the discussion if you’re completely unaware of the situation please

 

[SpeakingOfTheDevils]

The pick should have been Barzal. but yes Zacha over Werenski/Provorov is ridiculously awful drafting. The entire NJD fan base was hoping they would select Barzal at 6th overall. Then when Barzal fell to 16 everyone thought ok maybe these professionals knew something we don't. turns out all the fans were right. Absolutely awful selection. Zacha is still a solid NHLer, but compared to the players taken around him who are all elite players, this Zacha selection has proved to be miserable

The Zacha pick isn’t “proved” to be anything. He turned 21 like 10 days ago. You can’t speak in absolutes at all about him or his trajectory.

Just because the guys we could have taken have seriously (...seriously) broken out before Zacha has, isn’t a detriment to the latter as a player.

 

[Bobby Orr's Knees]

Picking Zacha over Werenski/Provorov has been a colossal mistake

Yes. And we thank the Devils for this mistake every day. However, I always wondered about this. Everybody knew it was Provy or bust for the Flyers. So why not squeeze us by the balls and force Hextall to trade up?

 

[zharkenby]

Delete

 

[Gecklund]

Don’t contribute to the discussion if you’re completely unaware of the situation please

Oh I’m completely aware of the situation but saying you need 4 replacement defenders is completely inaccurate.
1. You have Santini
2. Severson is good enough maybe not a number 1 but definitely at least a number 3 D
3. Mueller is fine on a bottom pairing as is Lovejoy
4. Greene is still top 4.
Realistically you could use 1 maybe 2 D. The problem is you don’t have a solid number 1 so everyone is having to step up into roles that don’t exactly fit them.