Devils ownership discussion thread (mod note: post #17)

[Marv4Life]

I honestly don't blame them for not really being active in FA. It was a dud this year. Who out there filled a need and wasn't injury prone?

But sooner or later, they're gonna have to spend money. On the arena(besides the megaboard) or the team. Don't want another Pittsburgh Pirates or modern Chicago Bulls situation now do we?

 

[JrFischer54]

Yes, we know. We know that because you used the Hossa trade, a trade that involved equal money on both sides, as an example of how the owners won't do what it takes. It basically means you think everything that isn't them spending more money is evidence that they won't spend more money.

not quite. but we will see what happens in two years time

 

[Unknown Caller]

It has nothing to do with the owners and everything to do with Shero's (smart) strategy. The only guys who were remotely interesting going into free agency were Carlson, Tavares, JvR, De Haan and Maroon. Carlson re-signed with Washington before hitting the open market, and all indications were that Shero was going to get involved if he did. Tavares wouldn't give a metro team other than the Islanders a meeting. Shero flat out stated that we spoke with JvR, but he wanted to go to Philly. We reportedly offered Maroon double what the Blues offered, but he wanted to be with his son. Shero didn't want to get involved with De Haan because he only played a limited amount of games and has injury issues.

Other than the above, there was no other smart move. Some people want to throw money around just so they can see it pop up on their Twitter feed and make July a little less boring. Then in 12-24 months time, the Devils can't make moves that are actually intelligent because they had to sign some aging veteran to an inflated contract so they could convince fans that they were "doing something" and willing to spend money. I'm glad the adults are making the decisions.

 

[Call Me Al]

that’s a lot of words wasted trying to convince someone who refuses to believe that, but for everyone else that makes sense

 

[JrFischer54]

that’s a lot of words wasted trying to convince someone who refuses to believe that, but for everyone else that makes sense

I agree esp since no one bothers to read my words when I never mentioned once free agency as a lone solution even agreeing there wasn’t anyone to spend on this summer. Smh but whatevs

 

[New Jersey]

the fact that the devils haven't blindly thrown any money at emergency signings this summer once they couldn't woo their targets, while keeping some guys we all wanted to keep like noeson and coleman, should indicate that shero and the owners have a long term plan and an integral part of that plan is maintaining the viability of the franchise on and off the ice... in new jersey.

oh, and hallsy is gonna get PAID in his ufa year.

status f***ing quo everyone.

 

[OmNomNom]

can u check your crystal ball and tell me how much nico and butcher gonna get paid after their ELC's run out? thanks man.

@Zezel22

next season, boyle and LJ are off the books, which frees up 5.416M. Marjo off the books as well, possibly, so that's a potential extra 4.5M, giving us a total of 28M to play with.

Assume Marjo plays well, and we give 7M, and extend butcher for 5M, and that leaves us with 16M after next summer (zacha and mueller are TBD).

the NEXT offseason (20-21), Greene is off the books, but that money is given to Hall (6M --> 11M).

That leaves 16M to pay Bratt, Nico, and Vatanen.

I still hadn't considered Zacha and Mueller potential contracts.

we still have some deadweight and decision to make, but we're not at the cap floor to make completely reckless decisions

using New Jersey Devils Multi-Year Cap as a guide for projections, fyi

 

[Devilsfan118]

@Zezel22

next season, boyle and LJ are off the books, which frees up 5.416M. Marjo off the books as well, possibly, so that's a potential extra 4.5M, giving us a total of 28M to play with.

Assume Marjo plays well, and we give 7M, and extend butcher for 5M, and that leaves us with 16M after next summer (zacha and mueller are TBD).

the NEXT offseason (20-21), Greene is off the books, but that money is given to Hall (6M --> 11M).

That leaves 16M to pay Bratt, Nico, and Vatanen.

I still hadn't considered Zacha and Mueller potential contracts.

we still have some deadweight and decision to make, but we're not at the cap floor to make completely reckless decisions

using New Jersey Devils Multi-Year Cap as a guide for projections, fyi

I'm not sure where you're getting those numbers, but I'm looking at Cap Friendly and as of next year, we'll have something absurd like 35M in cap space. You want to add MoJo at 7M (generous) and Butcher at 5M (generous), that puts us at 23M. Boyle and Lovejoy probably aren't coming back. Zacha and Mueller, barring incredible breakout years, probably aren't getting much. Let's go crazy and say they each get 3M. So that brings us down to 17M.

The following year you lose Greene (+5M), Vatanen (+4.875M), Hall (+6M), Nico and Bratt (~2M total). That leaves you with a staggering 35M to re-sign the above players.

Hall - 11M
Vats - 7M
Nico - 5m? Bridge?
Bratt - 4m? Assuming he looks more like he did at the start of last year than towards the... rest of it. That's 27M, leaves us with 8M in cap space.

Re: the bolded. I just don't think adding a superstar 1D is a reckless decision.

 

[OmNomNom]

I'm not sure where you're getting those numbers, but I'm looking at Cap Friendly and as of next year, we'll have something absurd like 35M in cap space. You want to add MoJo at 7M (generous) and Butcher at 5M (generous), that puts us at 23M. Boyle and Lovejoy probably aren't coming back. Zacha and Mueller, barring incredible breakout years, probably aren't getting much. Let's go crazy and say they each get 3M. So that brings us down to 17M.

The following year you lose Greene (+5M), Vatanen (+4.875M), Hall (+6M), Nico and Bratt (~2M total). That leaves you with a staggering 35M to re-sign the above players.

Hall - 11M
Vats - 7M
Nico - 5m? Bridge?
Bratt - 4m? Assuming he looks more like he did at the start of last year than towards the... rest of it. That's 27M, leaves us with 8M in cap space.

Re: the bolded. I just don't think adding a superstar 1D is a reckless decision.

oh shit i didn't see that thing on the bottom. i don't get how they got the 35M though

 

[Triumph]

I'm not sure where you're getting those numbers, but I'm looking at Cap Friendly and as of next year, we'll have something absurd like 35M in cap space. You want to add MoJo at 7M (generous) and Butcher at 5M (generous), that puts us at 23M. Boyle and Lovejoy probably aren't coming back. Zacha and Mueller, barring incredible breakout years, probably aren't getting much. Let's go crazy and say they each get 3M. So that brings us down to 17M.

The following year you lose Greene (+5M), Vatanen (+4.875M), Hall (+6M), Nico and Bratt (~2M total). That leaves you with a staggering 35M to re-sign the above players.

Hall - 11M
Vats - 7M
Nico - 5m? Bridge?
Bratt - 4m? Assuming he looks more like he did at the start of last year than towards the... rest of it. That's 27M, leaves us with 8M in cap space.

Re: the bolded. I just don't think adding a superstar 1D is a reckless decision.

1st overall picks don't generally sign bridge deals. Yakupov did but that's because he was a bust. In general, those players sign long-term deals and they're quite expensive. I'm assuming based on last season that Hall, Nico, and Bratt will cost between $20M and $27M between the 3 of them.

I don't think the Devils weren't in on Karlsson because they think they can't afford him long-term. I think they weren't in on him because they know he wouldn't sign here, and trading assets for 1 year of Karlsson does not make sense with where the Devils are at in their rebuild.

 

[Call Me Al]

also i don't think ottawa had any intention of sending him to an eastern conference team given the extra condition thrown into that deal, so it might not have mattered at all what shero was willing to offer

 

[NJDevs26]

also i don't think ottawa had any intention of sending him to an eastern conference team given the extra condition thrown into that deal, so it might not have mattered at all what shero was willing to offer

This...we would have had to offer a LOT more than the Sharks did just to hope for a deal with a EK who wasn't signed. That's too pricey a risk to take at this point. It makes more sense for the Sharks given they have a lot of guys on one-year deals anyway.

 

[RangerDoggo]

My concern with Shero’s strategy isn’t so much that he won’t spend as it is that he thinks we’ve got a system of prospects and homegrown players that will make us a contender. Two problems with that:

1. Our farm system is aggressively OK, from the middle of the pack to the front of the back depending on who you ask, with nary a game breaking talent within it.
2. He has always been an atrocious first round drafter. Set aside McLeod and Zacha for a second and go back to his tenure in Pittsburgh. It’s even worse than it is now. Hischier was a gimme, and Ty Smith for now looks like the rare hit. The old saying is that you gotta draft the best player and not for need. That’s not what Shero does.

A lot can happen and we’ll know more with the benefit of hindsight, but the way I see it now, it seems like the plan with the Devils cap space is to develop and keep together a team of middle-six ceiling players and hope that Hall doesn’t leave. That’s only going to get you into the first or second round of the playoffs but no further.

The wild card here is John Hynes. This time last year I had near-limitless trust in Ray and wanted Hynes gone. A lot can change in such a short time. Maybe the guys the scouts don’t like are the kinds of guys his system does.

 

[NJDevs26]

Unfortunately I'm not sure with the way things are, that this debate will ever end. With fewer top FA's, fewer pure cap trades and an ever-increasing cap by the year it's going to be harder to be a celing team unless you either trade for a bunch of big contracts, or re-sign a lot of your own players to big deals. It'll take years before the latter happens, if it ever does. As far as the former we'll never know what trades could or couldn't be made to add payroll and more importantly one that makes sense. Until Shero leaves here and explicitly says there's a budget or there's a lot of leaking that says there's a budget a la the latter days of JVB, it's literally impossible to say whether they won't spend because they can't or because the right opportunity doesn't really exist.

 

[RangerDoggo]

I sincerely doubt that the Devils are on a budget with an ownership duo that also owns an NBA franchise and a Premier League club. I can’t talk about Crystal Palace because I have no idea how they’re run, but with the Sixers, Blitzer and Harris are content to sign the checks while somebody deals with the sports side, only intervening when they want to replace that person. That’s the exact same plan at work with the Devils.

Thinking about it further, I guess I don’t have a problem with this strategy, but I’m starting to have doubts about if Shero is the best guy to implement it.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

1st overall picks don't generally sign bridge deals. Yakupov did but that's because he was a bust. In general, those players sign long-term deals and they're quite expensive. I'm assuming based on last season that Hall, Nico, and Bratt will cost between $20M and $27M between the 3 of them.

I don't think the Devils weren't in on Karlsson because they think they can't afford him long-term. I think they weren't in on him because they know he wouldn't sign here, and trading assets for 1 year of Karlsson does not make sense with where the Devils are at in their rebuild.

the most rational take I have seen. Good point.

I think maybe next year we're "ready" to make one of these home run type trades. But not quite yet.

 

[Triumph]

My concern with Shero’s strategy isn’t so much that he won’t spend as it is that he thinks we’ve got a system of prospects and homegrown players that will make us a contender. Two problems with that:

1. Our farm system is aggressively OK, from the middle of the pack to the front of the back depending on who you ask, with nary a game breaking talent within it.

Most of the talent that will help the Devils take the next step is already on the NHL roster. The Devils' farm system is fine where it is given that their best picks from 2016 and 2017 are already in the NHL whereas that is not true of a lot of franchises. I wish it were doing better, but it's not horrible.

He has always been an atrocious first round drafter. Set aside McLeod and Zacha for a second and go back to his tenure in Pittsburgh. It’s even worse than it is now. Hischier was a gimme, and Ty Smith for now looks like the rare hit. The old saying is that you gotta draft the best player and not for need. That’s not what Shero does.

This is based on nothing. General managers generally make the pick their scouts give them. The GM is certainly involved in the process, but it's other people's job to figure out the best players in the draft, especially when that GM's team makes the playoffs, as the Penguins did every year he was there. One thing Shero was good at doing was seeing when the guys they drafted weren't panning out - he moved Esposito right away and Joe Morrow was moved within 2 years of being drafted.

A lot can happen and we’ll know more with the benefit of hindsight, but the way I see it now, it seems like the plan with the Devils cap space is to develop and keep together a team of middle-six ceiling players and hope that Hall doesn’t leave. That’s only going to get you into the first or second round of the playoffs but no further.

It's a lot better than where this franchise was at the end of April 2016. Teams generally don't just go from having a bunch of high picks to a Stanley Cup contender. There's a middle period and that's what the Devils are in now. In a year or two, they'll know where they're at with a lot of guys we're calling prospects now, and that will guide whether they can trade for another star player and/or try to sign one.

The wild card here is John Hynes. This time last year I had near-limitless trust in Ray and wanted Hynes gone. A lot can change in such a short time. Maybe the guys the scouts don’t like are the kinds of guys his system does.

I don't think this is true - Hynes's system (as it is now) favors speed and skill, which are things that scouts tend to like.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

My concern with Shero’s strategy isn’t so much that he won’t spend as it is that he thinks we’ve got a system of prospects and homegrown players that will make us a contender. Two problems with that:

1. Our farm system is aggressively OK, from the middle of the pack to the front of the back depending on who you ask, with nary a game breaking talent within it.
2. He has always been an atrocious first round drafter. Set aside McLeod and Zacha for a second and go back to his tenure in Pittsburgh. It’s even worse than it is now. Hischier was a gimme, and Ty Smith for now looks like the rare hit. The old saying is that you gotta draft the best player and not for need. That’s not what Shero does.

A lot can happen and we’ll know more with the benefit of hindsight, but the way I see it now, it seems like the plan with the Devils cap space is to develop and keep together a team of middle-six ceiling players and hope that Hall doesn’t leave. That’s only going to get you into the first or second round of the playoffs but no further.

The wild card here is John Hynes. This time last year I had near-limitless trust in Ray and wanted Hynes gone. A lot can change in such a short time. Maybe the guys the scouts don’t like are the kinds of guys his system does.

are you implying that you've lost trust in SHero? so this past season, in which a bunch of young guys (whom Shero brought in) played extremely well, made you lose faith?

Also Zacha might as well not be a Shero pick. He wasn't hired until like a month before that draft.

 

[RangerDoggo]

are you implying that you've lost trust in SHero? so this past season, in which a bunch of young guys (whom Shero brought in) played extremely well, made you lose faith?

Also Zacha might as well not be a Shero pick. He wasn't hired until like a month before that draft.

I still have faith in Shero, but I have slight creeping, nagging doubts, mainly based around the fact that I’m not convinced their ceiling is that high. Part of that is paranoia and letting media naysayers get to me, but part of that is my own observation.

 

[AveryQuietMan]

I still have faith in Shero, but I have slight creeping, nagging doubts, mainly based around the fact that I’m not convinced their ceiling is that high. Part of that is paranoia and letting media naysayers get to me, but part of that is my own observation.

dont apologize. this is going down hill fast. the deadline accusations were horrible and they did nothing during the off-season. shero grade was an A. now is a C.

we will miss the playoffs this year if they dont do something.

wasting halls prime.

hope im wrong

 

[AveryQuietMan]

are you implying that you've lost trust in SHero? so this past season, in which a bunch of young guys (whom Shero brought in) played extremely well, made you lose faith?

Also Zacha might as well not be a Shero pick. He wasn't hired until like a month before that draft.

hope so. i have.

we arent winning boo with this lineup

 

[OmNomNom]

dont apologize. this is going down hill fast. the deadline accusations were horrible and they did nothing during the off-season. shero grade was an A. now is a C.

we will miss the playoffs this year if they dont do something.

wasting halls prime.

hope im wrong

lolwut

let's see how these young-guns are. zacha, nico, bratt, butcher, hell even seney and mcleod. an argument could be had for not making impulse buys

 

[Better Call Sal]

dont apologize. this is going down hill fast. the deadline accusations were horrible and they did nothing during the off-season. shero grade was an A. now is a C.

we will miss the playoffs this year if they dont do something.

wasting halls prime.

hope im wrong

Is this post from 2017? Because it reads eerily similar.

Keep doubting just like everyone else. We're better off as the underdog.

 

[Setec Astronomy]

Obviously we’ll never know what was really in the cards, but it’s disappointing that Shero could not make a Karlsson trade happen. Severson is a much better player than the roster players SJ traded, and will probably be much better than any of the prospects. Even without an extension, you take a chance when someone is pretty much giving away one of the best players in the sport.

The window is obviously not shutting anytime soon, and barring something catastrophic I have no concerns at all that Hall will be here for the long run and will have a lot of excellent hockey still to give. But we still need at least two impact players to take the next step. It’s plausible that Smith becomes a legit top pairing defenseman. So that’s one. Then you got to hope that Zacha flips the switch and turns into a monster. Stranger things have happened. If not it’s got to come from outside the organization and I don’t think any GM will take the chance of being on the wrong side of a Taylor Hall type deal with Shero. Maybe he can snag a guy like Neidereitter, a good player but not a next level type.

Just don’t want to be one of those zombe franchises that are in and out of the playoffs, whose only real shot at taking the next step is sucking in the right year and winning a lottery pick.

 

[AveryQuietMan]

Is this post from 2017? Because it reads eerily similar.

Keep doubting just like everyone else. We're better off as the underdog.

i really hope you are right.

just mad at the fact that we gave up assets for a first round exit. lets hope the young guns pick up the slack. ill be cheering for the devils all year. my $200 bet for them to win the cup says it all.