Confirmed with Link: Devils sign Brandon Gormley 1yr 650k

[Nemec]

Shero is reaching Lou levels of bargain bin shopping right now.

This is like a clearance sale on a discontinued item that is abandoned by a bankrupt company sale at KMart bargain bin shopping.

 

[devils55]

Gormley still has huge potential, great depth pick up

 

[GeNeXt]

I really like this pickup. Who knows, maybe he can even step into the second pair. He played for an Arizona team that was blatantly tanking, and a Colorado team which seems to play with disregard for defense. Coming into a more structured system than before, maybe he'll succeed. His partners of more than 60 minutes at ES thus far have been Chris Summers, Connor Murphy, Mike Stone, Zach Redmond, and Nate Guenin. Not a dazzling group, especially for the development of a young defenceman. If anything, he brings competition to the rest and steps up for an injury. Maybe we can now swap Moore/Merrill along with a prospect or pick for a slightly better Dman after training camp, if Gormley can beat out the rest. Maybe we can somehow gyp that bozo Jim Benning for Tanev with some kind of Merrill/Moore + prospects/picks (C-level prospects and mid rounders).

 

[Oneiro]

Interesting how people took my bargain bin shopping comment negatively. You are a sensitive bunch.

I don't disapprove of the deal. At all. But because the players are young doesn't change the principle: trying a bunch of cheap (downtrodden) options in hopes that one of them pans out.

(Also: people saying that Ryder/Havlat/Butler/etc. prevented us from doing anything (or took someone's spot away) are just flat out making things up. No dynamic young guy was blocked. There was no cap crunch.)

 

[Stephen Gionta]

Interesting how people took my bargain bin shopping comment negatively. You are a sensitive bunch.

I don't disapprove of the deal. At all. But because the players are young doesn't change the principle: trying a bunch of cheap (downtrodden) options in hopes that one of them pans out.

(Also: people saying that Ryder/Havlat/Butler/etc. prevented us from doing anything (or took someone's spot away) are just flat out making things up. No dynamic young guy was blocked. There was no cap crunch.)

Ryder/Havlat/Brunner definitely blocked some young players from playing.

The Brunner signing was a great signing, just didn't work out.
The Havlat signing was just completely stupid.
The Ryder signing was ok when it happened, but it didn't work out.

Shero and Lou seem to have similar styles in the low risk, high reward signings, except Shero has done it with players younger than 25, whereas Lou did it with players older than 35.
I like Shero's way better.

 

[Bleedred]

The difference is the guys Shero is "bargain" shopping are young, Lou kept going after guys who were on the wrong sign of 30, signed them for too much, and you knew what a person was at 30+ years old. Gormley could figure it out, will he? Probably not but there's more of a chance than signing vets who should've washed out of the league a few years before we brought them in.

Another difference is that, I don't think we signed Gormley to try and replace Larsson, even if him making the team means that the empty spot on D in the lineup went to him.

Like when we signed Bobby Butler to replace Parise or Sykora, then he wound up not even making the team out of camp.

 

[Bleedred]

Ryder/Havlat/Brunner definitely blocked some young players from playing.

The Brunner signing was a great signing, just didn't work out.
The Havlat signing was just completely stupid.
The Ryder signing was ok when it happened, but it didn't work out.

Shero and Lou seem to have similar styles in the low risk, high reward signings, except Shero has done it with players younger than 25, whereas Lou did it with players older than 35.
I like Shero's way better.

Why was the Havlat signing completely stupid? I don't agree with that at all.

The only argument I can understand for thinking the Havlat signing was stupid was that we were trying to compete with Havlat being one of our top guys.

When you're rebuilding like we were last year, a signing like Havlat is fine. I realize that we were not supposed to be rebuilding the year we had him, at least not in the way we were rebuilding last year.

Signing Havlat to me was no different than signing a guy like Stempniak or Tlusty last year. Other than the fact that Tlusty was a bit younger and still in his 20's, and that we signed Havlat while we were going all out to try and compete for a playoff spot. We weren't trying to compete last year when we signed Tlusty or Stempniak.

And please tell me what young guys that Brunner, Havlat or Ryder blocked? TedenBUST? Jacob Josefson, who as we saw this past season, really didn't have this untapped potential? Joe Whitney? We had no good forward prospects at the time, other than a couple guys that weren't pro and Boucher and Matteau (LOL) who clearly weren't ready yet.

 

[Billdo]

Interesting how people took my bargain bin shopping comment negatively. You are a sensitive bunch.

I don't disapprove of the deal. At all. But because the players are young doesn't change the principle: trying a bunch of cheap (downtrodden) options in hopes that one of them pans out.

(Also: people saying that Ryder/Havlat/Butler/etc. prevented us from doing anything (or took someone's spot away) are just flat out making things up. No dynamic young guy was blocked. There was no cap crunch.)

I don't think it was negative. I just feel the age thing should be noted. If a guy is 30+ we typically know what he is. Like I said earlier, is Gormley magically going to fulfill his potential? Probably not but I'd rather throw a dart at him and hope it sticks over an older player that we know won't.

 

[MartyOwns]

The left side of our defense is so weak that I really cannot complain at all with this signing. These are the types of signings we need to capitalize on. I would imagine we bring a PTO for both the LD and RD in training camp and we will have plenty of competition.

Greene - Severson
Moore - Lovejoy
Merrill - Santini
Auvitu - Mozik
Gormley - Scarlett
Helgeson - Jacobs
PTO - PTO

We're likely going to have 10 guys competing for the bottom pairing and 7th defenseman. We should be able to find a competent third pairing from that.

I realize it will probably happen but...having Severson on that first pairing scares me a bit

 

[Bleedred]

I realize it will probably happen but...having Severson on that first pairing scares me a bit

I figure that's it's either him or Lovejoy.

 

[Cheddabombs]

I realize it will probably happen but...having Severson on that first pairing scares me a bit

As long he's with Greene I'm confident in him.

It seems like the first pairing has been Greene + a rookie/young defenseman for quite some time now. Obviously we haven't done well the past few seasons but our first pairing for the most part has been good. And a lot of that credit belongs to Greene, though Lars did take a massive step last season. Severson's played well with him in the past. I don't want this to get too off-topic though. So... Gormley!

 

[MichaelJ]

This and the Bennett trade are the type of reclamation gambles I want the team to take. Young, first round talents who still have a shot. They cost nothing and could really pay off. If they don't, oh well.

 

[Devils Dominion]

This and the Bennett trade are the type of reclamation gambles I want the team to take. Young, first round talents who still have a shot. They cost nothing and could really pay off. If they don't, oh well.

They are much better than the Clowe type signings.

 

[VoidCreature]

I realize it will probably happen but...having Severson on that first pairing scares me a bit

Severson's played his best hockey with Andy Greene. Doesn't make me nervous at all.

 

[njdevils1982]

Ryder/Havlat/Brunner definitely blocked some young players from playing.

The Brunner signing was a great signing, just didn't work out.
The Havlat signing was just completely stupid.
The Ryder signing was ok when it happened, but it didn't work out.

Shero and Lou seem to have similar styles in the low risk, high reward signings, except Shero has done it with players younger than 25, whereas Lou did it with players older than 35.
I like Shero's way better.

this is so far from the truth

the trio of suck blocked nobody as there was nobody ready to step in to the big time. they were stopgaps and nothing more

 

[Billdo]

Ryder/Havlat/Brunner definitely blocked some young players from playing.

Eh, I don't think they did and even if they "blocked" younger players, that makes it all the more obvious those younger players weren't ready. If you can't beat out a Havlat or Ryder at that stage of their careers, you're not ready. Nobody disliked the signings of a Brunner or Ryder though at the time, or at least not a crazy amount.

 

[Bleedred]

this is so far from the truth

the trio of suck blocked nobody as there was nobody ready to step in to the big time. they were stopgaps and nothing more

Agreed.

Those three sucked for us, although I think the leash was a little too short on Brunner and Havlat both. They seemed to respect Ryder's BS veteran status, despite being worse than Brunner and waived him instead. Not saying I think we should have kept him, just that Ryder was the one that was finished as a player and should have been treated as such.

 

[Feed Me A Stray Cat]

Every team signed a player like this this offseason. Nothing to see here.

 

[devilsblood]

Ryder/Havlat/Brunner definitely blocked some young players from playing.

The Brunner signing was a great signing, just didn't work out.
The Havlat signing was just completely stupid.
The Ryder signing was ok when it happened, but it didn't work out.

Shero and Lou seem to have similar styles in the low risk, high reward signings, except Shero has done it with players younger than 25, whereas Lou did it with players older than 35.
I like Shero's way better.

Shero signed Stemp and Schlem last year.

Lou signed Brunner, and also that Czech(?) former first rounder who lasted a month before heading off to europe.

In otherwords, not much has changed, in this regards anyway.

 

[devilsblood]

Every team signed a player like this this offseason. Nothing to see here.

If your saying Shero is not doing something here that other teams are not doing, I agree.

But a move like this could pay off. That's why, in part, teams make such moves. Hopefully we get lucky.

 

[Bleedred]

Shero signed Stemp and Schlem last year.

Lou signed Brunner, and also that Czech(?) former first rounder who lasted a month before heading off to europe.

In otherwords, not much has changed, in this regards anyway.

Rostislav Olesz LOL.

That signing annoyed me a little more than any of the other bargain bin ones, at least Havlat had a track record and hadn't already washed out of the league prior to us signing him.