Devils team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - offseason part I

[JimEIV]

The Boqvist thing is what makes me sad. Maybe hindsight, but he's very strong defensively, versatile, and plays with speed. He brings very little offensively but he could have been a great presence to solidify our 4th line this year, and we just gave up on him because we were scared of the arb number. I feel like that was the biggest whiff for Fitz this offseason.

Geez. I think he's the least of the losses. It's hard to call him a whiff by Fitz in my opinion.

He doesn't bring enough energy for the 4th line and he couldn't produce enough to be a 3rd liner. He really was like the new age Jacob Josefson. At the end of the 2023 season he did start to grow on me...he was playing a solid game and scoring a few goals but it's really hard to see where he could've fit long term.

Sharangovich is the killer for me. In fact I think it's Fitz only major mistake.

no shit.

 

[JimEIV]

Well at least we get to watch Luke and Nemec at Worlds soon. I really like Team USA's roster

2024 U.S. Men's National Team Roster

teamusa.usahockey.com

 

[PizzaAndPucks]

This is going to be a long offseason ! Let's talk about our 10th overall pick and how it's probably going to get traded for some overrated player !

 

[None Shall Pass]

I mean this was our depth coming into the season. Ignore the accuracy of the line combos, just making the point:

Meier-Hughes-Toffoli
Palat-Hischier-Bratt
Mercer-Haula-Holtz
Nosek-McLeod-Bastian
Foote, Tierney, Lazar

That top-9 is 5 great to elite players, 3 quality middle-six guys, and young skilled rookie (At the time) in Holtz. The NHL is a cap league - skilled rookies on ELCs need to play on every team.

The 4th line was the same as it was last year except Wood was replaced. Wood's game is missed, I'd agree, but that contract he got is going to be awful sooner rather than later. A promising rookie in Foote and veteran depth in Tierney and Lazar. In fact the forward depth was good enough that Foote starting the season on IR allowed us to keep one of Tierney or Lazar off waivers. Say what you want about them, but they're both NHL players and were our 13th and 14th forwards when everyone is healthy. That's normal.

Five guys had their seasons ruined by big injuries - Hughes, Meier, Nosek, Bastian, Foote. That's already a big amount.

Both Nico and Tierney also had some injury problems, though Nico bounced back in a big way.

Two more guys had not great seasons relative to their history - Mercer and Palat. Palat's underlyings were good but his production was a dud. Mercer just stunk for the most part.

McLeod did sex crimes and is gone. Holtz didn't have a particularly great first full season, but chicken-or-the-egg it with the Lindy Ruff of it all.

Anyway, point is: 15 forwards above. Five of whom had their seasons ruined by injuries, including two of your gamebreakers and a couple of your big strong machomen. Two guys had unexpectedly bad years relative to their recent history. One guy is probably going to jail.

That's 8 NHL forwards who had a lost season, before we even talk about the rookie in Holtz. No team in the league is going to look good, or have the depth to thrive, with that level of nonsense.

Toffoli vs Sharangovich is a wash because it's one or the other and the numbers were comparable. Boqvist would've been nice depth but nothing game changing. We just got f***ing rocked this season. It was an outlier.

 

[Nemec]

Is Dougie gonna be as effective next year? Pec Major is a rough tendon to tear for a hockey player.

 

[NJDfan86]

Joshua will likely get an overly generous deal but Marchment had a bigger breakout season when he was a year younger.

Spoiler: Their production

Marchment
2021-22 (26 yo)
54 GP 18G 29A 47 pts
0.33 G/GP 0.54 A/GP 0.87 pts/GP
1.42 G/60 2.28 A/60 3.70 pts/60
5v5
54 GP 15G 25A 40 pts
0.28 G/GP 0.46 A/GP 0.74 pts/GP
1.28 G/60 2.14 A/60 3.42 pts/60

Joshua
2022-23 (26 yo)
79 GP 11G 12A 23 pts
0.14 G/GP 0.15 A/GP 0.29 pts/GP
0.73 G/60 0.79 A/60 1.52 pts/60
5v5
79 GP 9G 11A 20 pts
0.11 G/GP 0.14 A/GP 0.25 pts/GP
0.67 G/60 0.81 A/60 1.48 pts/60

2023-24 (27 yo)
63 GP 18G 14A 32 pts
0.29 G/GP 0.22 A/GP 0.51 pts/GP
1.19 G/60 0.93 A/60 2.12 pts/60
5v5
63 GP 14G 13A 27 pts
0.22 G/GP 0.21 A/GP 0.43 pts/GP
1.13 G/60 1.04 A/60 2.17 pts/60

From April 3, 2024 article
The Canucks media guy, who sometimes talks out of his ass, has him getting more than 3m.


And

Spoiler: Let’s look at these five comparable players:

Matt Beleskey: BOS 5 years/ 3.8m in 2015-16
Yikes.
First season: 37 pts in 80 games.
The rest: 19 NHL games & then the AHL.
BOS dumped him on NYR at 50% retained in the Rick Nash trade at the 2018 TDL.

Brett Connolly: FLA 4 years/3.5m in 2019-20
Yikes.
First season: 33 pts in 69 games.
The rest: 30 NHL games over the next two years before ending up in the AHL.
Last year of the deal was bought out.

Antoine Roussel: VAN 4 years/3m in 2018-19
Also bad.
First Season: 29 pts in 65 games.
The rest: Missed a few months w/ knee surgery the 2nd year and then completely fell off a cliff in the 3rd.
Was part of the group cap dump for OEL in July 2021.

Chris Stewart: MIN 2 years/1.15m in 2016–17
Whatever.
First year: 72 games the first year.
Second: 47 games, waived & picked up by CGY for 7 games.

Alexander Barabanov: SJS 2 years/2.5m
Ok.
first year: 47 pts in 68 games
second year: 13 pts in 46 games, lot of injuries.

The lesson here is generous deals with a lot of term for bottom six UFAs coming off career years not only end in tears, they’re bad after about a year. They’re sucker bets.

Agreed his breakout year was better, but the cap is going up this year and he is the type of player someone with the extra space will splurge on.

I wouldn’t sign him to the deal, for the record. Like the player though.

 

[Rhodes 81]

Is Dougie gonna be as effective next year? Pec Major is a rough tendon to tear for a hockey player.

I've been very concerned about this

 

[Bleedred]

I'm more worried about the coaching hire than Dougie falling apart.

It is a valid concern though. He's also 31 years old as of this summer. Good chance that 22-23 is the best season he'll ever have here.

But I'm definitely worried more about the coaching hire, even more than what we do in goal. 21 games of Travis Green showed us what a shitty worthless coach can do to a team, even with above average goaltending.

 

[Devs3cups]

Not too worried about Dougie tbh. The injury sucks, but he has time to train correctly and work on his game before the season.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Timo playing with two bum knees and yet people still bitching about his first half season of production lmfao

Wild shit

 

[NjdevilfanJim]

Timo playing with two bum knees and yet people still bitching about his first half season of production lmfao

Wild shit

Agree especially once the severity was known of those injuries.....

 

[Billdo]

Timo playing with two bum knees and yet people still bitching about his first half season of production lmfao

Wild shit

There's certainly a few who do things like this every year and are the proverbial wet blanket.

 

[Unknown Caller]

Is Dougie gonna be as effective next year? Pec Major is a rough tendon to tear for a hockey player.

Definitely concerned about it, but on the positive side at least it isn't lower body or concussions.

His skating won't be impacted, so really as long as he has full strength and range of motion and his shot and puck handling return to normal he should be fine.

 

[TheUnseenHand]

I've been very concerned about this

The only thing that is giving me some hope is that Dougie never relied on tickling the rafters to bomb slappers. He's more a short windup and accuracy guy, using his height to change angles in ways that fool goalies. From a shot perspective I think he will be fine. I'm not sure how it will impact other areas of the game though.

I'll gladly eat crow on Timo if his end of the year production continues. I knew he was injured but you'll have to forgive me for not thinking we would trot him out there with 4+ different injuries impacting him at the same time. What the hell was the team thinking?

 

[MasterofGrond]

missing dougie all year f***ed us pretty hard this season, but missing 3/4 of the season at least has the silver lining that he’ll have had 10 months to recover before real games start again

 

[JimEIV]

missing dougie all year f***ed us pretty hard this season, but missing 3/4 of the season at least has the silver lining that he’ll have had 10 months to recover before real games start again

I don't know? We played .500 hockey the entire season. Beginning to end...with Dougie and without. With Jack and Without.

We were in the same position, on the outside looking up the entire year.

After Dougie's last game on November 28th we were 10-9-1 and in 7th Wild Card position and 6th in the Metropolitan.... Basically the same position we finished with.

We lost to the Capitals, Blue Jackets and Red Wings in November with Dougie. We lost 3 in a row twice in Dougie's 20 games played.

I think this was always a doomed season.

 

[MasterofGrond]

I don't know? We played .500 hockey the entire season. Beginning to end...with Dougie and without. With Jack and Without.

We were in the same position, on the outside looking up the entire year.

After Dougie's last game on November 28th we were 10-9-1 and in 7th Wild Card position and 6th in the Metropolitan.... Basically the same position we finished with.

We lost to the Capitals, Blue Jackets and Red Wings in November with Dougie. We lost 3 in a row twice in Dougie's 20 games played.

I think this was always a doomed season.

With dougie the teams metrics were at least good (yeah you don’t give a f***, I know). But the finishing and saves just weren’t there.

After he went down, the metrics got very mediocre and the results stayed mediocre.

 

[Stephen Gionta]

I can't wait for Fitz big move this summer.

Ilya Sorokin, Brady Tkachuk, Jacob Markstrom, Steven Stamkos

One of those players will be a Devil.

 

[Cheddabombs]

I can't wait for Fitz big move this summer.

Ilya Sorokin, Brady Tkachuk, Jacob Markstrom, Steven Stamkos

One of those players will be a Devil.

Or none of them are and we resign Smith

 

[Mgd31]

Or none of them are and we resign Smith

re-sign*

 

[JimEIV]

With dougie the teams metrics were at least good (yeah you don’t give a f***, I know). But the finishing and saves just weren’t there.

After he went down, the metrics got very mediocre and the results stayed mediocre.

It's not that I don't give a f*** about matrices, it's that I see them as an addendum to the actual results.

Edit: and I think the data we use ( almost entirely shots) is such a poor data point due to the dynamic nature of the sport that it makes any type of predictability tenuous at best.

 

[Cheddabombs]

re-sign*

 

[Brodeur]

Is Dougie gonna be as effective next year? Pec Major is a rough tendon to tear for a hockey player.

Matt Dumba was never the same after his pec tear. But I didn't graduate from the Mark Recchi School of Medicine, so I don't know if certain tears are significantly worse than others.

Travis Zajac had a pec tear late in his career. His numbers from that initial season took a dip but the season after he produced almost identical stats from his pre-injury year.

 

[Bleedred]

Matt Dumba was never the same after his pec tear. But I didn't graduate from the Mark Recchi School of Medicine, so I don't know if certain tears are significantly worse than others.

Travis Zajac had a pec tear late in his career. His numbers from that initial season took a dip but the season after he produced almost identical stats from his pre-injury year.

I remember that. I forgot what exactly happened, though I thought he got injured in the offseason or something? He definitely got injured in the offseason when he had whatever caused him to miss almost the whole 2011-2012 regular season. I think it was something with his leg? ACL, MCL, something like that.

I remember in 17-18 he came back about a month before they originally said he would.

He had 2 points in his first 20 games, both goals. Then wound up finishing with 24 points in the remaining 43 games, which was more in line with his production from the year before and year after that.

 

[Emperoreddy]