GDT: Devils vs. Capitals - 7pm, MSG

[Bleedred]

Flyers are a punching bag right now. Carter Hart may never develop into an elite goalie. Like Gibson in Anaheim. He's still young but, seems to be regressing.

Gibson was very good early on, but also was missing games with injuries left and right in those days. Most famously during the 2017 WCF when he was hurt in the middle of the series and Nashville blew up Bernier the remainder of the series to win it.

I think all of that has come back to degrade his play in the last several years. A change of scenery may do him some good, but I'm not sure if it can happen on his current contract, unless he can put together a good year. He's an albatross on that current contract. There's too many years and term left. If he has a couple okay years between now and the next two seasons, maybe someone will take the last two years with a whole bunch of retention, but the Ducks fans acting like he was valuable and that the Leafs should pay something of value for him because he would take them to the promised land were just some of the most delusional posts I've seen on this website in the 20+ years I've been posting and lurking it.

Hart is still only 24 I think? The problem with Hart I think was that he was RUSHED into the league too early. If I recall correctly, when Hextall was fired and one of the big clashes was that he did not want to bring Hart up yet. Hart (like Blackwood) flourished his first two years in the league, but had a complete disaster of a season in 20-21. He bounced back a bit last year, before a death streak in his final stretch of games he played last year, where he may have already been playing injured or got injured and didn't play again for the last month or two of the season.

 

[Classic Devil]

Follows the eye test. They freaking dominated us.

Yep. We won this game because of individual brilliance. We used to do this with Marty and Elias back in the day, but it's been so long I forgot what it was like.

 

[Blender]

Damn he's a tough interview.

I think after some of the questions/comments he's been getting over the last few years he probably just doesn't give a f*** anymore and will say whatever and just be direct.

 

[Better Call Sal]

 

[Cheddabombs]

 

[TheUnseenHand]

I think after some of the questions/comments he's been getting over the last few years he probably just doesn't give a f*** anymore and will say whatever and just be direct.

I don't dislike it at all. Just gotta throw interviewers for a loop not hearing the standard, braindead cliche responses.

 

[Classic Devil]

But we still won. So I'll take it with open arms.

Sure, but this kind of thing isn't sustainable. On the other hand, Buffalo ran us ragged last night and we didn't have as much time for rest as Washington did, and I think it showed.

 

[Guttersniped]

They had more push than most teams after we took the lead, not sure everyone needs to act like you aren’t allowed to win games this way.

 

[njdevils1982]

Gato , dude could've said coke and it would've made more sense

"rush rush give me yeyo"

 

[Better Call Sal]

As fun as it would be, it would be damn near impossible for us to shoot the opposition into the ground the way we have the overwhelming majority of this year. There are always going to be games where we will have to win in a different way, such as this.

I can’t remember the last time we’ve gotten performances like this but boy was it fun!

 

[swissexpert]

Call me a crazy basterd but to me, an 18-2 stretch is as impressive as an 13w streak!

 

[Hisch13r]

They had more push than most teams after we took the lead, not sure everyone needs to act like you aren’t allowed to win games this way.

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Because we literally never used to win this way. It’s a shock to people’s systems that you don’t have to be the better skater group every game and goalies can win you games

 

[My3Sons]

Call me a crazy basterd but to me, an 18-2 stretch is as impressive as an 13w streak!

You are a crazy bastard. I’m always happy to help a fellow Devils fan.

 

[Blackjack]

Because we literally never used to win this way. It’s a shock to people’s systems that you don’t have to be the better skater group every game and goalies can win you games

Yup. We've been talking about how the underlying stats support their gaudy record and a lot of what we're talking about is xGF%, corsi, etc. and yeah, you don't want to be on the wrong side of those numbers long term, but you are literally allowed to win a hockey game because your goaltender was good and your superstar center finished his chances.

 

[Bleedred]

After everything that I’ve seen this season, I super strongly believe that we should have been kind of good last season. I think if things go our way, we would have been somewhat good last season and this current run wouldn’t be out of nowhere.

I don’t think we would have been a 100 point team, but I do think we could have somehow been a 95 point team that was a 5 game exit in the first round of the playoffs.

I think if things went by design we probably would have been that last year.

And didn’t most models have us at around 91 points? So 95 points wouldn’t have been a huge stretch.

And hats off to some of those models that had us as a 110 point team before the season started. That had a lot us shaking our heads, but those guys aren’t looking so funny anymore. There were a couple guys that did models that really liked us and did somewhat predict this surge in their models.

 

[Devilsgrl35]

Call me a crazy basterd but to me, an 18-2 stretch is as impressive as an 13w streak!

No shootouts either. I think we have 3 to wins? Impressive stuff and it's fun as hell right now.

 

[Louskoolaid89]

Yup. We've been talking about how the underlying stats support their gaudy record and a lot of what we're talking about is xGF%, corsi, etc. and yeah, you don't want to be on the wrong side of those numbers long term, but you are literally allowed to win a hockey game because your goaltender was good and your superstar center finished his chances.

Shows we have enough talent to win when we have a semi off night. A very good sign.

 

[Classic Devil]

Shows we have enough talent to win when we have a semi off night. A very good sign.

That's where high-end talent specifically comes in. McDavid is good enough to win you a ton of games even when the rest of the team is terrible. Hughes is good enough to win not quite a ton, but still many games.

 

[Bleedred]

I’ve been annoyed with Haula’s lack of goal production, but I also wouldn’t close the door on re-signing him, particularly if he took a discount from this deal.

And he very well might if he has a poor goal output year.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

This guy is complaining about tonight's game when xG when we lost the game in October by an unluckier margin. Tonight's xG was mid 2's for both teams, we had like a 4 xG and the caps had like xG of 2.5 in that game that Blackwood sold. It's insane how stupid people are when it comes to hockey.

MoneyPuck.com

Real Time Hockey Win Probabilities In Game

www.moneypuck.com

(tonight's game)

MoneyPuck.com

Real Time Hockey Win Probabilities In Game

www.moneypuck.com

(Game in October)

 

[Richer's Ghost]

Haula is feeding his linemates rather than shoot and it paid off tonight big time.

 

[Emperoreddy]

They had more push than most teams after we took the lead, not sure everyone needs to act like you aren’t allowed to win games this way.

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A lot of that is the Caps are down 3 in the 3rd and pressing hard.

The way we have been handling teams in the 3rd isn't really normal where something like this is what you see around yhe league most nights

 

[Emperoreddy]

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

They had more push than most teams after we took the lead, not sure everyone needs to act like you aren’t allowed to win games this way.

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Crazy thing is the Devils were legit pushing at some points which led to some good Caps chances. I said it in the GDT I rather them still keep playing their game than sit back in a shell because regardless of how good you are because the latter creates some bad tendencies which can linger into the next game via muscle memory.

 

[Cheddabombs]

This guy is complaining about tonight's game when xG when we lost the game in October by an unluckier margin. Tonight's xG was mid 2's for both teams, we had like a 4 xG and the caps had like xG of 2.5 in that game that Blackwood sold. It's insane how stupid people are when it comes to hockey.

MoneyPuck.com

Real Time Hockey Win Probabilities In Game

www.moneypuck.com

(tonight's game)

MoneyPuck.com

Real Time Hockey Win Probabilities In Game

www.moneypuck.com

(Game in October)

Assuming that's their home broadcast then I get it, they'll always try to talk up their own team and look on the bright side. Dano's had years of practice there. But to downplay the Devils in the same sentence when they're now tied for first in the league for points is kinda funny