How long before Shero feels the pressure? Fire Shero?

[MartyOwns]

Well yes isn’t that the point? How can one declare these draft picks as accomplishments when they are still unknowns?

i don’t know what you’re defining accomplishments as, because these are prospects. but looking at our prospect pool today vs 10 years ago tells me shero deserves some credit here. true he lucked into two #1 picks, but in my mind that’s offset by the steaming pile of shit lou left behind for the rebuild. so all things considered, he’s done an excellent job in getting good trade value and drafting

 

[guitarguyvic]

i don’t know what you’re defining accomplishments as, because these are prospects. but looking at our prospect pool today vs 10 years ago tells me shero deserves some credit here. true he lucked into two #1 picks, but in my mind that’s offset by the steaming pile of **** lou left behind for the rebuild. so all things considered, he’s done an excellent job in getting good trade value and drafting

I’m not giving him credit for squat until these prospects actually live up to the potential you guys are assuming will be met.

I can’t get onboard with making these kind of assumptions given that the real world on ice product continues to be trash despite expectations.

Also, it makes no sense that Ray is supposedly someone that can identify prospect talent but somehow doesn’t recognize and/or react to shitty coaching. That doesn’t add up to me.

 

[NJDevs26]

Three of the last four years, the team is among the three worst teams in the league. That the coach is still here speaks to two possibilities, the GM doesn’t think the coach matters and it’s a make work position for patronage or he thinks Hynes is a good coach, in which case he is so stupid he can’t legally handle his own affairs.

I don't really get the notion Ray thinks a coach is irrelevant, both since he's the son of a coach and because his one and only firing of a coach won a Stanley Cup. Maybe he's just too stubborn or arrogant to admit a mistake with his own choices in that area.

 

[NJDevs26]

i don’t know what you’re defining accomplishments as, because these are prospects. but looking at our prospect pool today vs 10 years ago tells me shero deserves some credit here.

Everyone's grading of a prospect pool is a matter of perception, and the perception is we weren't drafting for skill then (despite attempted skill picks like Bergfors, Tedenby and Josefson), and we are now.

I do agree Castron looks a bit better than Conte post-2000 in terms of scouting, but I'm not entirely sure the prospect pool is as impressive as it's being made out to be either. The fact that Brett Seney leads our AHL team in scoring and Matt Tennyson is still our first d-callup doesn't really scream prospect haven.

A lot of whether this group of prospects actually turns into something hinges on Blackwood, Boqvist becoming more than a bottom six player, Bratt improving from a borderline middle six player and Ty Smith. Really the jury's still out on all of them at this point and you could argue Blackwood was a prior administration pick.

 

[PKs Broken Stick]

So why hold onto Hall this long if he wants to tank?

well....for the lottery? lol idk. who the hell knows.

 

[MartyOwns]

The fact that Brett Seney leads our AHL team in scoring and Matt Tennyson is still our first d-callup doesn't really scream prospect haven.

that’s really disingenuous. our best prospects (hughes, smith, talvitie) aren’t in the AHL. also not in the AHL: mccarthy, misyul, walsh, at least one of whom should be a future top 4 defenseman.

it is taking a while, yes, but proper prospect development is supposed to.

 

[NJDevs26]

that’s really disingenuous. our best prospects (hughes, smith, talvitie) aren’t in the AHL. also not in the AHL: mccarthy, misyul, walsh, at least one of whom should be a future top 4 defenseman.

it is taking a while, yes, but proper prospect development is supposed to.

Well we heard and perpetuated this in Lou's last years too...the AHL team sucked but that was okay cause we had Santini in college and Tedenby overseas and Gelinas was this close to breaking out. In many cases prospects are what you want to believe their celing is. We hyped up Ty Smith and Boqvist all offseason as contributors this year, one guy didn't even make the league and the other's barely playing.

And it's been a while, we might not be at the point yet where we better start seeing something from the Shero draft classes but it's coming fast. How long is the statute before we start seeing something other than lotto wins and fourth liners - 8-10 years? After he and his coaches get fired like in Pittsburgh?

 

[Emperoreddy]

We really even suggesting drafting is a failure because guys haven’t turned into superstars in their draft+2 years?

 

[MichaelJ]

It’s also possible that the AHL group isn’t doing a great job of coaching and developing.

 

[NJDevs26]

It’s also possible that the AHL group isn’t doing a great job of coaching and developing.

And/or the NHL group, which is a big part of the problem too. Scouting is one thing but developing is another.

 

[Emperoreddy]

It’s also possible that the AHL group isn’t doing a great job of coaching and developing.

It’s more that overall it isn’t a good team. Especially on the backend.

Coaching may have something to do with it too since I think they want to play Hynes way down there too.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Everyone's grading of a prospect pool is a matter of perception, and the perception is we weren't drafting for skill then (despite attempted skill picks like Bergfors, Tedenby and Josefson), and we are now.

I do agree Castron looks a bit better than Conte post-2000 in terms of scouting, but I'm not entirely sure the prospect pool is as impressive as it's being made out to be either. The fact that Brett Seney leads our AHL team in scoring and Matt Tennyson is still our first d-callup doesn't really scream prospect haven.

A lot of whether this group of prospects actually turns into something hinges on Blackwood, Boqvist becoming more than a bottom six player, Bratt improving from a borderline middle six player and Ty Smith. Really the jury's still out on all of them at this point and you could argue Blackwood was a prior administration pick.

a bit better huh

alrighty then.

btw Blackwood was not a Shero/Castron pick.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

We really even suggesting drafting is a failure because guys haven’t turned into superstars in their draft+2 years?

Sure seems that way.

 

[guitarguyvic]

We really even suggesting drafting is a failure because guys haven’t turned into superstars in their draft+2 years?

Uh no I don’t see anyone suggesting that.

I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me how drafting can already be checked off as an accomplishment/success at a time when not a single one of those prospects has proven themselves or lived up to their apparent potential yet.

 

[MartyOwns]

Uh no I don’t see anyone suggesting that.

I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me how drafting can already be checked off as an accomplishment/success at a time when not a single one of those prospects has proven themselves or lived up to their apparent potential yet.

who specifically checked off shero’s drafting as an “accomplishment”? he has improved the prospect pool from his predecessor, that should be obvious to everyone. not that improving on lou and conte’s shitdrafting would be difficult, i think you or i could draft better than them using a ouija board and a coin flip.

so: if you’re touting pipeline improvements as an accomplishment, you’re correct. if you’re saying our prospects aren’t getting nhl-ready fast enough according to your arbitrary personal preferences, you’re impatient. if you say it’s impossible to tell if our prospects are better now than 10 years ago, you’re ignorant. so everybody pick one

 

[Triumph]

Uh no I don’t see anyone suggesting that.

I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me how drafting can already be checked off as an accomplishment/success at a time when not a single one of those prospects has proven themselves or lived up to their apparent potential yet.

It's very hard to just rank drafts by 'guys that made the NHL' because most draft picks don't make the NHL in a serious way. One thing I like to look at is whether or not a draft pick was able to make a professional hockey career - whether they were able to play regularly and capably in a second-tier league (AHL, KHL, SHL, Swiss League, Finnish League, though these latter two are generally lower quality than the previous 3). I consider a player unable to do that a 'superbust'. There's just fewer superbusts in Castron's history so far. Some will manifest themselves in the years to come, no doubt - I would've put Speers' likelihood of busting this hard really low after being selected and even lower after making the NHL in 2016-17.

So looking at Devils drafts from 2008 forward -

2008: 9 picks, 4 superbusts (Young, Delahey, Nagy, Berube), 1 borderline (Wohlberg)
2009: 7 picks, 3 superbusts (Rodwell, Bernard, Gedig)
2010: 5 picks, 2 superbusts (Faust, Clermont), 1 borderline (Jorg)
2011: 6 picks, 1 superbust (Daly)
2012: 7 picks, 2 superbusts (Johnson, Black), 2 borderline (Gavrus, Thomson)
2013: 5 picks, 2 superbusts (Bell, Brodeur), 1 borderline (Kujawinski)
2014: 6 picks, 3 superbusts (Chatham, Dudek, Rehill), 1 borderline (Baddock)
2015: 5 picks, 1 likely superbust (Speers)

-----

So out of the 50 selections the Devils made here, they picked 17 superbusts and 7 borderline guys. That seems bad to me that almost half the picks they made either barely had pro careers or did not really have them in a 2nd tier league.

2016: 9 selections, 1 likely superbust (Cormier)
2017: 11 selections, 2 likely superbusts (Popugaev, Chainey)
2018: Obviously hard to say at this point - Pakkila looks like a miss, Sharangovich has been poor in the AHL but will probably still have a KHL career.
2019: Can't make any definitive declarations

 

[guitarguyvic]

who specifically checked off shero’s drafting as an “accomplishment”? he has improved the prospect pool from his predecessor, that should be obvious to everyone. not that improving on lou and conte’s ****drafting would be difficult, i think you or i could draft better than them using a ouija board and a coin flip.

so: if you’re touting pipeline improvements as an accomplishment, you’re correct. if you’re saying our prospects aren’t getting nhl-ready fast enough according to your arbitrary personal preferences, you’re impatient. if you say it’s impossible to tell if our prospects are better now than 10 years ago, you’re ignorant. so everybody pick one

I don’t need to pick any of those, thank you very much. You miss the point. Whenever someone is asked to provide evidence that Shero has done a well, one of the first things that is pointed to is drafting, grading it on a curve in comparison to Lou’s last decade and/or on the merits of the picks themselves. And my response is always the same...obtaining players that appear to have better potential than what Lou was bringing in is not impressive given that almost anyone else could have accomplished that feat; and on the merits of the picks themselves most of them we have no idea yet how they are going to pan out so at best that deserves an incomplete grade.

Our fans have pumped Ray’s tires from the day he got here, and I don’t think it’s been an objective analysis. There’s a need for our fans to believe that Lou was so horrible that surely Ray would be an upgrade, and as such the most optimistic interpretation of his performance has been the default perspective. I think more people are coming around to assessing what’s going on here more objectively now that we are win year 5 and the organization is a hot mess.

 

[captainscott]

Well we heard and perpetuated this in Lou's last years too...the AHL team sucked but that was okay cause we had Santini in college and Tedenby overseas and Gelinas was this close to breaking out. In many cases prospects are what you want to believe their celing is. We hyped up Ty Smith and Boqvist all offseason as contributors this year, one guy didn't even make the league and the other's barely playing.

And it's been a while, we might not be at the point yet where we better start seeing something from the Shero draft classes but it's coming fast. How long is the statute before we start seeing something other than lotto wins and fourth liners - 8-10 years? After he and his coaches get fired like in Pittsburgh?

jesper bratt says hello.. but i get your point

 

[captainscott]

and his two non #1 overall picks can't crack the lineup on the worst team in NHL.. so i believe Shero is entirely unproven at this point

 

[MartyOwns]

Whenever someone is asked to provide evidence that Shero has done a well, one of the first things that is pointed to is drafting, grading it on a curve in comparison to Lou’s last decade and/or on the merits of the picks themselves. And my response is always the same...obtaining players that appear to have better potential than what Lou was bringing in is not impressive given that almost anyone else could have accomplished that feat

so you agree that shero has drafted better than lou and you agree that’s good, but you don’t consider that an accomplishment because anyone could’ve drafted better than lou. that’s why i tried to define ‘accomplishment’ in a prior post.

and on the merits of the picks themselves most of them we have no idea yet how they are going to pan out so at best that deserves an incomplete grade.

you’re also saying that shero hasn’t necessarily drafted better because we don’t know yet how the majority of those draft picks will pan out. there are plenty of sites (objective and subjective) that rate a team’s farm system. i would go through the work of finding and posting ones from 10 years ago vs now, but i think that would be a waste of time because you’re only interested in immediate results.

it seems like you’re frustrated with people applauding shero, but the prospect argument isn’t the way to go. by all means, criticize his unwillingness to change coaches, but how anyone can say his drafting isn’t much better, or he doesn’t deserve credit for re-stocking the pond is beyond me. the players he’s drafted that have already made an impact (nico, hughes, bratt, boqvist albeit to a lesser degree) are pretty impressive without even mentioning guys like smith, talvitie, mccarthy, moynihan, anderson, misyul etc etc.

 

[MadDevil]

There is more potential in our prospect pool than there was 5 years ago, which to me is improvement. Hell, Nico, Bratt, and Hughes alone are better than our drafting/developing of forwards over the better part of a decade prior to them.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

and his two non #1 overall picks can't crack the lineup on the worst team in NHL.. so i believe Shero is entirely unproven at this point

Do you know how many Defenseman there are in the NHL that are under 20 years old?

Saying Ty Smith "can't crack the NHL" like it automatically means he is ALREADY a failure is just nonsense. This is what I'm talking about. Some of you guys aren't capable of having a rational discussion on this. There is so much more that goes into this.

 

[NJDevs26]

Our fans have pumped Ray’s tires from the day he got here, and I don’t think it’s been an objective analysis. There’s a need for our fans to believe that Lou was so horrible that surely Ray would be an upgrade, and as such the most optimistic interpretation of his performance has been the default perspective. I think more people are coming around to assessing what’s going on here more objectively now that we are win year 5 and the organization is a hot mess.

I think the truth is somewhere in between both extremes (as usual with these debates)...the first part of this is correct, there is an inherent bias towards Ray because he's not Lou and is doing it differently than was done the last decade, following the so-called blueprint fans want - tanking for lotto balls, drafting smaller, skilled players, letting the players have a social media presence etc.

But as with everything else in the organization I'd like to see how the younger players develop under another staff before I completely dismiss everything else Ray's done or tried to do. Heck most of the vets haven't been playing up to the back of their hockey cards this year. Maybe he'll render that moot and force the owners to fire him to get Hynes out, that's my fear atm.

There is more potential in our prospect pool than there was 5 years ago, which to me is improvement. Hell, Nico, Bratt, and Hughes alone are better than our drafting/developing of forwards over the better part of a decade prior to them.

The other problem with grading Shero is Nico and Hughes are often given as a main reason why the drafting is better. Well no kidding, we won two lotteries we weren't even supposed to win. We'd better have a couple of guys better than guys we were mostly getting with picks in the 10-25 range. When we won a lottery in 2011 it was for Larsson, in part because we could only go up to 4 and not 1.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Nico and Hughes are not the main reason given. It’s generally players taken in other rounds who are having success at multiple levels. Bratt is usually the center piece in that.

There is no exact science with drafting. Guys that seem like they should succeed fail, and guys who should have failed succeed.

Still if you go through the players drafted from 2016 on there is a good amount of prospects that should become something at a pro level.

You can’t have sustained success without that and even if another GM is tasked with getting the team over the hump, Ray and Castron’s picks during this time will still have an important part in that no matter what.

 

[The Joker]

f***ing embarrassing Ray. f***ing embarrassing.