Confirmed with Link: Miles Wood resigned 1 year $3.2 million

[NJDevs26]

Saying that Blackwood is the most over paid player on the Devils is flat out ridiculous. He has had multiple injuries and a rough case of COVID. If he stinks this year when fully healthy then I might agree with you.

Will he ever be fully healthy for any length of time? That's my concern after two seasons of constant yo-yoing in and out of the lineup with never really being 100% at any point. Even his first couple of seasons it's not like he was some ironman, he only played like 45 games max.

 

[Guadana]

Fair enough, he probably should have been shut down in December, as that's when he was starting to look unplayable.

But I can remember a few particularly poor games even in November.
And his last game of the season was one of his worse of the entire year.

My feeling is that the injuries made him worse, but I'm skeptical they were the difference in him being good and absolutely unplayable and not just mediocre and absolutely unplayable. His AHL career showed enough red flags for an army of bulls to riot.

I was thought I didn’t like Smith. But man. You really don’t like Blackwood.

I understand that there are big chance he will not return as a Devils player after next season, I’m ok with it, I’m worry about goalies in perspectiv. But let’s face it. Samsonov of wasn’t better than Blackwood. And wsh goalies were pretty average last year. Yes, our tandem isn’t sexy, but for now this duo is… ok. Let’s live with it next season. I believe if we wait some success, puck is on offensive side. No matter how good or bad or tandem will play. (In adequate borders)

 

[Bleedred]

The Devils have 73 thousand dollars of cap space and Zetterlund still needs a deal. Yes they can likely move Bernier to LTIR when the season starts, but what happens if he's ready to play before the season's over? Someone's gonna get injured at some point and you need cap space for call ups.

Someone on the current roster is getting moved, whether it's buyouts, trades or waivers.

Trades and waivers? Yes, buyout? I don't think so.

I could see a scenario where Johnsson is waived, but I also wonder if the thought of burying Johnsson in the minors is merely a fantasy that exists in the minds of fans and management might like him more than we perceive. Think of it like when we thought ''Ohhhh dat depth tho, Stephen Gionta definitely isn't gonna be on the opening night roster''. or taking even way further back, ''Yeah, dat depth tho. No way in hell we're gonna play a goon every night. Janssen/Peters/Boulton won't play''.

I'm not saying I would hesitate to send Johnsson to the minors if no one would take him, but I am saying that it wouldn't surprise me if management would hesitate.

 

[Bleedred]

I was thought I didn’t like Smith. But man. You really don’t like Blackwood.

I understand that there are big chance he will not return as a Devils player after next season, I’m ok with it, I’m worry about goalies in perspectiv. But let’s face it. Samsonov of wasn’t better than Blackwood. And wsh goalies were pretty average last year. Yes, our tandem isn’t sexy, but for now this duo is… ok. Let’s live with it next season. I believe if we wait some success, puck is on offensive side. No matter how good or bad or tandem will play. (In adequate borders)

Speaking of Smith (mods have my blessing to move this to the general team thread if necessary. I already diverted my last reply regarding Blackwood in this thread to the team thread so I wouldn't hijack the Wood signing thread into a thread about the other Wood lol), this is exactly what I'm talking about. And it goes right back to the goalies are overrated and get a ton of rope claim that I'm always beating on this forum. People were so quick to throw Smith away after one bad season, despite how good he was in his rookie year. And yet Blackwood has two bad seasons and sometimes it felt like more people wanted to send Smith away than Blackwood and that Blackwood bouncing back was MUCH MORE OF A GUARANTEE than Smith ever bouncing back. And I'm not talking about you particularly, as there were many people who were done with Smith before last year even ended. It's just the sentiment and seeing him get a shorter leash than Blackwood, who had been bad for even longer.

By the way, I'm fine with Smith being traded. I think he could still be good, but at this stage in the game and his career you trade him for Marino with no hesitation.

You're right, Samsonov's career has been even more of a disappointment than Blackwood's to this point. If Blackwood has one more bad year then I think it's safe to say he's firmly at least matched Samsonov in disappointment. The difference in Samsonov and Blackwood is that Blackwood has had two solid NHL seasons in 4 years in the league, Samsonov has had only one solid season in the NHL in 3 years in the league.

Samsonov's 19-20 was solid, but it was exactly like Blackwood's 18-19 where he had to sit behind Holtby, who the stupid ass Caps KNEW they weren't bringing back anyway, but yeah, we gotta placate the old, washed up has-been because he won a Vezina a few years ago and a cup a couple years ago and he used to be elite at one time, despite the fact that he's not even close to that or even average anymore.

Blackwood had to sit behind Cory in 19-20 and alternate starts with him for the last 5-6 weeks of that season and he did spend a lot of that year in the AHL before having to be called up because Cory sucked and then eventually got injured and Kinkaid had a nervous breakdown and blew up.

Blackwood was the starter in 19-20 and had a solid (not great but good) season, especially for still kind of being a rookie. In the years Samsonov had the ability to be the starter he was outplayed by Vanecek on the same team. Especially by a significant margin last season.

So yes, Blackwood right now has had a little better of a career than Samsonov. They're the same age and from the same draft. And in a 2015 redraft I would absolutely select Blackwood over Samsonov. Samsonov will probably live off of his first round draft pick status for quite some time.

.

 

[Guadana]

Speaking of Smith (mods have my blessing to move this to the general team thread if necessary. I already diverted my last reply regarding Blackwood in this thread to the team thread so I wouldn't hijack the Wood signing thread into a thread about the other Wood lol), this is exactly what I'm talking about. And it goes right back to the goalies are overrated and get a ton of rope claim that I'm always beating on this forum. People were so quick to throw Smith away after one bad season, despite how good he was in his rookie year. And yet Blackwood has two bad seasons and sometimes it felt like more people wanted to send Smith away than Blackwood and that Blackwood bouncing back was MUCH MORE OF A GUARANTEE than Smith ever bouncing back. And I'm not talking about you particularly, as there were many people who were done with Smith before last year even ended. It's just the sentiment and seeing him get a shorter leash than Blackwood, who had been bad for even longer.

By the way, I'm fine with Smith being traded. I think he could still be good, but at this stage in the game and his career you trade him for Marino with no hesitation.

You're right, Samsonov's career has been even more of a disappointment than Blackwood's to this point. If Blackwood has one more bad year then I think it's safe to say he's firmly at least matched Samsonov in disappointment. The difference in Samsonov and Blackwood is that Blackwood has had two solid NHL seasons in 4 years in the league, Samsonov has had only one solid season in the NHL in 3 years in the league.

Samsonov's 19-20 was solid, but it was exactly like Blackwood's 18-19 where he had to sit behind Holtby, who the stupid ass Caps KNEW they were bringing back anyway, but yeah, we gotta placate the old, washed up has-been because he won a Vezina a few years ago and a cup a couple years ago and he used to be elite at one time, despite the fact that he's not even close to that or even average anymore.

Blackwood had to sit behind Cory in 19-20 and alternate starts with him for the last 5-6 weeks of that season and he did spend a lot of that year in the AHL before having to be called up because Cory sucked and then eventually got injured and Kinkaid had a nervous breakdown and blew up.

Blackwood was the starter in 19-20 and had a solid (not great but good) season, especially for still kind of being a rookie. In the years Samsonov had the ability to be the starter he was outplayed by Vanecek on the same team. Especially by a significant margin last season.

So yes, Blackwood right now has had a little better of a career than Samsonov. They're the same age and from the same draft. And in a 2015 redraft I would absolutely select Blackwood over Samsonov. Samsonov will probably live off of his first round draft pick status for quite some time.

.

Except Smith wasn’t good in his first year. He produced on a good pace but that’s it. Blackwood was good at least as a goalie. And yeah, I don’t have high hopes about him. If he will hit 90%, I would be happy enough with it.

I know their history, reason why I’m saying if we have what we have, we have normal enough tandem to battle for the playoff spot.

And I think people are talking about “give a chance” to Blackwood because A) we don’t need to rush Daws and Smidt B) no one think he will play as a solid starter. People were done with shitty slowly agent Smith, (who isn’t strong AI in our version of Matrix, I would call our Smith as… Amorpheus) , because he has no tools to be good defensive defenseman and even if he could be good offensive D, there are a lot of players who is better fit and offensive D slots were captured by other defensemen. Until Devils we not find replacement for Blackwood, fans don’t see other options. Of course if Fitz would trade Zacha++ for Vladar after Vanecek trade, no one would care about Blackwood. I think. Its something the same with Severson now. I don’t see a lot of fans who are saying we should resign him anyway, even after Nemec draft and Amorpheus trade.

 

[Guttersniped]

If Wood returns to form he's a valuable commodity for this team. It would've been silly to just throw that away for some extra cap space that we may not need anyway.

The cap gymnastics proposals are evidence of nothing, other than it's the middle of summer and there's not a lot else to discuss.

In all likelihood, Fitz goes with the obviously solution which is to just start the season with Bernier on LTIR to open up space for Zetterlund.

You just don’t put Bernier on the LTI, there’s a lot more gymnastics involved with the ACSL and the ELCs are effected.

I just mentioned this in another post

Under LTIR all the ELCs are viewed potential annual value, with attainable bonuses, rather than salary value so:
Bahl 795k > 902k
Mercer 894k > 1.29m
Holtz 894k > 1.74m
Nemec 950m > 4.2m

The larger number can go down as the season goes on when certain bonuses are no longer attainable.

 

[Bleedred]

Except Smith wasn’t good in his first year. He produced on a good pace but that’s it. Blackwood was good at least as a goalie. And yeah, I don’t have high hopes about him. If he will hit 90%, I would be happy enough with it.

I know their history, reason why I’m saying if we have what we have, we have normal enough tandem to battle for the playoff spot.

And I think people are talking about “give a chance” to Blackwood because A) we don’t need to rush Daws and Smidt B) no one think he will play as a solid starter. People were done with shitty slowly agent Smith, (who isn’t strong AI in our version of Matrix, I would call our Smith as… Amorpheus) , because he has no tools to be good defensive defenseman and even if he could be good offensive D, there are a lot of players who is better fit and offensive D slots were captured by other defensemen. Until Devils we not find replacement for Blackwood, fans don’t see other options. Of course if Fitz would trade Zacha++ for Vladar after Vanecek trade, no one would care about Blackwood. I think. Its something the same with Severson now. I don’t see a lot of fans who are saying we should resign him anyway, even after Nemec draft and Amorpheus trade.

I thought the consensus among most of us in and after the 20-21 season was that Smith performed well, especially for how much ice time he got and that by most metrics he was at least decent? But in 21-22 that was not the case and he was really bad in almost every category there was.

I would love to keep Severson, but I think for cap reasons he'll be Rafalski'd. Between cap reasons and age (he'll be 29 before the start of the 23-24 season) as well as guys in the pipeline with high ceilings, I think his time here is coming to an end. I think like him or not, most of us see the writing on the wall for Severson.

 

[Guadana]

I thought the consensus among most of us in and after the 20-21 season was that Smith performed well, especially for how much ice time he got and that by most metrics he was at least decent? But in 21-22 that was not the case and he was really bad in almost every category there was.

I would love to keep Severson, but I think for cap reasons he'll be Rafalski'd. Between cap reasons and age (he'll be 29 before the start of the 23-24 season) as well as guys in the pipeline with high ceilings, I think his time here is coming to an end. I think like him or not, most of us see the writing on the wall for Severson.

I was not agree with this kind of consensus. I insisted on trading Smith as much as possible, especially after Hughes' draft and Hamilton's signing. Anyway now I found peace.

Sevs is a good guy, but this squad should have a long term core build on younger players. This is a part I was talking year ago too. I like Sevs much more, but it is what it is.

Like Wood too. I like the guy, I even like him as a player. But even if he will score 15-20, Devils should keep 3 mil for better defensive bottom line players. Wood scoring should be replaced by top-6 or even top-9 players.

 

[Guttersniped]

Speaking of Smith (mods have my blessing to move this to the general team thread if necessary. I already diverted my last reply regarding Blackwood in this thread to the team thread so I wouldn't hijack the Wood signing thread into a thread about the other Wood lol), this is exactly what I'm talking about. And it goes right back to the goalies are overrated and get a ton of rope claim that I'm always beating on this forum. People were so quick to throw Smith away after one bad season, despite how good he was in his rookie year. And yet Blackwood has two bad seasons and sometimes it felt like more people wanted to send Smith away than Blackwood and that Blackwood bouncing back was MUCH MORE OF A GUARANTEE than Smith ever bouncing back. And I'm not talking about you particularly, as there were many people who were done with Smith before last year even ended. It's just the sentiment and seeing him get a shorter leash than Blackwood, who had been bad for even longer.

By the way, I'm fine with Smith being traded. I think he could still be good, but at this stage in the game and his career you trade him for Marino with no hesitation.

You're right, Samsonov's career has been even more of a disappointment than Blackwood's to this point. If Blackwood has one more bad year then I think it's safe to say he's firmly at least matched Samsonov in disappointment. The difference in Samsonov and Blackwood is that Blackwood has had two solid NHL seasons in 4 years in the league, Samsonov has had only one solid season in the NHL in 3 years in the league.

Samsonov's 19-20 was solid, but it was exactly like Blackwood's 18-19 where he had to sit behind Holtby, who the stupid ass Caps KNEW they weren't bringing back anyway, but yeah, we gotta placate the old, washed up has-been because he won a Vezina a few years ago and a cup a couple years ago and he used to be elite at one time, despite the fact that he's not even close to that or even average anymore.

Blackwood had to sit behind Cory in 19-20 and alternate starts with him for the last 5-6 weeks of that season and he did spend a lot of that year in the AHL before having to be called up because Cory sucked and then eventually got injured and Kinkaid had a nervous breakdown and blew up.

Blackwood was the starter in 19-20 and had a solid (not great but good) season, especially for still kind of being a rookie. In the years Samsonov had the ability to be the starter he was outplayed by Vanecek on the same team. Especially by a significant margin last season.

So yes, Blackwood right now has had a little better of a career than Samsonov. They're the same age and from the same draft. And in a 2015 redraft I would absolutely select Blackwood over Samsonov. Samsonov will probably live off of his first round draft pick status for quite some time.

.

The Smith comparison doesn’t really work because he was best at generating offense and moving the puck.

Smith was a bit redundant as well as having a brutal sophomore slump.

Everyone said we can’t get two NHL goalies in this market in one off-season so Blackwood is staying. It’s called being realistic.

And his performance has suffered due to injury.

Now, even nearer to the end, healthy Cory was damn solid, he was just obviously breaking down but his brief episodes of functionality were… very brief.

At this point, I can’t say I wished Shero bought out Schneider a year earlier though. We would have two more years of 2m of dead cap space.

 

[Triumph]

At this point, I can’t say I wished Shero bought out Schneider a year earlier though. We would have two more years of 2m of dead cap space.

We would only have one additional year of $2m cap space because the other year already happened. It's weird to wrap your head around but this is how it works, let's say it's a deal with 4 years remaining on it being bought out this summer:

Buy out a deal with 4 years left - 8 years of cap hit, 4 which the contract includes and 4 that it didn't, deal was supposed to end in 2026, now the cap hit ends in 2030.

But let's say we take one more year of pain with this player who sucks and now we buy out this deal with 3 years left after this coming season - 6 years of cap hit, 3 which the contract includes, and 3 that it didn't. The contract is still supposed to end in 2026, but now we've pushed 3 additional years, so the cap hit ends in 2029.

And if we wait just one more year, hey, who knows, maybe he'll get better! - now we have 2 years left to buy out in summer 2024 - 4 years of cap hit, 2 which the contract includes and 2 which it didn't, so it's now set to end in 2028.

And of course buying out that last year in 2025-26 pushes money on to 2026-27.

So if they'd bought out Schneider in 2019, his cap hit would've gone away in 2025.

Now I realize that this whole explanation might just hinge on how the phrase 'two more years' is interpreted and that you already know all of this, so do with it what you will.

 

[Bleedred]

The Smith comparison doesn’t really work because he was best at generating offense and moving the puck.

Smith was a bit redundant as well as having a brutal sophomore slump.

Everyone said we can’t get two NHL goalies in this market in one off-season so Blackwood is staying. It’s called being realistic.

And his performance has suffered due to injury.

Now, even nearer to the end, healthy Cory was damn solid, he was just obviously breaking down but his brief episodes of functionality were… very brief.

At this point, I can’t say I wished Shero bought out Schneider a year earlier though. We would have two more years of 2m of dead cap space.

I maintain Schneider should have been bought out in 2019. I think Shero got suckered as bad as the ''Cory is bouncing back. Look at his last 16 games in the NHL this year, on top of his world championships'' crowd or actually even worse. And then when he had a hot preseason that year (I think he had like a .950% in either 3 games or parts of 3 games lol) the hype train was really on some heavy duty laughing gas.

But in current day, it's better off for us now that his buyout is done in 2024 and not 2025. The first year of it would have been a year where Schneider didn't do shit here and played more games in the AHL anyway, so that year was a throwaway and a freebie anyway.

BUT! I do believe 2024-2025 (which would be the last year of the Schneider buyout hit if we bought him out in 2019 and not 2020) is the first year where the cap is expected to drastically rise, if I'm not mistaken?

 

[Guttersniped]

I maintain Schneider should have been bought out in 2019. I think Shero got suckered as bad as the ''Cory is bouncing back. Look at his last 16 games in the NHL this year, on top of his world championships'' crowd or actually even worse. And then when he had a hot preseason that year (I think he had like a .950% in either 3 games or parts of 3 games lol) the hype train was really on some heavy duty laughing gas.

But in current day, it's better off for us now that his buyout is done in 2024 and not 2025. The first year of it would have been a year where Schneider didn't do shit here and played more games in the AHL anyway, so that year was a throwaway and a freebie anyway.

BUT! I do believe 2024-2025 (which would be the last year of the Schneider buyout hit if we bought him out in 2019 and not 2020) is the first year where the cap is expected to drastically rise, if I'm not mistaken?

No it’s likely to rise 1m and limited to 2m at the most that season. That’s the set rate until the escrow debt is gone.

You’re likely thinking of the season when then they now think escrow debt will finally be paid off. They thought it be 2025-26 but the new estimates have it happening a season sooner.

The cap goes up after that season, so the big bump is predicted for 2025-26 now. It still might happen a year later.

 

[TheUnseenHand]

Honestly in the games Miles played at the end of last season, his speed seemed unchanged. His stamina definitely wasn't there yet though.

 

[My3Sons]

If he can take a regular shift to start the season it will make a big difference in the teams cap flexibility. He along with Boquist and Zetterlund can potentially push Tatar and Johnsson out of thr everday lineup and maybe the team can somehow dump one of them. If it wouldn’t lead to a revolt I’d be in favor of burying both in the AHL. Johnsson would be a top line AHL wing to help the team and Tatar could just be a Slovak mentor for Nemec for the season. The team would save a bit over $2 mil against the cap and have room to move guys up from Utica.

 

[FooteBahl]

I thought the consensus among most of us in and after the 20-21 season was that Smith performed well, especially for how much ice time he got and that by most metrics he was at least decent? But in 21-22 that was not the case and he was really bad in almost every category there was.

I would love to keep Severson, but I think for cap reasons he'll be Rafalski'd. Between cap reasons and age (he'll be 29 before the start of the 23-24 season) as well as guys in the pipeline with high ceilings, I think his time here is coming to an end. I think like him or not, most of us see the writing on the wall for Severson.

I agree about sevo. Unless he takes some ridiculous deal at 5 million per or something like that, Nemec will eventually push him down to the third pair. What he’s going to command as an UFA is going to be waaay to much for a 3 RD. I’m sure he’ll get us at least a first at the TDL….then hopefully that team shits the bed and we get another lottery pick for Bedard. This is how it plays out in my head lol

 

[Goptor]

Cory getting $2m to play in Bridgeport seems worse than Blackwood getting paid $2.8m

 

[Maine Fan]

He didn't give him a raise. Wood made 3.5 million in actual salary last year.

I saw it was $3.1

 

[Maine Fan]

He didn't give him a raise. Wood made 3.5 million in actual salary last year.

It doesn't matter? He hope to get him for $2.975 and the GO was $3.5 I think. The Devils need to watch Cap Space may have to make some moves sooner than later.

 

[Mgd31]

Honestly in the games Miles played at the end of last season, his speed seemed unchanged. His stamina definitely wasn't there yet though.

Yea he still seemed like he had his speed

 

[MasterofGrond]

Nice little farewell gift for Wood, I suspect.

 

[Bleedred]

Cory getting $2m to play in Bridgeport seems worse than Blackwood getting paid $2.8m

Missed this the other day, but bought out players shouldn't be taken into account when talking about who the most overpaid player (or worst player) on the team is.

It's like saying ''Ohhhh, Rick DiPietro is the most overpaid player on the Islanders and once again will be this upcoming year!''. Factoring in bought out players would mean DiPietro is the most overpaid player in the entire NHL right now. 59 year old Bobby Bonilla is the most overpaid player in the MLB using that logic.

 

[TrufleShufle]

5 pages of Miles Wood signing talk? What did I mis...... oh.