billingtons ghost
Registered User
- Nov 29, 2010
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Don't read into his play. No goalie can stop back door tap-ins. Having defensemen in front of you that don't understand their responsibilities will make you look less than confident.
GDT: New York Rangers @ Your New Jersey Devils, 3 PM, MSG+
- Thread starter Better Call Sal
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Don't read into his play. No goalie can stop back door tap-ins. Having defensemen in front of you that don't understand their responsibilities will make you look less than confident.
billingtons ghost
Registered User
- Nov 29, 2010
- 10,576
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I hate the Rags with white hot passion. I cannot believe we didn't at least take one game.
That said - I'll take moral victory+ better draft pick if it is shoved down my throat.
Anyone who watched the game can pretty much attest to the 'we need more grit' mantra. I'm going to get really angry if I see Ty Smith continue to get knocked around. That kneeonknee against Wood was bad news too. I
The whole thing turned on the Trouba hits on Johnsson/Wood. We still have to learn how to initiate the physical play and stop being victims. We need Bastian to become a player, and hopefully guys like Sharan and Maltsev bulk up and get more aggressive.
Absolutely love Nico standing up for Johnsson and Lil J*zzy getting way fired up at the penalty call. You could see he was on a mission and is starting to hate the Rags. This is good.
Alot of players had good games. Foote looked nervous but that was a nice feed.
Merkley has shown pretty good vision - never thought of him as a playmaker but he's made some really nice passes the last few games.
There is still alot of yuck from this game - our defense is flat out terrible.
As bad as it is, I really like this team... well many parts of it....
I want us to keep fading until the last game or two, but then have a game with everyone back so we can see Zacha/Nico/Bratt in all its glory... and maybe Hughes with Foote and Holz? (jk, who would ever break up that Sharan/Kuokk line... its dynamite.)
That said - I'll take moral victory+ better draft pick if it is shoved down my throat.
Anyone who watched the game can pretty much attest to the 'we need more grit' mantra. I'm going to get really angry if I see Ty Smith continue to get knocked around. That kneeonknee against Wood was bad news too. I
The whole thing turned on the Trouba hits on Johnsson/Wood. We still have to learn how to initiate the physical play and stop being victims. We need Bastian to become a player, and hopefully guys like Sharan and Maltsev bulk up and get more aggressive.
Absolutely love Nico standing up for Johnsson and Lil J*zzy getting way fired up at the penalty call. You could see he was on a mission and is starting to hate the Rags. This is good.
Alot of players had good games. Foote looked nervous but that was a nice feed.
Merkley has shown pretty good vision - never thought of him as a playmaker but he's made some really nice passes the last few games.
There is still alot of yuck from this game - our defense is flat out terrible.
As bad as it is, I really like this team... well many parts of it....
I want us to keep fading until the last game or two, but then have a game with everyone back so we can see Zacha/Nico/Bratt in all its glory... and maybe Hughes with Foote and Holz? (jk, who would ever break up that Sharan/Kuokk line... its dynamite.)
If they give Holtz a game and keep Foote up I would love to see Sharangovich and Kuokkanen play with Boqvist. I think he has a real shot to be our long term 3c and want to see him with quality top 9 forwards. I think a lot of the grit will come from within the organization. McLeod, Bastian, Wood and Nico all have it. Okhotyuk, Foote, Mercer and Bahl all do as well. I don't want to see them go out and just sign some plug because he hits people. As these kids mature I think we will see way more toughness.
I'll have to look into it more but this season might go down as the worst home record in the team's history at 4-17-3, good lord.
Also we can be officially eliminated from the playoffs tomorrow if Boston wins their game to make it 8 of the past 9 seasons with no playoffs. Also next season will be a full decade since their 2012 run and our last playoff series win. We can yap about being spoiled in the 90s and 00s and blah blah blah but a full decade is a very long time. The good old days are long in the past at this point. f*** is it depressing.
Also we can be officially eliminated from the playoffs tomorrow if Boston wins their game to make it 8 of the past 9 seasons with no playoffs. Also next season will be a full decade since their 2012 run and our last playoff series win. We can yap about being spoiled in the 90s and 00s and blah blah blah but a full decade is a very long time. The good old days are long in the past at this point. f*** is it depressing.
Maine Fan
Defense Wins Chanpionships
This is so true and couldn't be said any better. I am glad JimEIV said it, but many Devils fans think it. This is one of the worse NHL team rebuilds, that started in May of 2015. It is almost May of 2021, 6 years later without much progress (becoming a playoff team) in the opinion of many.
Maine Fan
Defense Wins Chanpionships
Absolutely, the Devils have a terrible defense and have had defense problems for many seasons since 2015. One can't blame the goalie for every failure. The goalie is the last line of the defense.
- Dec 20, 2018
- 21,772
- 46,980
Why does this “rebuild” start in May of 2015? They were .500 in 2013-14 and they had a higher win percentages in 2015-16 than in 2014-15. So Ray Shero is the “rebuild”? What was the losing before Shero just losing?
ninetyeight
Registered User
In all honesty the rebuild should have started when Zach and Kovy left, but it didn’t and that’s why it’s been miserable for so long. I don’t know if it was the owners or the GMs fault, Lou definitely didn’t go into rebuild and Shero kinda did both. So we’ve honestly only really been rebuilding since we traded away Hall two years ago. But yes we’ve been bad for a decade.
Emperoreddy
Show Me What You Got!
Emperoreddy
Show Me What You Got!
He is also most likely worn down. There is no way his fitness didn't take a hit from Covid and all that, and that creates plenty of issues.
glenwo2
LINDY RUFF NEEDS VIAGRA!!
Oneiro
Registered User
- Mar 28, 2013
- 9,443
- 11,011
Aside from possible COVID complications down the line, I'm not worried about Blackwood's game at all.
Just cut down on the glorious chances for the other team and box out the blue. Two things we haven't done for most of the year.
Just cut down on the glorious chances for the other team and box out the blue. Two things we haven't done for most of the year.
VoidCreature
Before you see the light, you must die.
We actually haven't been trash season after season for a while. We missed the playoffs starting in 2012-13, but were very much still going for it until 2015. That team could have bottomed out and tried for high picks for a number of years, but instead we kept Cory Schneider instead of trading him with the hope that he'd still be good by the time our rebuild was over (we all know how that turned out) and added a young sniper in Kyle Palmieri to go with other vets Adam Henrique and Travis Zajac. This was probably a mistake, looking back on it now. With his help, along with 30 goal seasons from Kyle Palmieri and Adam Henrique, we rebound in 2015-16, and while we did miss the playoffs we also missed out on a top 10 pick, getting Michael McLeod at 12.
The year after, we go for it even more, pulling off an absolute coup in getting Taylor Hall from the Oilers for Adam Larsson. While losing Larsson would hurt the defense long term (he would still be a big help for us today), the value was so lopsided that you just have to do it. The first year with hall we miss the playoffs again, this time bottoming out along with Cory Schneider and picking 1st overall. We add Marcus Johansson and a few other vets in the offseason, and Taylor Hall puts on a Hart trophy performance to get us back into the playoffs. I loved that year. I did. But it likely set us back. Thank goodness we came away with Ty Smith at 17th overall, as there were a lot of really good defensemen high in that draft, and things could have broken much worse for us.
Trading assets at the deadline to get in was the right move, but they were picks and prospects we could have used, either as the players they would turn into for us or as ammo for deals more oriented towards the long term-future of the franchise. Buying rentals is not a move a rebuilding team does. After mostly standing pat in the offseason, letting all the rentals move on to free agency, we were bad again in 2019. Though Hall kept up his Hart trophy production, Kinkaid and Schneider could not replicate the pockets of brilliance they showed in 2017-18, and the goaltending was a garbage fire as a result. Only the emergence of a young goaltender named Mackenzie Blackwood would provide any hope on the goaltending end that year. But it wasn't enough with Taylor Hall out for the season to make a comeback.
That summer Shero went all-in, trading for PK Subban, Nikita Gusev, and signing Wayne Simmonds in free agency. This was the year to try to prove to Hall that he could win here consistently and with the drafting of Jack Hughes first overall there was a feeling that this could be our time. Shero did everything he could short of trading the organization's first round pick (thank god he didn't do that), to make this a winning season, and it went south right away. Six losses in a row saw Ray Shero send Fitzgerald behind the bench, and ended with both Shero and Hynes being fired.
When you look at teams that win multiple championships, they're almost always built through the draft. Including this year, the last three years have seen us acquire as many first round picks (6, 7 if you include Nolan Foote) as in all of the previous six to seven seasons. We're also due to have as many top ten picks the last three years as in the previous seven. We talk about the cupboards being bare, but really we did have things to sell in 2015. Cory Schneider could have brought back a top ten pick (and maybe even more) in 2015. Adam Henrique could have brought back a nice futures package. No one may have wanted Zajac at that contract, but with some retention? He would have had value. If we had sold the vets we had right away, when we started this whole rebuild, we would be much farther along than we are now.
We haven't begun accumulating assets at the quality and quantity rate needed to pull out of a sea of desolation as deep as the one we stood in in 2015 without getting top 10, even top 5 picks every season for as many as five years in a row, and on top of that adding extra picks through smart selloffs of veteran players. We held onto too many valuable people. I would absolutely do the Hall trade again, but our rebuilding activities did not ramp up enough until he was gone.
Lucking into Hughes and Hischier were big accelerators for this rebuild, but all this losing doesn't have to be a bad thing. We're in the guts of what a rebuild looks like, with young players coming and looking better every year. It's hard when you're watching the games and the level of play is what it is, but this is the hard work we need to do to get back to being year in, year out cup contenders. And that is what's coming for us. It might take another couple of years of high, high picks (though I hope it doesn't), but this is all going to come together. And when it does, everyone in the league will notice, because we'll be challenging for the division lead.
The year after, we go for it even more, pulling off an absolute coup in getting Taylor Hall from the Oilers for Adam Larsson. While losing Larsson would hurt the defense long term (he would still be a big help for us today), the value was so lopsided that you just have to do it. The first year with hall we miss the playoffs again, this time bottoming out along with Cory Schneider and picking 1st overall. We add Marcus Johansson and a few other vets in the offseason, and Taylor Hall puts on a Hart trophy performance to get us back into the playoffs. I loved that year. I did. But it likely set us back. Thank goodness we came away with Ty Smith at 17th overall, as there were a lot of really good defensemen high in that draft, and things could have broken much worse for us.
Trading assets at the deadline to get in was the right move, but they were picks and prospects we could have used, either as the players they would turn into for us or as ammo for deals more oriented towards the long term-future of the franchise. Buying rentals is not a move a rebuilding team does. After mostly standing pat in the offseason, letting all the rentals move on to free agency, we were bad again in 2019. Though Hall kept up his Hart trophy production, Kinkaid and Schneider could not replicate the pockets of brilliance they showed in 2017-18, and the goaltending was a garbage fire as a result. Only the emergence of a young goaltender named Mackenzie Blackwood would provide any hope on the goaltending end that year. But it wasn't enough with Taylor Hall out for the season to make a comeback.
That summer Shero went all-in, trading for PK Subban, Nikita Gusev, and signing Wayne Simmonds in free agency. This was the year to try to prove to Hall that he could win here consistently and with the drafting of Jack Hughes first overall there was a feeling that this could be our time. Shero did everything he could short of trading the organization's first round pick (thank god he didn't do that), to make this a winning season, and it went south right away. Six losses in a row saw Ray Shero send Fitzgerald behind the bench, and ended with both Shero and Hynes being fired.
When you look at teams that win multiple championships, they're almost always built through the draft. Including this year, the last three years have seen us acquire as many first round picks (6, 7 if you include Nolan Foote) as in all of the previous six to seven seasons. We're also due to have as many top ten picks the last three years as in the previous seven. We talk about the cupboards being bare, but really we did have things to sell in 2015. Cory Schneider could have brought back a top ten pick (and maybe even more) in 2015. Adam Henrique could have brought back a nice futures package. No one may have wanted Zajac at that contract, but with some retention? He would have had value. If we had sold the vets we had right away, when we started this whole rebuild, we would be much farther along than we are now.
We haven't begun accumulating assets at the quality and quantity rate needed to pull out of a sea of desolation as deep as the one we stood in in 2015 without getting top 10, even top 5 picks every season for as many as five years in a row, and on top of that adding extra picks through smart selloffs of veteran players. We held onto too many valuable people. I would absolutely do the Hall trade again, but our rebuilding activities did not ramp up enough until he was gone.
Lucking into Hughes and Hischier were big accelerators for this rebuild, but all this losing doesn't have to be a bad thing. We're in the guts of what a rebuild looks like, with young players coming and looking better every year. It's hard when you're watching the games and the level of play is what it is, but this is the hard work we need to do to get back to being year in, year out cup contenders. And that is what's coming for us. It might take another couple of years of high, high picks (though I hope it doesn't), but this is all going to come together. And when it does, everyone in the league will notice, because we'll be challenging for the division lead.
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Maine Fan
Defense Wins Chanpionships
Maine Fan
Defense Wins Chanpionships
Unknown Caller
Registered User
- Apr 30, 2009
- 10,150
- 7,560
Lou is a turd. He deserves all the credit in the world for the three cups, but he just has no idea how to build a sustainable legitimate cup contender in the salary cap era.
Absolutely crushed this organization with his management and the same will be said for the Islanders in a few years. Toronto got out while they could before he saddled them with too many Martins and Komarovs.
Wierzbowski426
Registered User
To the people advocating for Hamilton,
Isn't he fairly bad defensively? His numbers are fantastic but hes playing on one of the best teams in the nhl.
I think he would be a trainwreck on the Devils who wont have the ability to use him like Carolina. And hes going to cost a ton.
Isn't he fairly bad defensively? His numbers are fantastic but hes playing on one of the best teams in the nhl.
I think he would be a trainwreck on the Devils who wont have the ability to use him like Carolina. And hes going to cost a ton.
He excels at getting the puck up the ice and out of the zone. That is arguably our biggest defensive deficiency imo. You could pair him with say Murray, and we can actually get clean breakouts which is were I think most of our problems stem from. He's not that bad defensively and if you care about advanced stats at all he's 9th in the league among all defensemen CF% and 12th in HDCF%. He would be a net positive imo.
I highly doubt Hamilton leaves Carolina or would consider coming to NJ (though maybe if he gets a Cup in Carolina first, that may change things).
That being said, I don't think the level of overpayment that we've seen in recent years to attract UFA's would be necessary this offseason. The flat cap and lack of cap space to go around is obviously the key factor, though I think many GM's have also learned how crushing a bad long-term contract can be for an organization. If they haven't they should take a peek at Buffalo's CapFriendly page as a reminder.
I don't think you'll see an all-out bidding war and the "we're not going to worry about years 5-7 right now" type mentality that we've seen of years past during the UFA silly season.
I could see Hamilton at least testing the market as a UFA since Carolina obviously will not sign him before the expansion draft and while I think they'll offer him a fair deal, I don't think they'll overpay. I still think there's a 90% chance he returns to the Hurricanes, but I see him signing day 1 or 2 of free agency.
Fun fact: Today was our shower for our first child whose due date is next month and the name we happened to choose is Nolan.
Nolan Foote makes his debut on the same day and gets his first point.
If that isn’t a sign that things will inevitably turn around, I don’t know what is.
Hope the yutes keep giving us something to be hopeful for.
Congrats! First few months can be a little rough at times with lack of sleep, but it's all well worth it.
My kids are 10 & 12 and have only known pain from this franchise. They're still hanging in there (really, they have no choice) but it would be nice to see them enjoy seeing this team have some success soon. Hopefully, it's the same path that I took where I grew up with the miserable Devils of the 80's and got handsomely rewarded for sticking in there.
Luckily the family life has also keep me very busy/distracted that I don't have too much time to focus on dwell on this team's lack of success.
PizzaAndPucks
New Jersey Angels diehard
- Nov 29, 2018
- 2,748
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Yes. We are in the bottom 5 for Goals for and bottom for Goals against. 3rd worst Power Play and the worst Penalty kill in the league. Bottom 5 in faceoff wins percentage. Bottom 4 in goalies Save Percentage.
Yeah that was to easy to dig up...I'm sure your dumb comment looks even worse now.
All while missing Nico for most of the year and our two "scoring" wingers being useless for most of the year. This team is not nearly as bad when everyone is healthy. Now granted our depth at the NHL level isn't good right now and that is one of the main reasons we had such a poor year as well.
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