GDT: Pens @ Devils - The Grinch! - 7:00 PM - MSG+

[SJinNewJersey]

ok? and i'm glad you aren't running it because you would want to be everyones best friend and be a country club. oh wait a min

That's exactly what I would do. I would also fly Jack, Nico, and Dougie around on a private jet.

 

[Maine Fan]

I'd imagine because they are laughing all the way to the bank with things like merchandise sales, television money, and the various other revenue streams that have nothing to do with winning or losing.

You hit the nail on the head, they care less about the Devils Win Lose unless they start losing money.

 

[guitarguyvic]

We literally just went over this last week. He was a + player 5v5. If you don't understand how +/- is calculated, that's on you.

Oh 5v5 ok. Well the point still stands...using +/- of any kind as evidence of progress for a 1 OA is not impressive to me. Sorry. I think you would have said the same thing prior to last year, but alas, there's not much else you can use to push the narrative that he's progressed so naturally you're going to use it.

The only reason I use 5v5 plus/minus is because people like you hate shot stats. Hughes's shot stats were excellent last year. They're indicative of a player who is figuring out what to do against NHL opposition.

And this is ludicrous. Jack Hughes's rookie season, the Devils got 45% of the shots when Hughes was on the ice, and I would absolutely agree with a lot of these criticisms. He was not good enough and he was making some poor decisions consistently. He wasn't aware of his limitations.

Jack Hughes's second season, the Devils got 52.8% of the shots when he was on the ice. How can you not call that improvement? Now, that said, he has obviously regressed some so far this year, as he has returned to forcing some pucks, and he's also just not as good at the backcheck as he was last year either. His timing is off. The Devils results with him on the ice are back into the 40s. But there was progress made last season, and what I assume, again, is that when a player is 19, and reaches a certain plateau in performance, he will again make it there. The list of players who peaked at 19 is very short. The list of players who peaked later is much longer. If we see a season of this, I will be worried; I don't think we will, though.

Right so stats like these (which don't necessarily give you an accurate picture of the kid's overall game, but I'm sure you will insist otherwise)...you can cite them as evidence of progress last year (despite him having a bout with covid and missing time)...but this year the regression can be attributed to his injury. You just get to pick and choose when these things have an impact - and just coincidentally they only make a difference when the stats don't look as good. So convenient.

I agree players don't typically peak at 19. But that's assuming that last year was legitimate progress and not the anomaly. Given that this year he's so far regressed again I have no idea how you can claim the former. At best we are still at the "inconclusive" stage.

I am actually trying to diagnose the problems with this year's team instead of just shouting the same generalities, yes. Ty Smith's poor play is one of them, Jack Hughes's is another.

That's fine, but you cited him as an example of how I talk about all of our prospects. I've never spoken about Ty Smith in the same manner as I have Hughes or Nico.

No, it isn't. You just sit back and have to be coached to give real opinions on anyone who hasn't played 300 games already. 'Is this player good? I don't know. He hasn't proven it.' 150 games later. 'Oh, okay, he is good. Now he proved it.' It's just non-falsifiable - you can't be wrong because you never gave an opinion in the first place other than 'players have to prove themselves to be good, and I won't offer an opinion either way until that happens.' All you suckers on the Hockey's Future website saying people might be good - what are you even doing here?'

This is just ridiculous. What you want is for me to be make definitive declarations about players that have either not played in the NHL yet, or who have played in the NHL but haven't shown their potential there. And I admittedly will not do that, for good reason. Prospects can be judged to have x amount of potential, and one can infer from that their chances of being an NHL player. Taking it any further than that for anyone who is not a blatant McDavid or Matthews or Crosby is practically begging to be disappointed, and this is especially true in the context of an organization that has failed to develop top line players despite years of drafting both quality and quantity.

The point is that we don't know. It may or may not be the case.

Precisely why it's basically pointless to bring it up.

Except that it stops, have you ever noticed that? Have you noticed that top teams stop being top teams? Under this rationale, top teams would just stay on top forever because of their organizational structure, but nobody does - organizations ossify and start making poor decisions and start assuming they can just gin up Evan Rodrigues level improvements from players who aren't capable of that. So no, I don't think that the Penguins are perennially lucky, but that specifically, Evan Rodrigues performance is lucky, yes. Nobody expected this, and nobody does this consistently. Maybe the Panthers will start doing it consistently.

What do you mean no one does this consistently? The devils did it consistently for going on what, almost 25 years? Ditto Detroit and now Pittsburgh. The Boston Bruins have missed the playoffs just 7 times in the last three decades combined. For f***'s sake St. Louis has only missed the playoffs 9 times in 53 years! That's as close to forever as you can come in sports. Yeah they had that stretch in the mid 2000's where they missed five out six seasons, but that's literally the only multi-year stretch of non-playoff hockey they've ever had, and out of that they built a perennial division winner. We are in year 10 of non-playoff hockey, six years into the purposeful rebuild and can't even get out of the basement, much less win a division.

But yeah most teams don't stay on top "forever" because you still do need NHL level talent to be a good team, and eventually you run out of it when the best players get old and years of success make it harder to get decent players in the system. Has anyone ever claimed otherwise? No, but you like to pretend so.

A winning formula requires great players - but it also requires those other things. It's the latter half that you just simply ignore, as if collecting talent alone is going to ensure success. It doesn't. It never has and it never will. That latter half is also what allows good teams to continue to prosper through temporary adversity.

What's their identity, though? Do they have one? Anyway, that is impressive, but is also a testament to the other players they've had, and I imagine that the size of it is luck, yes. You realize that if you don't attribute a 48-22-5 record without Crosby and Malkin as being somewhat lucky, that you are basically saying that Crosby and Malkin don't add anything to the team, right?

No that last sentence is not a logical inference. Of course they add something - I'm not at all saying they could be just as good of a team season after season, or be legit Stanley Cup contenders without them. But they can weather short term storms without them - and that absolutely can be attributed to structure, coaching, leadership, culture, etc. And actual good depth players who can step up on a temporary basis. Which, coincidentally, is also needed to win the Stanley Cup, even when you have two HOF players on the roster. This isn't NHL 20 GM mode. In the real world, man-made institutions need those things to be successful.

The biggest reason it doesn't is the awful goaltending, which is almost never mentioned by you or anyone else down on the team.

The continuously awful goaltending is just another symptom in a long list of them, it is not the disease.

 

[Triumph]

Oh 5v5 ok. Well the point still stands...using +/- of any kind as evidence of progress for a 1 OA is not impressive to me. Sorry. I think you would have said the same thing prior to last year, but alas, there's not much else you can use to push the narrative that he's progressed so naturally you're going to use it.

He scored more points, but with Jack I'm not concerned about points because I believe those will come, he's got too much skill otherwise - do you notice how Jack has way more goals this year and nobody's talking about it? It's because what people care about, in addition to wins and losses, isn't just looking at goals and assists.

My concern with Hughes coming into the NHL is that he wouldn't figure out defense at all, and while he's off in that department so far this year, I don't have any doubt that he can find that part of his game again. Plenty of stars never figure out defense and win Stanley Cups - Ovechkin, Kessel, Kane - but it's just better for the team in general when they do.

Right so stats like these (which don't necessarily give you an accurate picture of the kid's overall game, but I'm sure you will insist otherwise)...you can cite them as evidence of progress last year (despite him having a bout with covid and missing time)...but this year the regression can be attributed to his injury. You just get to pick and choose when these things have an impact - and just coincidentally they only make a difference when the stats don't look as good. So convenient.

Did Jack have COVID? I genuinely could not remember if he did, or if he did, that he was confirmed symptomatic. Either way, his regression isn't just his injury, I agree, but do you not see how potentially the two things are related, that a player is injured for a long time and suddenly plays much worse than they did beforehand? That it's a very natural inference to make?

I agree players don't typically peak at 19. But that's assuming that last year was legitimate progress and not the anomaly. Given that this year he's so far regressed again I have no idea how you can claim the former. At best we are still at the "inconclusive" stage.

You'd lose a lot of money betting on this sort of thing, but again, you can just make these sorts of aprobabalistic claims and they're not falsifiable so whatever. Great. Inconclusive. Sure. I agree, it's inconclusive, but if you want to start wagering on this sort of thing, I'd be quite happy to. I would've lost so far on Nico!

That's fine, but you cited him as an example of how I talk about all of our prospects. I've never spoken about Ty Smith in the same manner as I have Hughes or Nico.

You talk about all of them in the same way, as evinced by the next paragraph.

This is just ridiculous. What you want is for me to be make definitive declarations about players that have either not played in the NHL yet, or who have played in the NHL but haven't shown their potential there. And I admittedly will not do that, for good reason. Prospects can be judged to have x amount of potential, and one can infer from that their chances of being an NHL player. Taking it any further than that for anyone who is not a blatant McDavid or Matthews or Crosby is practically begging to be disappointed, and this is especially true in the context of an organization that has failed to develop top line players despite years of drafting both quality and quantity.

Have some heart, watch some players, look at some numbers, and make some judgments. You'll be wrong a lot, I sure am. But it's a lot more fun than just being a hater.

What do you mean no one does this consistently? The devils did it consistently for going on what, almost 25 years? Ditto Detroit and now Pittsburgh. The Boston Bruins have missed the playoffs just 7 times in the last three decades combined. For f***'s sake St. Louis has only missed the playoffs 9 times in 53 years! That's as close to forever as you can come in sports. Yeah they had that stretch in the mid 2000's where they missed five out six seasons, but that's literally the only multi-year stretch of non-playoff hockey they've ever had, and out of that they built a perennial division winner. We are in year 10 of non-playoff hockey, six years into the purposeful rebuild and can't even get out of the basement, much less win a division.

But yeah most teams don't stay on top "forever" because you still do need NHL level talent to be a good team, and eventually you run out of it when the best players get old and years of success make it harder to get decent players in the system. Has anyone ever claimed otherwise? No, but you like to pretend so.

You're trying to have your cake and eat it too with the previous paragraph. The Devils most certainly did not do it for 25 years. Also none of these teams will have anywhere close to the playoff streaks of yore because now 16 of 32 make the playoffs, so we can throw out all that stuff about missing 7 times in 50 years or whatever - I guess it will just go away when St. Louis and Boston's cycle end. Which maybe it won't, they do seem to have good organizations in place.

A winning formula requires great players - but it also requires those other things. It's the latter half that you just simply ignore, as if collecting talent alone is going to ensure success. It doesn't. It never has and it never will. That latter half is also what allows good teams to continue to prosper through temporary adversity.

I've never said the other stuff doesn't matter at all. I just don't think it's the first step. It's the second step, the first step is getting the talented players.

No that last sentence is not a logical inference.

It is. You cited a record that the Penguins play at a 110 point pace when both Crosby and Malkin are out of the lineup. They've crossed 110 points in one season during this era and played at that pace last season. If you're denying the role of chance in producing such a record, then yes, that is the inference. There's no way they are a true talent 110 point team without both of those guys. They're not a true talent 100 point team without them.

Of course they add something - I'm not at all saying they could be just as good of a team season after season, or be legit Stanley Cup contenders without them. But they can weather short term storms without them - and that absolutely can be attributed to structure, coaching, leadership, culture, etc. Which, coincidentally, is also needed to win the Stanley Cup, even with them on the roster. This isn't NHL 20 GM mode. In the real world, man-made institutions need those things to be successful.

Sure, that I agree with. You need to build that up and it takes a long time to do it.

The continuously awful goaltending is just another symptom in a long list of them, it is not the disease.

It is the largest part of the disease. If it were fixed, the other stuff wouldn't look so hopeless.

 

[guitarguyvic]

Have some heart, watch some players, look at some numbers, and make some judgments. You'll be wrong a lot, I sure am. But it's a lot more fun than just being a hater.

I'm not going to respond to your entire last post just because I'm already tired of the back and forth, and we are never going to fully agree, and that's ok. But I will respond to this by just saying I'm not a hater, and I frankly don't even know what that's supposed to mean. I don't hate Nico, I don't hate Jack. I don't even think they are bad players - they just simply haven't shown to be what people hyped them up to be, or what we need as an org that is rebuilding.

Fun...is watching a winning team and rooting for a competent organization. Everything else is secondary. But that's just me. I guess for others that means I'm a "hater".

 

[Guttersniped]

These are all circumstances that literally just started within the last few games, and you are using it to obfuscate that this team has been bad for going on 20 consecutive games now. I even called it that some posters and the org would do this after the first covid holdouts and Blackwood got injured. That it would be used as an excuse and we’d be asked to conveniently forget that it all went to shit well beforehand. This is exactly how it plays out every year.

You seem incredibly invested in portraying this team as better than their record indicates every season. Why is that?

He’s pointing to how several factors are contributing to our record and multiple things can be true at once.

The goaltending has been issues for several years and Fitz’s solid attempts to fix has blown up two years in a row, to no fault of his own. (Except he probably should have started trying to bolster the goaltending depth when we lost Wedge.) The third game had Wedge and Daws as goalies, it started off badly, so no, it wasn’t a new problem. Both starters have been dealing with injuries from the start, and Bernier’s required surgery and is rumored to be so severe that it’s potentially career ending.

Fitz didn’t address the lack of forward depth particularly well, he signed Tatar in August and has PTO tryouts and that was it. Now non-superstar suggestions on this board in pre-season to bolster the line-up lost people’s interest because it’s not sexy, but not getting anything was foolish. So that’s on Fitz.

Jack came back from a shoulder injury and when he got back into the swing of things, we lost Nico. We have yet to see the team play with all three lines rolling. Jack having a couple crappy games since (and it’s like three) is disappointing but doesn’t exactly put my view of his entire future in question.

I don’t know how his shoulder is, I don’t if he has non-COVID bug, if he’s pushing too hard for offense, etc. I’m too busy being bummed I got robbed of seeing all the lines together really. Jack needs to play better but the demanding people freak out over these games is a bit much.

And I have issues with Ruff’s approach too, because the defense in our end basically ends up leaving our goalies hung out to dry by design basically. And Ruff is getting more conservative, something that Hynes did too, when the goaltending got unreliable (which ended being most of the time after a while). If we don’t have goaltenders a new coach won’t matter much.

Describing specific things that happen and pointing out when they happened doesn’t “obfuscate” it gives us something to discuss other than “we suck boo hoo”. Complaining about “excuses” seems as pointless as complaining about anything, but that’s me. People who enjoy discussing what happens to this team, and then offer their opinions why it happens, will do that no matter what the record is.

 

[MVP Zacha]

This team man is just sucks. I went to the game tonight and they don’t deserve the support and the good crowd that was at the game. That’s my first game in two years I was surprised at the good draw granted some pens fans there too. You know it’s bad when the crowd tries to start the wave down a goal 10mins into the first period. We really deserve so much better.

You're right. We should only support the team when they are winning. I can't believe that anyone watches the games or even goes in person. /s

 

[Guttersniped]

If you can take the c from Elias you can certainly take it from nico. A ton of people wanted this roster of youth. I don’t give a damn about injury scare with tarasenko that’s the only way the devils would get a player like him here unless you want to overpay come ufa time to lure someone here.

No one said it can’t be done. Taking the C from Elias seemed really stupid too. And that was different circumstances.

There were people who thought Sal and Greene were bad Captains and wanted them replaced because we weren’t winning. It’s dumb fixation some fans have with the C along with the fantasy that they can always judge what players are good leaders.

I believe a leadership core goes beyond whoever is officially crowned Captain and I don’t believe fans know the dynamics of the room that well. We certainly lost a leader in Zajac and Wood is a loss too, it happens.

“No one should be Captain then or give it to X” is goofy to me and I stand by my contempt for it. (Which is partly fueled by the Elias thing.)

 

[My3Sons]

No one said it can’t be done. Taking the C from Elias seemed really stupid too. And that was different circumstances.

There were people who thought Sal and Greene were bad Captains and wanted them replaced because we weren’t winning. It’s dumb fixation some fans have with the C along with the fantasy that they can always judge what players are good leaders.

I believe a leadership core goes beyond whoever is officially crowned Captain and I don’t believe fans know the dynamics of the room that well. We certainly lost a leader in Zajac and Wood is a loss too, it happens.

“No one should be Captain then or give it to X” is goofy to me and I stand by my contempt for it. (Which is partly fueled by the Elias thing.)

Nico was Fitz’s choice as captain. Maybe if Fitz gets canned the next GM can take the C away to out his own stamp on the team. Until then it’s likely not happening.