Ray Shero is a Magician

[oats]

Their D group is still pretty bad at this point. They do have 3 top-4 D now, but Sekera, Klefbom and Larsson isn't a good enough group to carry that top-4.

Its not elite, but its now better than the Devils, and to say they will be out of the playoffs by December 1st is ignorant. They will turn some heads this year.

Klefbom is also very underrated on this board, I think in time he will be the #1, with Larsson not far behind.

 

[Baemon Severson*]

Devils were 8th in shots against and 7th in goals against last year. They lost Larsson and Schlemko and added Lovejoy, Quincey and Auvitu. Yes, they will be worse, but they go from being a top 10 defensive team to the God awful? I love Larsson, but Drew Doughty/Erik Karlsson/Duncan Keith he ain't

 

[Flair Hay]

I still like that trade for both teams. Oilers needed a tough mins defenseman that can move the puck. They got one on a good contract.

With Oilers adding Lucic and Puljujarvi they could afford to give up Hall and his salary.

 

[Oscar Lindberg]

He is a good GM. I am impressed that managed to pull the wool over a bad GM's eyes to grab Hall.

 

[Ogrezilla]

I still like that trade for both teams. Oilers needed a tough mins defenseman that can move the puck. They got one on a good contract.

With Oilers adding Lucic and Puljujarvi they could afford to give up Hall and his salary.

I don't think its an awful basis of a deal, but EDM should have been able to get an extra pick or something with it I think.

 

[DyerMaker66*]

So was Bryan McCabe.

 

[VoidCreature]

They are replacing a top pairing dman with a bottom pairing dman, yeah they are going to be significantly worse.

Exactly which of those three do you think is bottom pairing? Auvitu hasn't proven anything in the league yet, but both Lovejoy and Quincey played top four for playoff teams last year. According to my math that's two top four D out, two in.

I love this board's logic. Larsson is terrible and a bust and overrated but now that he's gone our D is gutter trash.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Lovejoy is as much a top 4 Dman as Connor Sheary is a top line LW. He's physically capable of playing in that spot, but its not really where he belongs.

 

[VoidCreature]

Lovejoy is as much a top 4 Dman as Connor Sheary is a top line LW. He's physically capable of playing in that spot, but its not really where he belongs.

Concern noted. Santini and Auvitu look really great in their own ways in preseason so far. I think our D is better as a collective than last year, we should be able to absorb Larsson's absence.

 

[RSeen]

Exactly which of those three do you think is bottom pairing? Auvitu hasn't proven anything in the league yet, but both Lovejoy and Quincey played top four for playoff teams last year. According to my math that's two top four D out, two in.

I love this board's logic. Larsson is terrible and a bust and overrated but now that he's gone our D is gutter trash.

Lets be real Quincy sure as heck is not a top 4 dman, he's a 6 at best. Lovejoy is not a top 4 on most teams, he probably a 5.

 

[VoidCreature]

Lets be real Quincy sure as heck is not a top 4 dman, he's a 6 at best. Lovejoy is not a top 4 on most teams, he probably a 5.

Red Wings fans were very complimentary of him.

 

[Jets012]

Shero by all accounts has done a great job. I think there's always a huge difference in how Devils fans look at the state of the team compared to the average fan is because of the general lack of coverage the team gets and the admittedly big question marks the team still has.

The team Shero inherited is awful. Now, I still don't know how good this current team will be, but they do have some huge promise albeit big question marks. The general fan isn't going to know guys like Reid Boucher, Nick Lappin, Joseph Blandisi, Yohann Avitu, Beau Bennett (not him as much), hell even Pavel Zacha's development. But these are some promising guys that have show a lot of progression the last few years that will get the chance to be put in some favorable situations.

Now will guys like Boucher/Blandisi/Lappin/Avitu/Zacha all step up? That remains to be seen, but there's a lot of encouraging signs with them. And the Devils don't necessarily need them all to be great players. They just need 2 or three of those guys to turn into their potential and they are a much much improved team.

That to me is why Devils fans like Ray Shero so much

 

[Section32]

He has done a really good job.

Magician? Not sure yet...though the Hall trade was Gold for the Devils.

It has been a tough stretch for this team.

Let's see them in the playoffs before we award him a wand! Zacha looks real though!

On a separate note, I love hearing Dano in the booth. Very honest- hated him when he was on the ice, but hard to dislike the guy...so, so much better than The Butcher Goring and Isles crew...

BTW, if non NYC area people don't know, because MSG owns all the TV rights to the three NYC clubs, we get a mix of announcers during the preseason. These are your most bitter rival's announcers sharing the booth. It is very uncomfortable for the fans.

But cheers for Daneyko...




Cheers!

 

[BB88]

I don't see how the Devils make the playoffs with that D-core.

Now it Sheros turn to try to find a #1D to build with Hall, Zacha, McLeod, it's not going to be easy.

 

[Tundra]

I dont get it... Obviously anything can happen when the season starts but this Devils team has Hall, Henrique the 2c and nothing else upfront. The D on paper is also unimpressive.
How is Shero a genius? Honest question Im not trying to troll but it seems more likely this team is bottom 10 rather than a playoff team. They're basically the Bozak-Kessel era Leafs

Lou left the team in shambles. The fact that they can be somewhat competitive and yet have a promising future this early is a testament to Shero.

 

[AfroThunder396]

I dont get it... Obviously anything can happen when the season starts but this Devils team has Hall, Henrique the 2c and nothing else upfront. The D on paper is also unimpressive.
How is Shero a genius? Honest question Im not trying to troll but it seems more likely this team is bottom 10 rather than a playoff team. They're basically the Bozak-Kessel era Leafs

You clearly missed the end of the Lou Era, when Jordin Tootoo was playing 2nd line scoring minutes and #1 PP and our top defensemen scored 15 points.

This team was in the playoff hunt until Trade Deadline with a lame duck roster of PTO's and previous regime holdovers. We had four forwards under the age of 30 at one point.

Check out this gem one of our posters made:

 

[AfroThunder396]

Well Shero essentially did the same thing in Pit.

No, you're not allowed to use the term "shambles" when you have SIDNEY CROSBY and EVGENI MALKIN.

We had 34 year old Scott Gomez play half the season as a PTO and he finished 3rd on the team in points. We had two players hit 40 points and one hit 20 goals.

I wish my team could get 109 points and win the division when we were in shambles. We had 125 *GOALS* at even strength that year. Give me a break. Take your champagne problems elsewhere.

 

[Empoleon8771]

No, you're not allowed to use the term "shambles" when you have SIDNEY CROSBY and EVGENI MALKIN.

Here's what the Penguins roster was in 2013-2014:

Kunitz-Crosby-Dupuis
Jokinen-Malkin-Neal
Bennett-Sutter-Stempniak
Glass-Vitale-Adams

Scuderi-Letang
Orpik-Martin
Maatta-Niskanen

Fleury-Zatkoff

Of everyone on that team, only the bolded are still in the organization, the underlined aren't even playing in the NHL anymore and the italicized are going to either be retired or on waivers within 2 years. Shero left the Penguins with no depth and a ton of over the hill players. Luckily for him, there were a ton of late round forward prospects drafted from 2010-2013 (or unsigned prospects) that ended up exploding onto the NHL scene, including Rust, Wilson, Sheary, Kuhnhackl and Sundqvist.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Concern noted. Santini and Auvitu look really great in their own ways in preseason so far. I think our D is better as a collective than last year, we should be able to absorb Larsson's absence.

That's fair. I don't know anything about any of your other guys really. I just know that losing your best d-man tends to hurt, and Lovejoy won't do much to fill the gap. But the others may be good enough, I have no idea. And overall, trading for Hall is still a clear upgrade for the team.

 

[VoidCreature]

Here's what the Penguins roster was in 2013-2014:

Kunitz-Crosby-Dupuis
Jokinen-Malkin-Neal
Bennett-Sutter-Stempniak
Glass-Vitale-Adams

Scuderi-Letang
Orpik-Martin
Maatta-Niskanen

Fleury-Zatkoff

Of everyone on that team, only the bolded are still in the organization, the underlined aren't even playing in the NHL anymore and the italicized are going to either be retired or on waivers within 2 years. Shero left the Penguins with no depth and a ton of over the hill players. Luckily for him, there were a ton of late round forward prospects drafted from 2010-2013 (or unsigned prospects) that ended up exploding onto the NHL scene, including Rust, Wilson, Sheary, Kuhnhackl and Sundqvist.

Cool story, bro. Now take out Crosby and Malkin and you've essentially got the 2014-15 Devils. Your D might be a little better than ours was.

You want to go back in time and trade teams? You'll get Jagr back.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Cool story, bro. Now take out Crosby and Malkin and you've essentially got the 2014-15 Devils. Your D might be a little better than ours was.

You want to go back in time and trade teams? You'll get Jagr back.

I wasn't arguing whether the Devils after Lou were worse than the Penguins after Shero, I was saying Shero left the Penguins in shambles in 2014. Whether the Devils in 2015 were worse or better is irrelevant to that.

 

[Kaapo Cabana]

Here's what the Penguins roster was in 2013-2014:


Glass


...aren't even playing in the NHL anymore

unfortunately for us this is not yet true

 

[Kurt Cobain]

We've turned the team around and we didn't have to tank, which I'm proud of. Our top six is very underrated between Hall, Henrique, Palmieri, Zajac, Cammalleri and whoever the sixth by maybe. When it comes to our defense we've won divisions with worse defenses post 2005 lockout. Plus we got a top three goalie. We're as good as philly and not far behind the Isles and Rangers. Our prospects as a whole better move up tremendously considering were ranked 29th or whatever it is on this site. We better be around 15 at least with the players we drafted the last two years.

 

[Baemon Severson*]

Devils lines (not exact, but you get the picture) on the last game of 14-15, one month before Shero took over 16 months ago:

Cammalleri-Zajac-Zubrus
Elias-Henrique-Tootoo
Boucher-Gomez-Bernier
Ruutu-Josefson-Gionta

Greene-Larsson
Harrold-Severson
Fraser-Gelinas

Schneider

Here is our projected lineup:

Hall-Henrique-Bennett
Cammalleri-Zajac-Palmieri
Boucher-Zacha-DSP
Kalinin-Fiddler-Josefson

Greene-Severson
Moore-Lovejoy
Quincey-Merrill/Auvitu

Schneider

Not to mention NJ had Santini, Wood and Quenneville as prospect and that was pretty much it. Now, they have: Zacha, Santini, McLeod, Quenneville, Bastian, Wood, Blackwood and Speers who look to have a significant impact down the road

 

[Empoleon8771]

unfortunately for us this is not yet true

Wait isn't he playing in Hartford at this point? I thought he played most of last year there.