State of the Devils Thread (Long Questionnaire)

[glenwo2]

The spurts Mueller has, though, make me think there's something there. I'd love to see him under a new coach. I'd love to see all of our team under a new coach, to be honest. We've only seen Hynes (And Nas dropped into a dumpster fire). Mueller played a lot better under Nas.

What if the "spurts" you see are all you will ever get, though?

I have not seen anything to suggest that all he needs is a different voice.

Perhaps he is what he is at this point?

 

[None Shall Pass]

What if the "spurts" you see are all you will ever get, though?

I have not seen anything to suggest that all he needs is a different voice.

Perhaps he is what he is at this point?

The way I've seen it, though, is that he played a lot better under Nas than he did under Hynes, so I don't think there's any harm in seeing what he'd do under a new coach. At worst, he'll be a cheap #7. No biggie.

 

[JrFischer54]

Double

 

[guitarguyvic]

It boggles the mind how anyone can see the state of this team and think that Ray did a good job. I can maybe buy into being neutral and waiting longer term to weigh how his draft picks turn out. But I'm sorry, giving him a definitive positive grade right now because he was essentially gifted two #1 overalls and made a few "good" trades for what turned out to be temporary players is horse shit. The two #1's are not even sure things to meet the expectations of that pick...and we have people on here touting them as our near-certain future superstars. It just comes across as delusional blind faith, and I'm not down with that. We better hope they turn out that way, because there is limited evidence that we have the necessary pieces in place at virtually every single other position.

 

[JrFischer54]

Let’s take the #1 picks into a little context. They aren’t mcdavid sid Matthews first pick talent. They are first pick Players that need to develop a little before they hit their ceilings. If they do that then whatever gm comes next is going to be gifted two studs.


It’s a weird argument you make saying Ray was “gifted”two first picks (whatever gifted means) I’m pretty sure the devils earned those picks. But then you continue on and say those picks might not even live up to their status as 1 picks? Both of those arguments are sheros fault? Lol. You can’t argue Shero should’ve done more he had two first picks then later say those two picks might not live up to potential

 

[guitarguyvic]

Let’s take the #1 picks into a little context. They aren’t mcdavid sid Matthews first pick talent. They are first pick Players that need to develop a little before they hit their ceilings. If they do that then whatever gm comes next is going to be gifted two studs.


It’s a weird argument you make saying Ray was “gifted”two first picks (whatever gifted means) I’m pretty sure the devils earned those picks. But then you continue on and say those picks might not even live up to their status as 1 picks? Both of those arguments are sheros fault? Lol. You can’t argue Shero should’ve done more he had two first picks then later say those two picks might not live up to potential

The first round picks get mentioned because those two prospects routinely get touted as one of Ray’s successes. Any every day NJ devils fan could have made those picks. They were gifted to Ray...he didn’t acquire them through some savvy transacting or maneuvers. And I’m not blaming Ray per se if they don’t meet their potential. The overarching point, which you seem to have failed to grasp, is this...that two #1 overall draft picks who are currently not living up to expectations was his biggest “accomplishment” is not evidence that he did a good job, it’s actually quite the opposite.

If the two #1’s that he lucked into don’t become superstars, what exactly are we left with that justifies this notion that he did well?

 

[NJDevs26]

The two #1 picks also make the general outlook better than it would have been if we got stuck with whoever we picked at #7-8 if we didn't win the Nico lottery, or at #5-6 if we didn't win the Hughes lottery. Would people still be singing Ray's praises if our best younger players going forward were Bratt, Ty Smith and a bunch of 3rd/4th liners?

 

[JimEIV]

In all honesty what I'm most upset about is I have grown a full beard and it's all grey. My hair is still mostly the original color but my beard is whiter than Betty White's bush.

I think I can play Santa Clause this December.

 

[JrFischer54]

So much fail let me see if I can do this all on my phone.

first guy 1 you say any fan could have made those picks? If I remember correctly half this board wanted Patrick! And I’m sure the greatest gm of all time (Lou) would’ve taken Patrick.

then you mention legit you own words you don’t blame him for them not achieving their level and then you close out your though holding that against the guy? Make up your mind! He can only do so much if they don’t live up to their potential it’s certainly not sheros fault the player didn’t do well.

what’s actually funny is people keep saying he lucked into nico and hughes. Both of who could very well end up NOT the best players in their draft class. So really did ray really luck out?

the devils legit could’ve possibly had byram and makar or Pettersson if devils stayed in their spot.

 

[JrFischer54]

Shero had 5 drafts here and only 4 of them was he in charge of. If you honestly look at those drafts and then look at the previous 5 and still aren’t incredibly thankful Shero came here? I don’t know what else to tell you. I shudder to think where this team would be if conte and Lou stayed or if some other gm came in.


Like I said before he was dealt a shit expansion level roster when he got here. The assets he had to work with returned 2nd and 3rd rounders. Does that give any hint how bad the roster was? So with minimal HIGH QUALITY picks aka first rounders he did what he could and then like I mention the two lotto wins? They legit could be not the best players in their drafts.

 

[guitarguyvic]

Shero had 5 drafts here and only 4 of them was he in charge of. If you honestly look at those drafts and then look at the previous 5 and still aren’t incredibly thankful Shero came here? I don’t know what else to tell you. I shudder to think where this team would be if conte and Lou stayed or if some other gm came in.


Like I said before he was dealt a shit expansion level roster when he got here. The assets he had to work with returned 2nd and 3rd rounders. Does that give any hint how bad the roster was? So with minimal HIGH QUALITY picks aka first rounders he did what he could and then like I mention the two lotto wins? They legit could be not the best players in their drafts.

The bolded is a perfect illustration of how/why Ray’s performance gets undue praise. Using the last years of Lou/Conte as your barometer is truly grading on a shit curve. How about we leave Lou out of it and grade Ray strictly on the merit of his own performance?

Again I will ask...outside of two #1 picks that the lotto ball graced this franchise with (who you acknowledge may not even be the best players of their draft) what exactly did Ray leave us with?

 

[JrFischer54]

The bolded is a perfect illustration of how/why Ray’s performance gets undue praise. Using the last years of Lou/Conte as your barometer is truly grading on a shit curve. How about we leave Lou out of it and grade Ray strictly on the merit of his own performance?

Again I will ask...outside of two #1 picks that the lotto ball graced this franchise with (who you acknowledge may not even be the best players of their draft) what exactly did Ray leave us with?

Potential franchise goalie

potential top pair d man smith. Possible 2nd pair d man bahl. A first rounder to come from that.

Boqvist Anderson mcolde bastian which are solid prospects.

not to mention our leading scorer and probably future captain palmeri.

Counting hughes and nico that is 11 players who should contribute to this lineup next year.

zero cap trouble and long term contracts.
What do you think he left us with?

You don’t have to answer that because I honestly believe you think these players should’ve been drafted and already been producing the following year from their draft since they aren’t they are already deemed a bust and the past x amount of years have been wasted and that’s really sad.

 

[MadDevil]

The bolded is a perfect illustration of how/why Ray’s performance gets undue praise. Using the last years of Lou/Conte as your barometer is truly grading on a shit curve. How about we leave Lou out of it and grade Ray strictly on the merit of his own performance?

Again I will ask...outside of two #1 picks that the lotto ball graced this franchise with (who you acknowledge may not even be the best players of their draft) what exactly did Ray leave us with?

Considering many of the players we've drafted the last few years haven't even turned pro or are just turning pro, we don't know yet. Or are we just writing them all off already as busts or disappointments?

 

[Spoiled Bratt]

The bolded is a perfect illustration of how/why Ray’s performance gets undue praise. Using the last years of Lou/Conte as your barometer is truly grading on a shit curve. How about we leave Lou out of it and grade Ray strictly on the merit of his own performance?

Again I will ask...outside of two #1 picks that the lotto ball graced this franchise with (who you acknowledge may not even be the best players of their draft) what exactly did Ray leave us with?

If you would actually do the research yourself, instead of asking for someone else to hand feed you the answer, you’d probably realize on your own that he added legit talent and valuable assets for the future with very little to work with.

I dare you to do the exercise on your own and tell us what Shero did in his short stint with the Devils.

 

[guitarguyvic]

Potential franchise goalie

potential top pair d man smith. Possible 2nd pair d man bahl. A first rounder to come from that.

Boqvist Anderson mcolde bastian which are solid prospects.

not to mention our leading scorer and probably future captain palmeri.

Counting hughes and nico that is 11 players who should contribute to this lineup next year.

zero cap trouble and long term contracts.
What do you think he left us with?

You don’t have to answer that because I honestly believe you think these players should’ve been drafted and already been producing the following year from their draft since they aren’t they are already deemed a bust and the past x amount of years have been wasted and that’s really sad.

Potential potential potential. I’ll believe it when I see it. And gladly give Ray the credit if all these players meet this potential you guys rave so much about.

I’ve been hearing about potential for going on a damn decade across two different regimes now. Color me skeptical.

 

[guitarguyvic]

Considering many of the players we've drafted the last few years haven't even turned pro or are just turning pro, we don't know yet. Or are we just writing them all off already as busts or disappointments?

Writing them off? No. Lacking the same level of faith this board has that they will meet all this potential? Absolutely. This board viewed Lou’s picks with the same enthusiasm....until it became undeniable that those prospects were amounting to nothing. Then everyone flips the switch to Lou sucks, but apparently we haven’t learned our lesson.

Ray was praised for his trades. All of them with the exception of (maybe) one turned out to be temporary pieces that are no longer part of our long term plan. That leaves us with his draft picks, which pretty much all the Ray defenders acknowledge now are at best unproven and slow to develop. Giving him credit for something that hasn’t been proven yet seems rather strange.

 

[JrFischer54]

Potential potential potential. I’ll believe it when I see it. And gladly give Ray the credit if all these players meet this potential you guys rave so much about.

I’ve been hearing about potential for going on a damn decade across two different regimes now. Color me skeptical.

lol so I guess I was right. You fully did expect a 3rd round draft pick from two years ago to be in the nhl playing already lol. Wow ok

 

[NJDevs26]

The bolded is a perfect illustration of how/why Ray’s performance gets undue praise. Using the last years of Lou/Conte as your barometer is truly grading on a shit curve. How about we leave Lou out of it and grade Ray strictly on the merit of his own performance?

Again I will ask...outside of two #1 picks that the lotto ball graced this franchise with (who you acknowledge may not even be the best players of their draft) what exactly did Ray leave us with?

It's also funny how Ray only gets compared to the last three years of Lou to make the case it's no contest in favor of Ray, when if he got compared to the first twenty five years of Lou it'd be no contest the other way. It would have been like comparing Cory's first couple years as a Devil to Marty's last couple as somehow proof Cory was better.

lol so I guess I was right. You fully did expect a 3rd round draft pick from two years ago to be in the nhl playing already lol. Wow ok

Hyperbole doesn't help an argument, it only makes it look more facetious. Expecting the team to be better at the NHL level after five years of the Shero tenure =/= expecting guys from the middle rounds of 2018 to be NHL regulars in 2020.

The point is, people compliment the prospects and picks without on-ice success and before we know if Shero/Castron have actually been good drafters as being some great accomplishment when in fact, stockpiling magic beans is really the bare freaking minumum we should have expected from Shero after five years of rebuilding. He hasn't done anything beyond the bare minimum of the mission statement to be impressed with and the timeline for on-ice progress got kicked down the road further cause the NHL guys he did trade for have been moved on.

 

[glenwo2]

Potential potential potential. I’ll believe it when I see it. And gladly give Ray the credit if all these players meet this potential you guys rave so much about.

I’ve been hearing about potential for going on a damn decade across two different regimes now. Color me skeptical.

Then how about having some....PATIENCE, perhaps?

We all know we are rebuilding, so what's the problem?

 

[Spoiled Bratt]

Writing them off? No. Lacking the same level of faith this board has that they will meet all this potential? Absolutely. This board viewed Lou’s picks with the same enthusiasm....until it became undeniable that those prospects were amounting to nothing. Then everyone flips the switch to Lou sucks, but apparently we haven’t learned our lesson.

Ray was praised for his trades. All of them with the exception of (maybe) one turned out to be temporary pieces that are no longer part of our long term plan. That leaves us with his draft picks, which pretty much all the Ray defenders acknowledge now are at best unproven and slow to develop. Giving him credit for something that hasn’t been proven yet seems rather strange.

You must be a new fan because you don’t make any sense whatsoever. Are you aware that he traded for Palmieri, Hall, Vatanen, Gusev, Subban, MoJo, Butcher*, Mueller in less then 4 years! We were able to add Hischier in our lineup right away following his draft year and I’m not even going to talk about Zacha, who was a pick made by the old regime. Bratt is another important piece to our current lineup that was drafted by Shero and Co.

That’s 10 new faces (11 with PZ) that were added in order to jump start a depleted roster left by Lou and his crew. It didn’t work out mostly because the guy between the pipes was a total train wreck and sunk this team into the bottom of the standings. It took a career year from Taylor Hall to squeak us into the playoffs by a single point.

We were hoping to pick up on that momentum and a bunch of things went wrong the following year, so we went right back at the bottom of the standings. Ray tried to pull off some more magic tricks in order to bolster our lineup but the main reason for our struggles was still on the roster because he was immovable and couldn’t be replaced. You can’t just brush a 6M$ per contract for the next 4 years like it’s no big deal.

We all had expectations for the season that abruptly ended but again, it didn’t work out. Taylor Hall acted like a little bitch, Gusev took more time to adjust the probably expected, Hughes wasn’t ready for the show and it looked like the entire team just gave up after Hynes f***ed everything up when we were up 4 on the Jets in like the 1st week of the season.

Shero’s biggest mistake was to leave Hynes as our HC when the team looked like they checked out but maybe he didn’t pull the trigger sooner because he didn’t have any faith in Nas as well, who knows?

Despite all of that, we have a very solid base for the future, even if you might think otherwise. Having Hischier and Hughes down the middle is something every team would want. We also have very promising youngsters in Smith, Foote, Boqvist, Bahl, Blackwood and 3 picks in the top #17 of a very solid draft. That’s nothing to sneeze at when looking at the big picture IMO.

So my question to you is this... Is the future as black as you’re making it out to be?

 

[Spoiled Bratt]

It's also funny how Ray only gets compared to the last three years of Lou to make the case it's no contest in favor of Ray, when if he got compared to the first twenty five years of Lou it'd be no contest the other way. It would have been like comparing Cory's first couple years as a Devil to Marty's last couple as somehow proof Cory was better.



Hyperbole doesn't help an argument, it only makes it look more facetious. Expecting the team to be better at the NHL level after five years of the Shero tenure =/= expecting guys from the middle rounds of 2018 to be NHL regulars in 2020.

The point is, people compliment the prospects and picks without on-ice success and before we know if Shero/Castron have actually been good drafters as being some great accomplishment when in fact, stockpiling magic beans is really the bare freaking minumum we should have expected from Shero after five years of rebuilding. He hasn't done anything beyond the bare minimum of the mission statement to be impressed with and the timeline for on-ice progress got kicked down the road further cause the NHL guys he did trade for have been moved on.

Who the f*** cares about what Lou did 25 years ago?!?!?

There’s not one single poster on this site that is brushing off the greatness of what Lou Lamoriello did for this franchise, so your point is irrelevant and weak af!

If you want to bash Shero, you have to look at what he had to work with and the final years of Lou and his crew were a complete disaster. Are you aware of the lineup we had when he got sacked? Of the state of our prospect pool? Of our non existent farm system?

Just to put things into perspective, our best asset was Adam Larsson, a second pairing dman with skating issues.

I have absolutely no idea how one can say that Shero was snoozing on the job when looking at what he had to work with... it’s really mind boggling!

 

[JrFischer54]

didn’t expect Lou draft stats over 25 years to come into playing comparing the last 10 years of this franchise. Bravo

 

[glenwo2]

didn’t expect Lou draft stats over 25 years to come into playing comparing the last 10 years of this franchise. Bravo

I suppose that's what happens when people start grasping for ANYTHING to support their narrative. Oh well.

I really miss watching actual hockey.

 

[glenwo2]

You must be a new fan because you don’t make any sense whatsoever. Are you aware that he traded for Palmieri, Hall, Vatanen, Gusev, Subban, MoJo, Butcher*, Mueller in less then 4 years! We were able to add Hischier in our lineup right away following his draft year and I’m not even going to talk about Zacha, who was a pick made by the old regime. Bratt is another important piece to our current lineup that was drafted by Shero and Co.

That’s 10 new faces (11 with PZ) that were added in order to jump start a depleted roster left by Lou and his crew. It didn’t work out mostly because the guy between the pipes was a total train wreck and sunk this team into the bottom of the standings. It took a career year from Taylor Hall to squeak us into the playoffs by a single point.

We were hoping to pick up on that momentum and a bunch of things went wrong the following year, so we went right back at the bottom of the standings. Ray tried to pull off some more magic tricks in order to bolster our lineup but the main reason for our struggles was still on the roster because he was immovable and couldn’t be replaced. You can’t just brush a 6M$ per contract for the next 4 years like it’s no big deal.

We all had expectations for the season that abruptly ended but again, it didn’t work out. Taylor Hall acted like a little bitch, Gusev took more time to adjust the probably expected, Hughes wasn’t ready for the show and it looked like the entire team just gave up after Hynes f***ed everything up when we were up 4 on the Jets in like the 1st week of the season.

Shero’s biggest mistake was to leave Hynes as our HC when the team looked like they checked out but maybe he didn’t pull the trigger sooner because he didn’t have any faith in Nas as well, who knows?

Despite all of that, we have a very solid base for the future, even if you might think otherwise. Having Hischier and Hughes down the middle is something every team would want. We also have very promising youngsters in Smith, Foote, Boqvist, Bahl, Blackwood and 3 picks in the top #17 of a very solid draft. That’s nothing to sneeze at when looking at the big picture IMO.

So my question to you is this... Is the future as black as you’re making it out to be?

His join date is 2010.

Just pointing that out.

I agree with everything else you said, though.

 

[The 29th Pick]

Compare Lou his first 14 years vs his last 14 years here, different time, different rules, different game.