No....also, Zacha 1st line? Yeesh

Hoping maybe Hughes and Shar can elevate his game. Thoughts?

No. But Jersey looks like it's the right course. Just to difficult to over come all the teams ahead in them in next year or two. A couple of good drafts and spending to the cap effectively might do it.

Not unless the Bruins, Caps and Pens totally have a royal choke. And even then they still don't make it.

I'm tired of trying to build the world around Zacha. I get at this point it would likely by one of Zacha, AJ, or Tatar in top 6 as I don't want to overwhelm Holtz (who you don't have making it), but just to this note, leave Mercer with Shar and Hughes and let them roll if Mercer isn't the 3C.

One other note, Bratt make a bit more money, won't dig too hard here, but also Wood's AO is $3.5, so it's either that or a longer deal just under that number (which at this point is far more doubtful, rather just get the show-me year as I both don't fully trust him to be a $3.5m player nor do I want to lose him for free when we have tons of cap room).

The biggest thing however is goaltending. I'm not of the view Blackwood is as horrendous as he was last year, but also that I do not think he's deserving of being the legit starter for this team. We have to bring in someone like Campbell or Lehner ahead of him to have a shot.

I'm glad you didn't go crazy on UFAs nor mortgage the future. I believe in the parts we are building and feel UFA money spent more often than not hurts a well-built team and is a sugar high to rush to compete.

Between Tatar, Zacha and Johnsson, the latter is the best player of the group.
I think Devils would have a better chance at making the playoffs if Tatar was traded instead and Holtz drew in for Slaf.
Really wish Devils hadn't waived Wedgewood last season, could've turned out very different if he'd have played instead of Schmid, Gillies and Hammond.

Agree with what you said about Wedewood. We should've waived someone like Jaros or Gaertsen instead of Wedge.

this is basically the same bad team that earned the 2nd overall in the draft. so no way it gets us to the playoffs