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PhDinNJD

Devils Armchair GM
Member Since
Feb. 9, 2019
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New Jersey Devils
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Forum: Armchair-GMFeb. 13, 2019 at 8:02 p.m.
Forum: New Jersey DevilsFeb. 13, 2019 at 7:05 p.m.
Thread: What's Wrong With the Devils?
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Brian2016</b></div><div>Neither John Moore, Patrick Maroon, nor Micheal Grabner have done anything this season w/ their new teams. Letting all three walk has had very little impact in my opinion. I def. agree w/ you on the goaltending though. Kinkaid has been terrible since week 2 of the season and Schneider is done w/ the Devils after they buy out the final 3 years of his contract after the season. They'll lead the NHL in cap space this summer and they have a great young Goalie. They're in much better shape than most teams who are gonna miss the playoffs this season.</div></div>

All points you made are fair, and I understand what you mean about Moore, Grabner, Maroon not being spectacular with their new times. However, they are better than what they were replaced with...

Hoping for a big/at least somewhat exciting deadline/offseason as you said.
Forum: New Jersey DevilsFeb. 13, 2019 at 3:43 p.m.
Thread: What's Wrong With the Devils?
What's wrong with the Devils? I could have predicted a season like this from NJD in September. This what's wrong:

Last year the Devils were an over performing fringe playoff team (literally second wildcard spot by one point). In the offseason we let John Moore, Patrick Maroon, and Michael Grabner walk as UFA's. This left our roster with holes in our middle six forward group and top four defence group. Instead of acquiring/signing roster players to fill in for these guys, Ray hoped that younger players like Quenneville, Anderson, or McLeod (etc) would be able to step into our lineup and be somewhat relevant. That didn't happen. I think Q played close to 20 games and didn't get a point. These young players that Ray had hoped would fill in those holes never quite worked out. On defence, management hoped Will Butcher would become a top four D-man in John Moore's place, which he hasn't. Butcher simply doesn't have the size, strength, or speed to be a top four D who can handle his own defensively, and I'm afraid he might be slightly overpaid. Don't get me wrong, Butcher has proved to be a PP QB, but also proven he isn't great defensively. Because Butcher has been unable to fill John Moore's top four role, LOVEJOY HAS TO DO IT. THE PROBLEM WITH THAT IS THAT LOVEJOY IS NOT VERY GOOD!!! The rest of our D isn't much better either. Greene wouldn't be a top four on more than half of the teams in the NHL, and Lovejoy is just terrible. Severson has become a very good top four D-man in the league, and Vatanen is also solid. Other than Severson and Vatanen our D is in shambles, and Santini doesn't look like he's going to be as good as he was expected to be...

Further, last season had a full year of good goaltending. first half was Cory, second half was Kinkaid.

Also our unofficial captain Taylor Hall injured for half the season (so far) which certainly doesn't help.

My point is that last year the Devils barely made it into the playoffs, and did nothing to improve. Instead, they got worse (overall roster wise). This is not the formula for success.

However, if we land a top 3 pick this year than it's fair to say: we took one step back to take two steps forward.
Forum: Armchair-GMFeb. 13, 2019 at 12:31 a.m.
Thread: 2019-20 Outlook
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>DevilsAdvocate</b></div><div>Completely disagree with a couple of your points here.

First off Lovejoy, I don't see any need to trade Ben as he is a consistent and always reliable d-man that fits well in our top 4. I say we resign him to another short term deal, at frankly, whatever cost he wants.

The other point you mentioned is Zacha. I think Pavel has had more than enough time to prove himself, and he simply just has not done that. He's barely noticeable when he plays, and you will rarely catch him getting any sort of scoring chance. Also, he is the last thing we need near ANY of our powerplay units.

Lastly, I believe that Cory has simply lost his touch. I say we trade him for just about anything we can get at this point, and just count our losses.</div></div>

I couldn't disagree more with your first two points.

Ben Lovejoy is nowhere near a "consistent and always reliable d-man" unless you mean consistently subpar. Lovejoy's plus/minus doesn't reflect how many goals he costs us. If he fits "well in our top four" it's because our top four is among the worst in the entire NHL. He is constantly giving up unforced turnovers, screening our goalies, and he's awful at boxing out players in front of our net - he's usually the one getting boxed out. Not to mention he cannot make a breakout pass. He either passes to his d-partner to make a pass or ices it (every single time). He's not mobile and other teams players blow by him rather often.

On the other hand, Zacha has been in the NHL for what will soon be two and a half years and I don't think two and a half years in the NHL (21 years old) is enough time to "prove yourself" as an legit NHLer nor is it enough time to reach anywhere near ones full potential. Not everyone is going to be like McDavid, Matthews, Eichel etc... and score 20-30-40 goals a year that early into their career especially when playing on a roster as bad as ours. Some examples off the top of my head are M. Backlund and W. Karlsson. Backlund didn't start averaging 0.5 points before game until his fourth NHL season and before that he had only 46 points in his first 137 games/first three seasons (.33 points per game). William Karlsson also took 4 years to have a breakout season; he only had 48 points in his first 180 games/first three seasons (.26 points per game) (!!!)... and now look at him. Zacha (66 points in his first 190 GP for .34 points per game) has the tools to be a middle six guy, he just needs to use them more.

Your point about Cory is fair, and although I'm being a little optimistic, I personally think and hope that he's not completely dried up. He had pretty severe hip surgery in the summer and didn't have an offseason of training and conditioning to get back in game shape. I don't know if you've ever had hip surgery but... you can't walk, and thats gonna make it pretty easy to get out of game shape to the standard of a pro athlete.