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THN 2016-17 Yearbook: Devils to Finish Last in Metro


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10 hours ago, Zubie#8 said:

Rangers have the same offense, perhaps even better than last year and they were 7th in the league. They also still have a good goalie. Their demise is being way overblown. It's coming but not this year. They'll be fine.

Yeah, but their defense is *that* much worse than last season. And poor defense last season is what they blamed Henrik's bad numbers on. But fast forward to this season: Yandle is gone. Staal and Girardi are one year older and slower. They have good offensive depth but no real superstars or difference-makers; Rick Nash is 32 and Brassard was 2nd in points the last 3 years, but he's gone. Stalberg and Moore did a pretty good job as 4th liners, their collective 35 points are gone. Dan Boyle and his 24 points need replacing too. Zibanejad could be very good for them, but he could also stagnate around only 40-50 points, we don't really know. And I don't think Vesey makes the impact everyone will be hoping he does.

So yes, their offensive depth, overall, is better than many teams, but hot damn is their defense worse than last year and that will make a big difference. Lundqvist needed to stand on his head last year just to put up average numbers. I think this is the year he takes a significant downturn in his fitness and performance because he's going to be asked to do A LOT.

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1 hour ago, Devilsfan118 said:

THN has always hated the Devils.  Always.  

But good, I always like when we're predicted to suck.  Let the team go into the season with a serious chip on its shoulder.

Yep. If memory serves me well, I feel like our team was highly touted before the John Maclean season, and before the 2013 season. And those were probably our two most painful seasons. I much prefer being expected to suck, and enjoy watching the team prove people wrong. That underdog mentality is in our New Jersey DNA...

Edited by DJ Eco
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On 8/30/2016 at 3:52 PM, DevsMan84 said:

Florida and Tampa are not in our division, unless you are meaning this is the Conference standings.

Yeah, I was just figuring on rounding out the top 8 for playoff purposes.   I figure the rest of the Conference may look like this:

9.  Boston

10.  Ottawa

11.  Carolina

12.  Columbus

13.  Buffalo

14.  Toronto

15.  Montreal

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Rick Nash sucked last year and the Rangers' offense was fine.  They've added some decent peripheral pieces plus they have a lot of young guys at forward.

The defense should be awful, but I think they'll try to fix that mid-season.  Either way there's no evidence that Lundqvist is on the decline, and while that should start to happen soon, it's far from a guarantee.

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9 hours ago, BostonNala370 said:

 On defense they will have to cover Larsson's game, can they?

The issue for me is the group was thin as it was, even with Larsson. Lovejoy is an OK player, Auvitu (and Santini) is an unknown at this level, can Severson step up to be a 20+ minute guy every night and how does Greene age? The Devils limit shots against, but the big thing for me is that they're not very good at moving the puck up ice, which is key to generating entries and offense. Hall will help with this, but it'll be similar to Edmonton for him (which has to be a bummer, haha). These are the reasons for my concerns re: Devils 17/18. 

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On 9/3/2016 at 2:26 AM, Marshall said:

The issue for me is the group was thin as it was, even with Larsson. Lovejoy is an OK player, Auvitu (and Santini) is an unknown at this level, can Severson step up to be a 20+ minute guy every night and how does Greene age? The Devils limit shots against, but the big thing for me is that they're not very good at moving the puck up ice, which is key to generating entries and offense. Hall will help with this, but it'll be similar to Edmonton for him (which has to be a bummer, haha). These are the reasons for my concerns re: Devils 17/18. 

 

I agree we needs to have scorers that can finish and score and the defense needs to move the puck up for the offense, but we can't depend on Cory to stop everything we need a defense that can step up. Larsson was a guy that could step up sp who takes his place. Last season the. defense didn't  help Cory as they should have we need more maturity. I am concerned about Merrill being a top 6. I am proud of this team and the steps they have taken since Shero took over. Lou destroyed this team because he was afraid to fail.

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