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I'm just going to come out and say it.


Devilstail

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The problem with some of these posts are - they hey at least we aren't the leafs, or we did better than we were projected.

 

The real issue is the mismanagement of the team.  I don't think it completely falls on Lou, but he is partially to blame.  We have like 9 NHL defensemen some we can't properly develop.  We have a bunch of 2nd/3rd/4th liners on the team.  Obviously we are a team that will live and die by the 1 goal game and you'd think Lou would do more to get better shootout guys. When the Pens picked up Jokinen last yr on waivers, he would have been perfect for us for the shootout.  Lou would rather have a guy like Clowe - who although I like what he brings to the table, he isn't going to light anything on fire.

 

The whole brodeur/schneider thing has been a mess and total mismanagement as well.

 

I think it's time for the Marty/Lou/DeBoer show to go and time to fully transition into a new era.  Now i dont think we need to rebuild, but we need to move past some of the Devils stubborn habits of the past that won't get us anywhere

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The problem with some of these posts are - they hey at least we aren't the leafs, or we did better than we were projected.

 

The real issue is the mismanagement of the team.  I don't think it completely falls on Lou, but he is partially to blame.  We have like 9 NHL defensemen some we can't properly develop.  We have a bunch of 2nd/3rd/4th liners on the team.  Obviously we are a team that will live and die by the 1 goal game and you'd think Lou would do more to get better shootout guys. When the Pens picked up Jokinen last yr on waivers, he would have been perfect for us for the shootout.  Lou would rather have a guy like Clowe - who although I like what he brings to the table, he isn't going to light anything on fire.

 

The whole brodeur/schneider thing has been a mess and total mismanagement as well.

 

I think it's time for the Marty/Lou/DeBoer show to go and time to fully transition into a new era.  Now i dont think we need to rebuild, but we need to move past some of the Devils stubborn habits of the past that won't get us anywhere

 

Great post, im really enjoying seeing people starting to turn the corner about Lou. He was great and all but way too many people we're almost scared to say anything bad about him as if it was a sacrilege or something and we're in total denial defending all his bad moves.

 

Im a kind of guy that will call a cat a cat, when Lou deserves credits i'll give it to him no problem. But i certainly won't close my eyes on the bad ones either. Not that i expect him to be perfect but most of his big mistakes we're not things that didnt pan out, they we're mostly all decision made out of stubborness. Which is what pissing me off so bad about him.

 

I and we always will be thankful for what he did in the past but that's really in the past now and since the lockout he really didnt do much.

Edited by SterioDesign
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Obviously we are a team that will live and die by the 1 goal game and you'd think Lou would do more to get better shootout guys. When the Pens picked up Jokinen last yr on waivers, he would have been perfect for us for the shootout. 

 

You are hindsighting this like a true pro. The Devils were fine in the shootout until this season and even while losing Kovalchuk certainly didn't help the shootout, the guys Lou added weren't terrible in that format: http://www.nhl.com/ice/shootoutstats.htm?season=20132014&team=NJD&viewName=shootoutSkaterCareerTotals

 

Jokinen was waived without being claimed, so Carolina traded him for a conditional pick AND had to retain salary to get rid of him.

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you just have all the answers.. wake up and just accept the fact that the team is not good and they are not going to make the playoffs..

 

This post has nothing to do with the post you just quoted.  It's essentially a fact that even if we do miss the playoffs, we did better than people thought we would.

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Pete's a fine coach. His hands are tied.

Develop the D, acquire offense, lock up Cory. Perennial contender

 

I agree.  But he shouldn't constantly change the lines every single time it goes into a dry spell.  At least in my opinion.  The key is to develop chemistry.  It's hard to do that with different combinations every week.

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You are hindsighting this like a true pro. The Devils were fine in the shootout until this season and even while losing Kovalchuk certainly didn't help the shootout, the guys Lou added weren't terrible in that format: http://www.nhl.com/ice/shootoutstats.htm?season=20132014&team=NJD&viewName=shootoutSkaterCareerTotals

 

Jokinen was waived without being claimed, so Carolina traded him for a conditional pick AND had to retain salary to get rid of him.

 

The issue here is that its not just losing kovalchuk.  We lost Parise too.  We lost Gionta as well.  Patty is the only one really that led to our shootout success that is still there.  If you remember - probably not -- i was one who wanted Parise traded at the deadline before he left us as a free agent.  I said you couldnt lose a guy like that for nothing.  Teams see it coming -  Lou plays stubborn thinking he can sign all of his FA's and to be honest he is about 50 pct on the players he wants to resign.  And his "B" plan of trying to sign 2-3 "B" rate players to replace said "A Rate" player usually doesn't work. 

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Pete's a fine coach. His hands are tied.

Develop the D, acquire offense, lock up Cory. Perennial contender

I feel like this message could've been written about the Devils/Rockies 30 years ago. Something like: Lock up Chico, develop Cirella and Daneyko, acquire some scorers. Then we're set, right? If this is where we are at then we have taken quite a few steps back peeps.

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I feel like this message could've been written about the Devils/Rockies 30 years ago. Something like: Lock up Chico, develop Cirella and Daneyko, acquire some scorers. Then we're set, right? If this is where we are at then we have taken quite a few steps back peeps.

 

Well figuring on Chico still being here alongside Daneyko and Cirella that would place us at 85-86 which would've been the only year they all played together for more than a couple of games (Dano only played 11 games in 83-84 and only 1 in 84-85). At that point we'd be two years removed from a trip to the Conference Finals and 9 years away from our first Cup. Step back? Yeah, but not as terrible as bringing up the dreaded Red Yellow Blue name would imply.

Edited by NewarkDevil5
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I feel like this message could've been written about the Devils/Rockies 30 years ago. Something like: Lock up Chico, develop Cirella and Daneyko, acquire some scorers. Then we're set, right? If this is where we are at then we have taken quite a few steps back peeps.

Christ man, that is a bit of a doomsday way of looking at things. This is a team that completely sh!t the bed this year, and is going to JUST miss the playoffs. We aren't 20-50-12 here. Most of the pieces are here. A solid coach with a good system who has the respect of the players, a all star caliber goalie, an offense of complimentary players missing a go-to-guy, with a mix of an old damaged defense and three players seeing significant time on defense doing a damn fine job.

 

Saying Daneyko and Cirella compared to Larsson, Merrill, Gelinas, Severson, Santini, Scarlet, etc is a bit short sighted I would say. We have a plethora of top notch prospects on the blueline. No, not all of them are going to pan out, but at least three of them look capable of playing already. I don't think they are going to get worse. 

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Besides Chico was what, 32 when he got traded here initially?  That comparison's just wrong on so many levels.

 

That, and at the time Chico was dealt to the Rockies, there were reasons for hope...Lanny McDonald was there, Merlin Malinowski had a breakout year playing with McDonald, Steve Tambellini (who'd been traded with Chico) put up 18 points in 13 GP to close out the season, and second-year defenseman Rob Ramage was showing strong offensive skills.  That Rockies team was over .500 as late as 21 games into the season (9-8-4), but as was always the case with the Rockies/early Devils teams, they always seemed to fall apart around that time (they went 13-37-9 the rest of the way).  Still, there were reasons for optimism, as long as the team had some kind of plan to build around the pieces they already had.

 

But ownership issues (a constant problem with the Rockies, as each owner's financial woes affected the on-ice product) reared their ugly heads yet again, and the focus/plan (or what passed for one in Colorado) was changed on the fly as it always was back then.  They traded McDonald just 16 games into the '81-'82 season for Don Lever and Bobby MacMillan...this happened a lot with the Rockies, where they had a way of giving the best player in any deal they made...this less than six weeks after making a "right now" trade with the Islanders that sent Dave Cameron and Bob Lorimer to the Rockies in exchange for their 1983 first-round pick (who became Pat LaFontaine).  Malinowski, who hadn't been handled all that well by the Rockies to begin with in his time there (mostly due to Don Cherry, who detested him and basically cost him a year of development at the NHL level), was clearly affected by McDonald's departure and saw his '81-'82 season fall apart.  And once the sale to McMullen was completed, Ramage wanted no part of NJ, and was moved to St. Louis as a result.    

 

Anyway, the comparison isn't a good one because those Rockies teams were always in financial turmoil and changing hands, and from 1978 on were constantly rumored to be on the move, which in turn basically gave the team no chance for on-ice stability (they had seven coaches and seven captains in six seasons).  All indications are that these owners have deep and secure pockets, and have zero plans to move this team elsewhere.  Of course that alone doesn't guarantee anything, but it sure helps a hell of a lot. 

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We went 5-2 right after the break...if you're going to look for a turning point it was the Florida trip right after that.

 

Thanks for the correction !

 

Obviously we've been a bubble team all year, but the Schneider-streak did have me thinking we were about to turn the corner.

unfortunately we're still a win one-lose one, win two-lose two kinda team.

Now we have to wait until October to see if this changes next season.

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IMHO, we need to drop some of the forwards we have.  The defense isn't the problem and will be a really good shape in the next few years.  Look at the results some of these forwards have produced over an 82 game season.  I'm quite the kool-aid drinker when it comes to Lou, but even drinkers have to admit that he has been very reactive instead of proactive when it comes to the forwards. 

Lose Clarkson, sign Clowe, which was okay in my book, not a bad tradeoff, Clowe has decent hands and is an excellent passer and has played on the SJ top lines since before his concussion battles.  Lose Kovalchuk, sign Jagr, Brunner, Ryder.  I believe that he should have put some faith in the younger forwards inside the organization.  Lou has always been that kind of GM who doesn't depend on a lot of outside help, look at 2005/06 when Parise and Zajac broke into the league, he put some faith and trust in them as young players.  It's obvious to me that Ryder and Brunner have not been very productive or successful in their first seasons here.

EDIT: Lou possibly just needs to return to being more proactive.  Look at your young forwards and really think, "Hey is this going to be a successful NHL player, and when should he get a chance?"

Henrique for example came into the league at 21 and had a huge impact on this team in the season we went to the Cup.

Edited by RizzMB30
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Christ man, bit of a doomsday way of looking at things. This is a team that completely sh!t the bed this year, and is going to JUST miss the playoffs. We aren't 20-50-12 here. Most of the pieces are here. A solid coach with a good system who has the respect of the players.

 

Bro.. you're kidding with this, right?

..you're saying that the outlook is better than it seems, because we don't have a "20-50-12" record? That would make us the worst team in the NHL. Comparing us to the rest of the teams in the league as of right now.. the Devils have manufactured more wins than the: Islanders, Panthers, Oilers, Buffalo... AND THAT'S IT! Year after year, there are plenty of teams that miss the playoffs by 6-8 points. That doesn't mean alot of them aren't sh!t.

 

The; "solid coach" you're referring to, is under .500 here after 3 seasons.. just as he was the 3 seasons he was in Florida. I don't know how you can emphatically say he has the respect of the players either.. unless you're in that lockerroom. I haven't heard a player swoon over him all year. What I HAVE read in quotes however, was Jagr destroy DeBoer to the media -- "there's alot of coaching decisions I don't understand"  two months ago.. and Jagr is player that I respect.

Edited by Beezer34
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Bro.. you're kidding with this, right?

..you're saying that the outlook is better than it seems, because we don't have a "20-50-12" record? That would make us the worst team in the NHL. Comparing us to the rest of the teams in the league as of right now.. the Devils have manufactured more wins than the: Islanders, Panthers, Oilers, Buffalo... AND THAT'S IT! Year after year, there are plenty of teams that miss the playoffs by 6-8 points. That doesn't mean alot of them aren't sh!t.

 

The; "solid coach" you're referring to, is under .500 here after 3 seasons.. just as he was the 3 seasons he was in Florida. I don't know how you can emphatically say he has the respect of the players either.. unless you're in that lockerroom. I haven't heard a player swoon over him all year. What I HAVE read in quotes however, was Jagr destroy DeBoer to the media -- "there's alot of coaching decisions I don't understand"  two months ago.. and Jagr is player that I respect.

 

No, no, no. The current outlook is better than the early 80's comparisons being made. How many times was the early 80's team even a contender for a playoffs. That is such a load of crap. This season was the perfect sh!tstorm with not being able to score and starting the worst save percentage in the league for 40 games. And hideous shootout woes. If we win a couple of shootouts half the board would be calling for Debo to win Jack Adams, coaching the team to the playoffs after losing Clarkson and Kovalchuk a season after losing Parise. Spare me with this crap.

 

Jagr was mad because his winger was being yanked around. If anything, that's on Lou. Obviously sending Zubrus, Yayo, and Boucher when they couldn't hang with Jagr and Zajac was failing and they were not producing. Lou got the message loud and clear trading for Ruutu someone who at the very least can play there. 

 

I don't care what the players say - some of the greatest coaches in sports were disliked by their players. The lack of respect will come when the players stop playing hard for him. Now there's been ruts where the players appear to "not play a full 60 minute game" - A) there is no such thing B) every team in the league has this problem. You want to blame Pete for something, blame him for starting the worst goalie in the league for half the season. 

 

If Brodeur is gone and Schneider stars 60+ games, this team will make the playoffs next season. 

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