363 replies to this topic

[Beezer34]

I consider myself a realist, I thought that a first-round victory was possible no matter who the Devils played. Was it realistic to think that Philly could win two rounds? Apparently, yes.

My point exactally. The East was wide open. (Wash/Ottawa/Boston) The 6th place Flyers are 4 wins away from the finals. Sue said Fedorov was available, and she's right. But so was Foote, Lang, Tkachuk, Fedotenko, and others (all from non-playoff teams) that could've helped us on 'O.

[Triumph]

My point exactally. The East was wide open. (Wash/Ottawa/Boston) The 6th place Flyers are 4 wins away from the finals. Sue said Fedorov was available, and she's right. But so was Foote, Lang, Tkachuk, Fedotenko, and others (all from non-playoff teams) that could've helped us on 'O.

Foote is a defensive defenseman, and none of these other players got moved.

Fedotenko is terrible, or didn't you notice him as a healthy scratch on last year's Lightning team in the playoffs?

[SueNJ97]

I consider myself a realist, and I thought that a first-round victory was possible no matter who the Devils played. Was it realistic to think that Philly could win two rounds? Apparently, yes.

I believe, although I could be wrong, that Philadelphia got 'healthy' (except for poor Gange) in the weeks leading up to the deadline and towards the end of the season. The team that was stumbling was not necessarily the team that wound up in the playoffs. They had one deadline deal that I recall, they did pick up some offense, Vinnie Prospal for D Alexandre Picard and a conditional pick. I admit, I can't judge whether Lou could have sold Tampa on one of our D-men for Prospal, but I do remember that Prospal was discussed on the board and people weren't thrilled, they seemed to believe he was allergic to back-checking.

The surprise to me was that Biron has been as good as he has been. Or, is it that Price simply ran out of gas?

[Beezer34]

Fedotenko is terrible, or didn't you notice him as a healthy scratch on last year's Lightning team in the playoffs?

Dude, Fedotenko is terrible on the Islanders. Viktor Kozlov was pretty bad with us if I remember. Now he puts up 50+ points per season.

...and the fact that none of those other players were moved means what? Gio wasn't moved. You don't think Lou tried?

Edited by Beezer34, 05 May 2008 - 02:05 PM.

[Devils Pride 26]

Dude, Fedotenko is terrible on the Islanders. Viktor Kozlov was pretty bad with us if I remember. Now he puts up 50+ points per season.

I could put up 50 points with AO on my line.

[Sarge18]

Foote made it very clear that if the Jackets were not going to resign him for his demands he was only going to Colorado for the 2001 reunion tour.

Neither Robert i cant find a job on a playoff team anymoreLang, Keith the playoff choker Tkachuk, nor Ruslan i won a cup in 2004 Fedotenko were going to come onto this team and be offensive saviors.

Lang was jetisoned from the wings as one of the main causes of their playoff failures the past few years. He is old and benefited from a lot of icetime on a crappy chicago team, and even the Hawks fans bitched about how lazy he is. Not to mention he is on the hook for 4 million in cap hit next year, taking away flexability when he tanks.

Tkachuk has a history as a playoff no show, and that isnt going to change at age 35. The guy has not won anything that matters ever. Is this the guy that is going to lead the offense on a team that struggled to score all year long? He is also on the books for a 4 million cap hit next year, creating the same problem as Lang, an older semi productive player taking up a lot of cap space.

Fedotenko has been at best a secondary scorer his entire career. Where does he fit into this team, who does he possibly knock out of the top 6? He certainly wont play on the checking line. So at this point we are trading for a 4th liner and possibly powerplay guy who has scored over 20 goals once in his career. Now i know he had an amazing playoffs in 03-04 for Tampa, but his level of play has never even come close to that since, and an offensively challenged team that doesnt have names like Richards, Lecavlier and St Louis is going to bring it back out of him? His stat this year for the Isles are due to the lack of depth on that NYI team, they had no where else to go and had to give him playing time, he still only scored 16 goals with it and was marginalized by a bunch of 1st and 2nd year players down the stretch.

[SC Devs Fan]

Bravo in resurrecting this topic again, I miss it.

My thoughts exactly!

[Beezer34]

Foote made it very clear that if the Jackets were not going to resign him for his demands he was only going to Colorado for the 2001 reunion tour.

Neither Robert i cant find a job on a playoff team anymoreLang, Keith the playoff choker Tkachuk, nor Ruslan i won a cup in 2004 Fedotenko were going to come onto this team and be offensive saviors.

Lang was jetisoned from the wings as one of the main causes of their playoff failures the past few years. He is old and benefited from a lot of icetime on a crappy chicago team, and even the Hawks fans bitched about how lazy he is. Not to mention he is on the hook for 4 million in cap hit next year, taking away flexability when he tanks.

Tkachuk has a history as a playoff no show, and that isnt going to change at age 35. The guy has not won anything that matters ever. Is this the guy that is going to lead the offense on a team that struggled to score all year long? He is also on the books for a 4 million cap hit next year, creating the same problem as Lang, an older semi productive player taking up a lot of cap space.

Fedotenko has been at best a secondary scorer his entire career. Where does he fit into this team, who does he possibly knock out of the top 6? He certainly wont play on the checking line. So at this point we are trading for a 4th liner and possibly powerplay guy who has scored over 20 goals once in his career. Now i know he had an amazing playoffs in 03-04 for Tampa, but his level of play has never even come close to that since, and an offensively challenged team that doesnt have names like Richards, Lecavlier and St Louis is going to bring it back out of him? His stat this year for the Isles are due to the lack of depth on that NYI team, they had no where else to go and had to give him playing time, he still only scored 16 goals with it and was marginalized by a bunch of 1st and 2nd year players down the stretch.

...thank you for that scouting report. I don't have to go on TSN now.

[Sarge18]

I dont think the case is that Lou did not try to find offensive help for the team. He ran into a situation where first, the playoff races were incredibly tight and there were less sellers looking to dump guys; second, there were not many up coming UFA's that teams were looking to move; and third players still with rfa years that are productive command an serious premium, one that this team did not have the assets to afford. Especially when you consider where this team is in the building phase at the moment. Now i know the east was wide open this year, but this was not a team that was 1 or 2 players away from making a serious run. As we saw against the Rangers, the defense is seriously flawed, and then we have the offensive personel that need to be upgraded as well. They needed to take a step back and not do anything risky for this year, where the chances of success were not good. Save what assets we do have, have a solid draft, probably a trade in the offseason and keep looking towards the future. Many changers were made to this team last offseason to start a transofrmation, and i do not think we have seen the last of them.

Lou is under great pressure to make another run before marty retires, and has to work quickly, but in the world of team building there are things that cannot be rushed. Lou turned that 96 non playoff team into a cup winner 4 years later by rebuilding the foward corps. He turned that train wreck 02 team into a cup winner a year later with some shrewd trades. He probably faces his biggest team building challenge since when he first took over right now, but in my opinion this year he has taken the first steps that are necessary to move the team closer to contention in the next couple of years.

[El Diablo]

This team was built on smoke and mirrors and the snake oil salesman was in town for most of the season....

We were on top of the division just about the whole year ... no moral victories pleeeze ....

(Crash - - I like the first line for a tag line please)

[Beezer34]

This team is in the building phase at the moment.

A 99 point 4th place building phase I guess.

[Sarge18]

A 99 point 4th place building phase I guess.

I think building would imply that the team is not complete, and by your posting history i think you would agree that the team needs help. The defense is a group of journeymen, is that the core to take this team to the promise land of the stanley cup? That record has more to do with the relative weakness of the east then it does with the overall quality of the team.

Edited by Sarge18, 05 May 2008 - 04:12 PM.

[SueNJ97]

A 99 point 4th place building phase I guess.

It's very possible to have a team that can get a decent number of points in the regular season that never makes it out of the first round. They had a tough year against certain playoff teams (Habs, Rangers, sometimes the Pens although they tended to win more games against the Pens and then get their doors blown off in others). But, they did well against others, like the Flyers (could almost always get well against them) and, the Bruins. However, the team was pretty inconsistent. But I think it's fair to say that from the game against the Habs where they blew the two-goal lead in the third it was hard to tell exactly what team was going to show up on the ice, from game-to game and from period to period and that's the sign of a team that isn't whole yet, either offensively or defensively. And one that isn't going to go far in the playoffs.

I'm not surprised by what happened. I'm just surprised so many people expected more. I expected pretty much what happened, though, when he didn't upgrade the offense I said at the time that the team had been getting by on one of Marty's 'years' and people were probably thinking that if Lou had done something, anything for the offense, maybe Marty would have one of those playoff runs. However, the team just isn't there. I want you to think back to the Rangers in 1997, when they beat NJ in the second round and went to the ECF, losing to the Flyers in 5. Management thought the Rangers were one round away from the Finals, and even though they let Messier go, they brought in free agents, re-tooled around Gretzky, sure that that run wasn't a mirage, it was a sign that they were going places, had a real shot at the Cup Finals. Sometimes, deep runs are just a mirage. I believe that's all one would have this year for NJ, if it had happened.

[NJDevs4978]

I said it back then and I'll say it now: Lou and Sutter are/were delusional if they expected us to believe that this team as it was built had any chance of getting past the first round, much less going all the way.

The only delusional people are the ones that think Hossa alone would have made the difference between losing a five-game series in the first round and winning the Cup. Or the ones that think because we didn't get Hossa or Campbell - and really those are the only two players traded that would have made any appreciable difference - automatically means we didn't try to or that Lou was content with the team as is.

Besides, anyone honestly think Hossa would have the same impact for us as he did the Penguins? Lou would have been infinitely more delusional shooting the wad for Hossa without any centers capable of getting him the puck

[CMONPETEYD]

I think the problem here is that we didn't have the key players/picks available to land a top talent.

We need to fix our minor league team/drafting in order to make deals with the big boys.

[Devil Dan 56]

A 99 point 4th place building phase I guess.

You don't need to finish dead last to be in a building phase.

[Beezer34]

You don't need to finish dead last to be in a building phase.

As long as Martin Brodeur continues to play, the Devils will not be in a building phase. -period. You want to talk about the direction of where the organization will go post Marty, fine. But this team was successful this year, there's no way around it. No, we may not "have finished dead last", but it's comical to say we were in a building phase. The Devils were one of the better teams in the NHL, let alone the East. Only 5 teams in the league had more points. What kind of message does that send to management? Or was the only reason why we finished so well because of a weak league too?

The fact that nothing was done to address our needs in order to assist us in our cup run remains. You can't play both sides of the coin. If we were really THAT bad a team, we wouldn't have finished as well as we did. And if the "only reason why we did so well" is due to a weak conference, well that's even more of a reason to make a move.

Edited by Beezer34, 05 May 2008 - 08:01 PM.

[RowdyFan42]

As long as Martin Brodeur continues to play, the Devils will not be in a building phase. -period.

[...]

The fact that nothing was done to address our needs in order to assist us in our cup run remains.

Contradiction. If we needed to make changes in order to have a successful Cup run, that means this year's team wasn't built properly, therefore they will need to be in some sort of building phase if they intend to do better next year.

Now, if you meant to say REbuilding, in which everything is torn down and the organization rebuilds from the ground up (hence the name), then I would agree that the Devils won't even think about rebuilding until Brodeur hangs 'em up. However, every team that is trying to do better than they did the year before is building in some fashion.

[Triumph]

As long as Martin Brodeur continues to play, the Devils will not be in a building phase. -period. You want to talk about the direction of where the organization will go post Marty, fine. But this team was successful this year, there's no way around it. No, we may not "have finished dead last", but it's comical to say we were in a building phase. The Devils were one of the better teams in the NHL, let alone the East. Only 5 teams in the league had more points. What kind of message does that send to management? Or was the only reason why we finished so well because of a weak league too?

The Devils were in a building phase. The only reasons they made the playoffs at all were the emergence of Johnny Oduya and Paul Martin, the surprising competence of Mike Mottau, and playing Martin Brodeur every single night. When a team loses two players as skilled as Gomez and Rafalski, and largely does not replace them, there's going to be some growing pains.

The fact that nothing was done to address our needs in order to assist us in our cup run remains. You can't play both sides of the coin. If we were really THAT bad a team, we wouldn't have finished as well as we did. And if the "only reason why we did so well" is due to a weak conference, well that's even more of a reason to make a move.

Sure you can. You can say New Jersey finished as well as they did largely due to the shootout, overtime, luck, and the aforementioned - otherwise they're a marginal playoff team, and require no upgrades. As it stands the team has two holes, not one - and the prospect depth just isn't there.

[Devils Pride 26]

As long as Martin Brodeur continues to play, the Devils will not be in a building phase. -period. You want to talk about the direction of where the organization will go post Marty, fine. But this team was successful this year, there's no way around it. No, we may not "have finished dead last", but it's comical to say we were in a building phase. The Devils were one of the better teams in the NHL, let alone the East. Only 5 teams in the league had more points. What kind of message does that send to management? Or was the only reason why we finished so well because of a weak league too?

The fact that nothing was done to address our needs in order to assist us in our cup run remains. You can't play both sides of the coin. If we were really THAT bad a team, we wouldn't have finished as well as we did. And if the "only reason why we did so well" is due to a weak conference, well that's even more of a reason to make a move.

When you lose your number 1 center AND number 1 defensemen, you have to build. The writing was on the wall this year. We were not going to win the cup on talent. If anything, I am happy that we finished 4th during this season for a number of reasons. Sutter's first year in NHL without handpicked players. Having AHLer's Mike Mottau, Sheldon Brookbank, and Andy Greene(not fair to blame them, its not their fault; they were in over their heads) in the lineup on a nightly basis.

Some of the things from this building year are going to be great for us next year. Paul Martin becoming a #1 defensemen. Johnny Oduya's great second half of the season. White adjusting to his impaired vision. Zach Parise continuing his development. Madden becoming a scoring threat we wished he would've. Zajac had a tough year, but I still think he can become a legit 2nd line center. To a lot of the team, this was a great year of experience.

Add a decent UFA or 2 if possible, hope Vrana and Bergfors make the team, and I think this team definitely could challenge for the cup next year.