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Bad drafting was a discussion in another thread, but this seems like the place to put this. The Athletic has a pretty good write up on teams drafting success over the last 16 years. Devil's are 2nd to last....https://theathletic.com/875265/2019/03/20/analyzing-16-years-of-nhl-draft-data-to-see-which-teams-have-done-it-the-best-and-worst/ Link is behind the paywall but here is the main chart listing drafted points. Now my problem with this is that it discounts defenders and doesn't include goalies at all since it is based on pts. The goalie thing I have less of a problem with because it seems like goalies come from everywhere (high to low in the draft, FA, college) more than other positions.
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Zacha back tonight. No Palms though, of course. Injury wack-a-mole.
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There's been some smoke around him coming over to North America for us next year, I'm excited to see what he can do over here. His KHL numbers aren't overwhelming, but he's got a lot of tools, think he can turn into a solid NHLer.
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Boucher should basically be the poster boy for why skating should be one of the biggest factors when you're drafting. Boucher could always shoot and obviously had good offensive instincts, but his speed and skating wasn't good enough to adjust to the pace of the NHL and his strength on the puck wasn't enough to make up for it. Take the Gaudreau vs Boucher example Sterio just posted, you have two undersized players: one with high-end shooting ability but weak feet, and another with high-end skill with excellent skating ability, it shouldn't be a surprise that the guy that could skate is the one that found success in the NHL while the other topped out as a top line AHLer. That's also one of the reasons why Castron's drafts have been so much better so far, we're drafting guys that can skate.
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Conte was so hopelessly out of touch from the mid-2000s until he was finally let go in 2015, I'll never forget yelling at my screen in a fit of rage in 2014 when they were passing on Brayden Point to take guys like Jacobs and Connor mother fvcking Chatham. Their drafting has gotten much better under Castron and Shero, 2017 seems like it could be a major success and a lot of the players we drafted that year have me excited (Nico obv, Boqvist, Walsh, Talvitie, Zetterlund, Studenic, Popugaev is still interesting), and 2016 seems to have some major late round hits (Bratt, Davies, Maltsev, Anderson, Gignac). I'm hopeful for our future with the drafts we've had, but Conte really set this team back a long way with inexcusable drafting record he had for about a decade.
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lol yeah its just too bad he turned down Tavares who wanted to sign with us so bad. I wonder what he was thinking Its amazing how many fans seems to think its so damn simple to "improve" a team in the off season. There's 30+ teams free agents can sign with and we have no assets. What is he supposed to do?
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i want this so badly; there are some olympic games you can find on yt to hear/see what its like but still not the same.
- Yesterday
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Nice Mikhail Maltsev goal
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Smith killin it.
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take it from a buddy of mine and my brother who is a diehard Devils fan and is a national PBP broadcaster for many major sports including the NFL - he's never called a hockey game in his life and has said it is by far the hardest to call. keep in mind though - they're not asking dano to do PBP - he's the color guy (like chico before him). sure he steps on his words all the time but he's trying to explain the game in the simplest ways to the most people. sal is great but has an even harder time stuttering through what he wants to say. with that said, his breakdowns and observations are light years ahead of daneyko's and that might not play as well during the game when you don't have as much time to break down what's going on during the play or quick stoppages. where ken and steve do work though is that they usually don't step on eachothers' words and have a good chemistry working together. we were spoiled for decades with doc who has no equal as a PBP guy that could also bring out the appropriate color from his partner (chico for many years who also seemed like he was watching another game) by pretty much telling him what to say.
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No doubt in my mind it's the toughest game to call without question. Great point.
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I don't think being asked to do national TV is anything to be used for how good someone is either. Look how many people complained about last night's national TV game broadcasters in this thread alone. Pierre Maguire and Mike Millbury are hated by the vast majority of people yet both are on national TV every week. I don't care about football or baseball but everyone seems to hate Joe Buck too. Hell if I had it my way there would be an option just to hear the sound from the arena and that's how I would watch.
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Not really sure it's a matter of it being a low bar as much is it truly might be a testament to how hard of a game hockey is to call. I hear time and time again how regular people attempt to call games for whatever reason, even seasoned PBP guys who have decades of experience calling other sports, and they are totally lost and/or have a hard time adjusting and assimilating to hockey. For everyone here who hates Dano, I don't think you're alone - all you have to do is look around the league and you see fans of other teams who hate their guys, or hate guys from other teams. Personal preference aside, looking at pure broadcast and on-air skills, I think the game of hockey makes it challenging to fit into that role, and lots of guys have a hard time with it.
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When it comes to Dano justifying him by saying there's worse around the league is about as low of a bar as possible. As much as I hate the rags Joe is light years better than Dano. Dano will never sniff working a national game imo. As much as Sal might not be a grand slam he's a definite upgrade. There are better than Dano spread throughout the league using the same oversimplified thought process. When it comes to tuning out your home team broadcast at times because you want to poke your own ear drums out it's probably not a good thing. He's an ideal shake hands and yuck it up with the fans kinda of guy on game nights.
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while im glad we picked someone that came close to do something with Boucher.... with hindsight 20/20 im still wondering why you pick him over Gaudreau if you're going to swing for the fences like that... They were playing the same league during their draft year... Boucher had 20 pts in 24 gp... 5'10... Gaudreau had 72 pts in 60 gp... 5'9 and his team won the championship with him being the top player i know Gaudreau is really small and skills which is the opposite of what Conte was looking for but damn...
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NJD67, not sure if you were watching at the beginning of the season, but he was clearly trying to hold most of his players accountable when his team was still relevant (for some reason Greene has earned permanent "untouchable" status). With the team he has now, it doesn't make sense to hold them to the same standard as the true "varsity" squad. This is a team playing out the string of a highly disappointing season...to the kids' credit who are currently being asked to do far more than Plan A ever could have called for, they're trying their best...I've seen my share of well-paid veteran-laden also-rans in all sports just say screw it, and clearly mail it in waiting for it all to be over. As ugly as it is with this group, at least they're not doing that. You can't just make a blanket statement like "Usually coached get fired when they lose as many." It doesn't always work that way. Hynes' first Devils teams clearly weren't designed to win much...last season, he took a team that had talent but had a lot of youth to the playoffs...yes, Hall having his MVP rampage and KK doing a solid imitation of a #1 goalie for a significant stretch at a crucial time definitely helped a lot, but at the very least, Hynes didn't get in the way of his team's success. His players seem to like him an awful lot too, for whatever that's worth. Shero clearly has a high opinion of him as well...enough to extend him just enough to keep him out of lame-duck status, anyway. You'll hear some occasional bitching about Shero not doing enough to improve the team (one such post in this thread already exists), but the fact is there was enough currently in the system that Shero wanted to take this season to see if some of the youth could build off what they did last season (mixed results for sure), and see how the depth/Plan B guys might perform if called upon, should guys on the big club get hurt...there was also reason to hope a guy like Johansson could turn in a full season closer to his 2016-17 campaign. I also think that Shero wasn't exactly enamoured with the majority of the UFA class, outside of the ones that never were never coming here to begin with. Shero's seen enough in this evaulation season to know that improvements will have to come from outside the organization, and he's set himself up very well in that regard...he has accumulated both picks and cap space. Back to Hynes, when Shero has assembled a team that he feels is truly ready to contend (that's still very much in progress), I think that's when Hynes' seat will get warm, if the team is simply not living up to expectations. Shero probably feels like Hynes hasn't had a full team to truly work with yet.
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I'll say it again, the only free agent theoretically available that would have helped the team was Tavares and that wasn't happening. I believe the reports that he tried to trade for Karlsson out right and that he was looking to pry something valuable from Tampa in order to take Callahan's contract. So he's not in Sandy Alderson territory, at least not yet. This offseason will be different. You have what looks to be some really good free agents and other teams that need to trade good players for cap reason. If it's more of the same "build through the draft" and make "value" moves, the Devils will be at the bottom of the league again next year, and I can't imagine he makes it.
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The extension doesn't really matter. They can still fire him at any time and the only consequence is that they have to pay him until he gets another job. The money at stake is basically what a league minimum player gets.
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The injuries are not his fault. Neither is Ray Shero sabotaging the season by not improving the team in any way shape or form in the offseason
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Usually coaches get fired when they lose as many.He got an extension.Seems strange.But then again I don't think it is his fault.These players are no where good enough and what about next season.The fans deserve better.
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He rips players at times and is supportive at others. At this stage of the season, it doesn’t really matter all that much.
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I cannot understand why John says 'he did well' to all of them when the team lost 4-1
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Boucher was a 4th-rounder too...some people just got way too excited when he was putting up some decent numbers in the AHL to start off his pro career (did have a nice year in the OHL too). In his stints with the Devils, he never showed enough to really hope for much. As of now, he's a productive AHLer, but won't ever be more.
