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The only reason I could think of for keeping Nas is so that all of our young guys will maintain SOME level of continuity/familiarity within the organization. Think of poor Hughes: his supposed mentor (Hall) is gone; his ‘parent and roommate’ (Schneider) spent half the year in the AHL and who knows where he’ll be going forward; His first head coach (Hynes) is gone; his second head coach (Nas) could’ve been gone if we let him go; all his assistant coaches are gone; his first linemate (Simmonds) is gone. His GM who brought and nurtured him into the org (Shero) is gone. I would’ve preferred if Nas wasn’t brought back but with all the young kids on the roster maybe it’s a continuity thing?

I really wanted it to end last night. I just want this season to be over

Broadway brah. Hustle and bustle brah.

Bright lights brah!

Doc just said Coleman is leading TB in hits for the playoffs with over 100. Not surprised.

I'm pretty sure you're right. They have to clear space for their annual purchase of the most expensive free agent on the market.

Yeah I’m willing to be openminded, but I don’t get Nas still being here at all.

His captain is also gone. My question becomes, with all of those changes, does keeping Nas make THAT much of a difference, especially if as suspected the bulk of his responsibilities before becoming interim were defense/PK?

Yikes

Oh no argument here...I wasn’t agreeing with that part of SD’s statement. One thing that Lou did very well in building the team was turn the pieces he inherited into other pieces that wound up figuring heavily into championships. There’s GMs who definitely find ways to screw up what they’ve been given to work with.

He might not have had to build a team from scratch, but I don't think it's fair to say he's only an amazing GM when he has something to build and patch around. He was instrumental in bringing in all but one of the numbers in the rafters and they were clearly the central pieces that were built around.

You’re missing my point. If they are waiting for the Euro guy and Ruff is only a placeholder, why wouldn’t they have just used Nas as said placeholder?

I don't know but he may also fall off the face of earth suddenly like many other good goalies, that's just my point. I just used him as an example cause he was fitting in the time frame i was using. Anyone would pick him right now vs Schneider. But when he was drafted Schneider was in his prime. Many top goalies playing in front of the same team suddenly started sucking, we've seen it so often. Some came back, some didn't. That's why Marty has always been impressive. He may not have been the best goalie every season, but you knew what you were getting with him.

Can you read? I said Lou made a terrific coaching hire in Trotz and made some other good moves as the Islander GM. I also wondered aloud how many times he would have won the award as the Devils GM (had it been in existence), because I’m sure it would have been multiple times. Much of Lou’s run here was excellent, but it can’t be disputed that it did run its course...and as I pointed out, he had the third-longest tenure as a GM in the history of the NHL. Even if things ended badly (and they did), it was still one hell of an era overall, and I’ve never said otherwise. I have no idea what your issue is with what I posted. I’m not a Lou apologist. Basically it seems like anyone who doesn’t fully agree with you about Lou or isn’t willing to take a lot of digs at him gets put into that box. You know how I feel about his MO...yes, I do think it can work (even though it’s not always easy to embrace) but it requires nailing draft picks, finding hidden talent, and having some key players who fully buy into what you’re doing. It also means eventually realizing that when your top core players are aging and fading (as Elias and Brodeur were), you absolutely have to blow things up. None of these things happened at the end, and yes, it got very ugly here, and if I was a true “apologist”, I’d be saying things like Lou should’ve never been allowed to leave, or look at how he’s getting the last laugh now. Except I don’t feel that way one bit. It was 100% time for the Devils to go in a different direction, and though Ray never got to see his plan fully through, he at least was creative enough to find ways to bring building blocks into the mix, when he had damned near nothing initially. And it’s not uncommon for a good GM like Lou to get a second (or even third) shot with a new franchise, and enjoy some success. Good for him, but it was never going to happen here...I think the time for a potential recovery/rebuild to be overseen by Lou had come and gone, and like I’ve said many many times, for all of the good things he did for the Devils, the last several years are very difficult to defend...VBK’s situation didn’t help, but at the same time, the new ownership was clearly willing to let Lou do his thing, to what turned out to be to a destructive degree. If Lou had said “We need to take a couple of steps back here and undertake a true rebuild”, I doubt he would’ve dealt with any internal resistance...so it’s not like he was under pressure from Harris and Blitzer to “win now, or else” (if that were the case, then the litany of bad “Band Aid” moves he made would be a little easier to defend...though not much). Sadly I’m starting to wonder if the current owners are starting to feel like they need to be more “hands on” now (I hope not).

Blackwood has toooo maaaanyyyyy chances for vezina than Askarov because he showed good results in bad team in two seasons. Askarov spent 3-4? professional games. im ok with drafting him, just not by 7th pick. if our Duo was Corey and Kinkaid , then Askarov should have been drafted. There are ton of Russian talented goalies in later rounds.

Perry scores in OT2 and forces game 6. Glad we’re getting more hockey.

Hell of a game.

Love it. Pickles bringing the pain.

Well, hopefully he’ll just be responsible for filling up the Gatorade bottles, but I think it’s a safe assumption that he’ll be coaching the defense and PK.

I’m sure they’ll be throwing their hats in the Pietrangelo ring....

I reallllllllly think we need to lower our expectations with blackwood lol We've seen wayyyyyyyyyy too many goalies been good 1-2 years then fall off the face of earth edit: also honestly what did i held back on my other post? lol

That makes two of us.

I think I’m still in a state of disbelief that at some point during this offseason, someone literally sat down, looked at our past few years under the guidance of the clueless clown and said, “yeah, I definitely like where our defense is heading.”

The Brewers made the eighth seed at 29-31 without being above .500 all season. The fact the Mets couldn't even manage that would be hilarious if it wasn't so annoying.