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I'm trying to convince myself that Dineen has pretty much been tabbed internally to take over next year, and that Fitz doesn't see any point in canning anyone with less than half the season left (especially if it leads to another nASS interim gig). Every day that nASS is here is another day that I wonder how the fvck he managed to stick around here as long as he has, but I guess if I know he's gone come the offseason, I'll just suck it up for now.

I’m sorry, that isn’t my job- it’s Tom Fitzgerald’s. So I don’t really give a sh!t. He lacks balls, and it also appears, creativity.

All of those teams have had better records than us over the past 10 years. They can afford to stand pat a little bit. We have been standing pat during the season since pretty much the 17-18 season. Plus Vancouver changed coaches and have done much better since then. Flyers also changed their coach which didn't end their losing, but at least their GM did something to show he is alive. No, I will not go through this exercise. You know it's a nonsense and trivial pursuit for me to engagement in since some trades are fair, some are not. If all trades were fair, you wouldn't have the Larsson for Hall, Gomez for McD, and Brassard for Zibanejad trades. I also fully expect no matter what proposal I put forth you will find some issue with it and tell me I am wrong. What I do know is that outside of selling players on expiring contracts and picking up other team's castoffs/waivers we have not done anything in-season to make the team better in about 5 years. Other teams have been able to do that and often they are in better position than us. If Fitz is saying that he believes the "answer is in that room" then he should be willing to live or die by these players then. If they are going to be a bottom 5 team in the league, yet again, then he shouldn't be an NHL GM.

lol of FFS you know that is a loaded question. I don't know who and what is available out there. It's not my job; it's Fitz's. All I know is that other GM's in the league are doing more than just sitting on their hands when the ship starts sinking.

Exactly. He WANTED it and then proceeded to do diddly squat to actually DO it. When a GM lays down that kind of expectation and the team woefully misses it, there should be some sort of adjustment other than a shoulder shrug and a Severson-style oh well gee shucks we tried. Since 2018 the team has regressed on the ice.

Not the point. The point is he said it, and then punted the season before Christmas. So I’m sorry, that’s not acceptable.

Yeah, sadly. I am getting really tired of our GM's being alright with punting seasons away by Christmas, but that is now the signature Devils move every season.

This is straight trolling. That was only a ‘move’ in the literal sense of the word. So get the fvck outta here with this.

oh sh!t you're right. I'll correct this. I certainly dont want to give him any credits he doesnt deserve. Probably why i was under the impression too

You’re right. It’s really insane. Even if you want to keep Ruff on, fine. I see no point to hold on to Nas for a second longer. They should have let Ruff pick his own assistants

Holtz continues to score even in a 6-2 loss.17th goal this season through 28 games.

Do I expect Fitz to perform a miracle or sell the future to try and pretty up a sh!t sandwich? Absolutely/obviously not and I would be mad if he did the latter. However, I believe the Stars waived Khudobin right around when Mac was having issues(not 100% on the timeline). Despite that he is not an ideal option, and hasn't done well this season in the games he did play-- I am not sure why they chose to instead go with Gillies, a career non-NHL caliber player, and a young inexperienced Nico Daws over a guy that they could have gotten for "free" and at least has some NHL experience. They aren't stupid. They had to have known this was the likely outcome. They wrote the season off. EDIT: To be clear, I am more mad they wrote the season off and paid us more lip service than I am being unwilling to understand/accept that we got handed some sh!t luck.

I’d be fine with the “well he’s trying but nothing is happening” thing if this wasn’t year 8 of this endless rebuild. He wanted to have meaningful games and we aren’t and nothing changed. No move, no coach change. Not even a minor trade to shake up the room and say “this isn’t acceptable”. Sometimes you have to change course and Fitz has proven to be unwilling to do that.

If this ‘well, we will never know’ response to any opinion became the norm then we wouldn’t have a messageboard. We know at best that he’s possibly ‘trying’ to get a deal done. But here’s the thing: trying and failing = failing…even if another GM doesn’t want to partner with him on a deal. You don’t get points for years of trying and failing, sorry. Not in this business. Results matter. And that’s assuming he’s even trying at all. It seems like he’s fine with punting the season. Doubt he’s trying.

Yeah that's really not so bad. If we are gonna start getting rid of guys who do that...

I would trade for Boeser. We should even give them an extra asset or draft pick as a show of good faith for when they give us Quinn Hughes later lol.

From Frank Seravalli.

Hall for Larsson. That’s literally it.

Fitz really moving on that Zacha trade that’ll never happen either. Can’t wait to re-sign that sloth to a two year tweener deal this summer. Answers brah. Room brah.

This. Shero/Fitz seem to be good at being sellers and doing these low-risk, high-reward trades. However, I have not seen any sort of trade that takes guts to make the team better in the 7 years they have been in charge.

I just can't believe how willing this organization, from the GM on up, are so quick to fold like a cheap suit once trouble starts brewing. Instead, we are always told of better days ahead that never seem to come. This is why I openly speculate about the true intentions of the owners and the entire organization.

Perfect. That should make an overpayment for Zacha a given.

He WANTED to play meaningful games in March and did little to nothing when that possibility started getting in jeopardy. I am not upset at Fitz that things went awry (and did so pretty quickly), but that he sat on his hands instead. I know this flies in the face of your "everyone but Lou is a better GM!" schtick you have put on for years, but there is a possibility that Fitz just might not be as good (or as crafty) as we think he is.

I did, and responded...you had one major error...the Devils ranked dead last in the NHL last season on the PK...barely finished above 70%. But your post was otherwise accurate, in that the PK under nASS has been Top 10 in a number of seasons. The 5-on-5 D play is just brutal though, and not showing any signs of improving. That's why I'm still done with nASS, even if the PK has largely been better than we think under him. Speaking of the PK, hard to believe (especially since the Devils are still hemorrhaging goals most nights), but the Devils have killed 91.3% of their PK attempts since 12/18 (42-for-46), and 88% since 11/9 (88%, 81-for-92). Of course, going 12-25-3 since 11/9 has a way of completely burying that.

I’m trying to convince myself the only reason Kevin Dineen isn’t already with the big club is due to the Comets having a good shot a Cup run. Maybe Fitz doesn’t want to screw them over just to bring Dineen up during a lost season.

Alternately, the decision had been made that this season was fvcked and we went into tank mode.

Get that deal done!

Isn't the whole thing weird? Nasreddine was brought in with Hynes in 2015. Never had success. So what are they seeing like... how could he possibly still have a job? ================ ok. ugh. I hate hypocrisy so I have to admit how this post went... i typed all this up there and that's what i was convinced of and believed 200%. Then i went to find at the actual stats to support my point/narrative, and by wanting to be fair and add context i was even going to bring up "and sure, he didn't have a good roster to play with but still, he never showed his system worked" or something along those lines. I fully expected us to be near the bottom of the league every year. So..... the stats for our PK through his tenure... 2015-2016 - 8th 2016-2017 - 23rd 2017-2018 - 8th 2018-2019 - 4th 2019-2020 - 7th 2020-2021 - 31st 2021-2022 - 8th (so far) I'm kind of numb typing this... but it's actually... good... really good.... considering what he had to work with... so.... Still... i still want him gone cause what im seeing with my own eyes and how our guys are positioning themselves 5 on 5 and everything else tells me he has to go. I'm not gonna look up any stats on that though cause... i can't hit a wall like this twice today

That’s 49.7 goals per 82 games if I did the math right. It would be amazing to see production like that transfer to the NHL one day.

To be clear, I was referring to the goalie situation specifically. I absolutely think he could’ve canned the coaching staff. I would’ve been on board with some tweaks elsewhere too.

Looks like Utica is doing a throwback night. “More surprises to come” would suggest a throwback jersey when you check out that bobble head

Exactly, meanwhile they’ve been asked to sell tickets to essentially stand in line and get kicked in the balls.

Good thing it's not a results oriented business or tons of folks would be f*cked out of their jobs, coaches, front office, players etc. But instead the bottom feeder complacency is acceptable and can carry on. Actually some minimum wage ticket reps will probably get sh!tcanned because they didn't meet their sales targets.

And you are speculating as much as me. Typically there are whispers from the usual insiders. However I didn't hear anything about the Devils at all this season so I am assuming he didn't really make much of an attempt. Plus his quote of saying that "the answer is in that room" also makes me believe that a serious attempt was likely not made. Sometimes as a GM you have to be bold. Lou traded Arnott, the center of the best line in Devils history who scored the cup-winning goal less than 2 years prior along with a long-time vet in McKay for Nieuwendyk and Langs during the season. He traded Burke and Weinrich for Holik. He traded our best point-producing D-man in Kurvers for Toronto's first rounder, Rolston for Claude Lemieux round 2, etc. You can bash Lou all you want (yet again) but at least he had some cajones and took risks. Shero and Fitz seem perfectly fine trading away parts and picks for other team's most expendable players.

If Fitz pulled that off, I wouldn’t care if he disappeared for another three years after.

He could have been a little more aggressive/creative than to take another 3rd/4th string goalie from another team for "future considerations." I would consider that to be the absolute bare minimum which to me lacks creativity. He could have changed one or more of the coaching staff. Instead he tells us "the answer is in that room" while we have yet again a terrible PP and a defensive scheme that isn't working. If other teams are allowed to make bolder trades or replace coaches during the season Fitz can too. He didn't and it looked like we were already punting away this season by Christmas.

If we can trade Severson, Zacha, and Subban this season won’t be a total loss.