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Well. I guess it’s time to … *puts on sunglasses* … get kraken.

I have not been so hyped about a Devils team in ten years. Really trying to keep realistic expectations, but there is so much to love about the way this team is looking. I think there's almost no chance that Dawson Mercer starts the season anywhere but NJ. He has looked better than most of his peers at every level, and preseason games against NHL players have been no exception. If the Devils are fortunate enough to win a Cup in the next 10 years, Dawson Mercer is the guy to win the Conn Smythe. Holtz has exceeded expectations too. His hockey IQ has been on full display in these preseason games. I think he needs to get a bit faster and stronger, and he'll be the perfect winger for Hughes. Looking like it will turn out to be an excellent 2020 draft. Hamilton looks as good as advertised. He's the top defenseman that this team has been lacking for over a decade. And I really like how he seems so connected with the team already, and particularly the young players. He is on board for this team's journey, and he'll be a great leader/locker room guy. Similarly, I think Ryan Graves will find his role as a highly effective shutdown defenseman. It'll turn out to be a good trade for the Devils. There are a handful of prospects who, not too long ago, each would have looked like our top prospect fighting for a spot. All of Foote, Clarke, Thompson, and Okhotiuk have made strong cases for themselves and will be hard to cut from the team. Thompson, especially, showed what kind of NHL future he has ahead of him. Honestly, a line of Foote-Thompson-Holtz in the AHL for a year wouldn't be the worst thing. Bernier's excellent performance against the Rangers shows he could be a 1B. Sharagovich and McLeod look like they have each taken a big step forward. Outside the NHL, I'm only hearing/seeing great things about Luke Hughes and Mukhamadullin. The future of this team is in really great shape. And probably most importantly, Jack Hughes is looking like an absolute superstar out there. I get that it is preseason, but he often looks a cut above literally everyone else on the ice. He made an impact on nearly every play. With all the talent above (and players like Tatar, Bratt, Hischier, Zacha, Smith, and Kuokkanen who we can expect to contribute offensively), he's finally in a spot where he can truly flourish. I think we'll see the Jack Hughes we were expecting when he was drafted. The only things that haven't been so positive are Blackwood's situation and Johnsson still looking like the same old Johnsson to me. Hopefully Zacha moves back to the LW too. When I think about what made the Devils a bad team last season, several things come to mind. One is there was no hope for a win when Blackwood was out. This will no longer be an issue (unless Blackwood's situation goes south) now that Bernier is in the mix. Another reason was how badly the team was hit by COVID-19. Dallas was another team that got hit badly - a team that made the Stanley Cup finals the year prior, but then couldn't even beat out the Preds for a playoff spot the following year. This will not be an issue this time around. The team was young and inexperienced last season, depending heavily on these same young players for production. With everyone being a year older, and bringing in veterans with a good track record, I don't think inexperience will be a weakness for the upcoming season. The team's defense was another big problem last season. Kulikov was one of the best defensemen we had. With the addition of Graves and Hamilton (basically a top pair itself), there's really only one wildcard (Siegenthaler), who already looks like he's better than last season. The rest of the defense is looking pretty solid. Lastly, our team captain and arguably top offensive contributor spent so much time out of the lineup. A healthy Nico will make a big difference. With all of these problems addressed this offseason, I don't think being a playoffs bubble team is that far out of the question. LGD!

Me watching that goal again this morning In other Hughes news, Luke scored his first college goal last night

It’s just nice to finally see conclusive proof that Jack Hughes holds our offense back.

i get email alerts when someone mentions me in NJDevs and this popped up on my phone and I had no answer for an inquisitive and very pregnant wife.

Great to be back!

And another fun fact - that's was the first ever Devils game that my dad and I attended in person.

Gotta own it

Brian Boyle has scored for the Penguins tonight. Nice story, glad he is back in the league.

Whatever Subban’s intentions, I don’t really give a fvck. What I do give a fvck about is that he proceeded to take up residence in the Rags’ heads all night after that. It’s hilarious how those pussies are so desperate to flex their popcorn muscles post-Wilson skullfvcking their entire organization into unemployment/early retirement.

I'm not gonna comment on anyone's looks since I look like I got punched in the face with a Buick, but I do wish little things like game rosters weren't treated like government secrets. As mentioned before, Gulliti twice this preseason had that info hours before we heard anything.

Live screenshot of the gam

We've gone from arguing about the vaccine to arguing about the act of arguing about the vaccine and I think that shows real positive growth.

Shaq playin second pair minutes overall, sometimes he lead Salavat in TOI. Salavat are league leaders. He has a lot of responsibilities for 19 yo. He play in first pp on the blue line. He is much better skater this year. Play much better with the puck under pressure. He has good potential for driving, he has absolutely great first pass. He makes some mistakes here and there in decision making with the puck in offensive zone, but its ok for his age. He looks very solid for his age. Misyul playin third pair minutes in Lokomotiv. Good in PK, like I saw, he did well everything lokomotiv did ask him. He is very good skater. Not as fast as Shakir, but much smoother. He have a lesser upside in offensive zone, but he still have some, I like how he working in forecheck in offensive zone. Pretty safe, accurate and always with understanding how things can go wrong. I would say he has very few mistakes for 20yo defenseman. He play like a defensive defenseman of healthy man. Zaitsev is a rock, hit hard. He lost some speed in this year, but he is heavier this year. Play complete defensive role on the right side. Second line minutes. But he has no offensive upside. I don’t think he will ever travel to us. Even if he will win a battle for the spot, he will never play second pair role. And never have enough money to compensate difference in cost of life. And it is sad because for now he is much better right defenseman than our options. He could be good partners for our puckmovers. He is complet working defenseman. Fast enough, good protecting of the zone, gap control etc. Gritsyuk play on the third line now, starting as a fourth liner. He is very good line driver and has good skills. Fast, good shot and passing, good puck protecting, he is active on the board, I think he could be better on the short rink. But he must mature. He isn’t active enough in defensive zone. And his acting with the puck/when his team with the puck is much better when his team is without the puck. For now he looks raw and I want from him to be much more active in defensive forecheck, and start to understand how protect zones. I think Shaq and Misyul have real potential to be NHLers. Shaq looks like second line defenseman with potential to be first line defenseman. Misyul… I think he has potential/ceiling to play second pair minutes. He doesn’t have future as pp specialist. And Gritsyuk has sleeping potential to be middle six forward.

Another boomer

re:pk not being all that good at hockey anymore while getting paid a lot of money - so be it, there's only one year left thankfully. I can write the whole thing off as they took a shot (a long shot) and missed because as CR said above Nashville knew exactly what they were unloading. We needed to make a splash and had a floor to hit etc. Now though it's the slewfooting that's too much to tolerate for me. The thought of Jack or one of our only core pieces being on the end of something blatant like that and getting seriously hurt is too much. Seeing another player on any other team seriously hurt because of something like that isn't much easier. It's just cheap as f*ck and a scumbag move no matter who's doing it. It just so happens that he has a history of it and twice now in 2 games already this year, it's not by accident. I'm not sure how Reaves didn't completely tear his knee apart in a pre-season game no less. Lucic knee twisted really bad as well, both I think were very lucky. There was some discussion here calling for a suspension for the hit on Jack that broke him. Granted it was by a very few but still, point being there was absolutely nothing there, while our own clown is doing perhaps the ultimate cheap shot in hockey. It's disgraceful. Glad neither Lucic or Reaves were hurt. Reaves when asked about it 10 days later just said we see them a lot. PK better buy Geerston a handful of dinners and hope he's still in the NHL for a while. He should at least have to answer the bell if called upon no matter who he does it to.

The fact that there are only two posts about this news after all of the previous back and forth on the topic is pure comedy.

Will also quickly address Subban because it’s hard not to with his play. The past few years he’s started slow and then turned it on. The Devils have to pray for that so they can grab a 3rd for him at the deadline, but I’m just not seeing it happen this year. He’s the worst player on the ice for the Devils every time he’s out there. I really like the player, I really like the person, but it’s time to move on.

Happy for him. He played great.

What a "welcome to the big league" game for Daws

LGD. Don’t trip over Hall’s ridiculous lips and dislocate your shoulder. EDIT: He’s in Boston. I stand by my statement, they are that huge.

He came on the ice at the end of the period for a quick skate

He can bomb it and he can finesse too.

I gotchu bruv

Good news on the puck front, I went on Facebook and found not one but two Shulmistra pucks that collectors had and were willing to sell. I bought the better looking of the two. I will be down to three when that arrives.

I’m sort of at the point where if DM wants to enforce this “no talking about vaccines” stance, I’m probably out. This is a discussion forum. I’ve been called disgusting things on here because of hockey related discussions and I’ve done my fair share of name calling to. This topic is no different than any other topic that causes forum-wide vitriol and angst — in fact, I’d argue it’s even less controversial since 85%+ of this forum by my guess falls squarely on the side of “get your vaccine you fvcking neanderthal.” and frankly the 15% who fall on the other side can put us on ignore or call into Joe Rogan and complain about us. And maybe some of you would be happy to see me go, that’s just fine and dandy. But you know you’ll miss me.

it’s just nice that we’re giving this mouth breather a chance to do “muh research” while he’s actively being a detriment to the team. i wonder if the research is inconclusive on wearing a goalie mask? my friend has a cousin who knows a sister of a guy who said on facebook that goalie masks cause autism. we don’t want to rush to conclusions and that guy from facebook might literally be a genius!! i wonder if blackwood was available for comment in between his breakfast of crayons and paste? get this loser off of my favorite fvcking hockey team.

Just listened to the whole thing and as someone who deals with living on the edge emotionally each and everyday I applaud him for being willing to put his story out there the last number of years. I was asked to write about my story early in July for a new website that was being created to try and help others who suffer from TBIs and mental illness and it was insanely difficult to put it out there and it's only been viewed about 500 times so I can only imagine exposing the journey in front of millions. He should be proud of standing up and bringing visibility to mental health and how it can ruin lives , take lives etc. The fact that he can even compete at the NHL level while fighting his demons is impossible for me to even pretend to fathom. What I still don't get though is the need to inaccurately or carelessly throwing AV under the bus, under no conditions no matter what his intent and goals are. Those kind of actions are equally as detrimental as the cause he's standing up against.

Y'all are fvckin creepy

i know I just trashed him the other day… but this is a massacre

You could chose to focus on all that. Otoh our young guys (Jack, Sharongovich, Holtz, Mercer) all look great. That’s my biggest takeaway.

I know it's pre-season game #1 but can we fire all of the special teams coaching before it's too late?

Lol I've seen this one before...

Okay...then... I am thinking of adding Covid vaccine choice to the list of no go topics on this area of the forums. Hell No Go Topics: _______________ Politics Jersey Authenticity Sterio's love of Lou / PK. Covid Vaccine.

This always makes me laugh about if Breaking Bad had been set in the UK. Anyway back to hockey. The lineup tonight is exciting. Was please to see Tom Wilson was not in the squad for the Caps. Don't fancy any of the kids getting killed in preseason.

One of my biggest pet peeves - if not the biggest - with this whole so-called debate is the whole vaccine being a personal choice meme. Because it doesn't just affect you personally when you're dealing with a contagious virus, it affects all the people you come into contact with. And that's not even getting into how Blackwood's 'personal choice' affects the team on the ice and in off-ice interactions given NHL protocols.

He’s only 20 years old, so the fact that he can even win a game in the NHL, and look pretty good doing it, is encouraging. For context, Blackwood didn’t play a single game in the NHL until he was 22. And he was considered young at the time.

Garnett Hathaway sounds like the name of the evil banker that conspires to defraud your family of their farm on a 70s-80s TV show.

There is an enormous difference between a separated shoulder and a dislocated shoulder. A separated shoulder is a very serious injury that creates long term issues. It’s what Tarasenko had and he really hasn’t been the same. Separation causes stretches/tears in the ligament that almost always require surgery: and we all know as sports fans sometimes these soft tissue injuries are worse for the player than a broken bone. But that’s not what Jack has. Jack has a DISLOCATED shoulder. The bone popped out of the shoulder socket. It was popped back in. They needed tests to confirm there was no ligament damage, and now he just needs some rest, ice, and a little bit of PT and he’ll be back. Excruciatingly painful (i dislocated my shoulder playing football and my parents could hear me screaming from the bottom of the pile while they were in the stands). I missed a game and I was back, haven’t had any issues with it since. I’d also like to take the time to address the 3-4 people who yelled at me, PMed me and criticized me for daring to question some dude who’s “had a friend that knows it is super serious!!! broken collarbone!!! may need amputation!!!!!!!!”. It’s becoming more and more obvious that nobody had any idea what was going on that night. At best, you have a friend in some capacity in the organization who was speculating and you reported it as fact. At worst, you’re an attention seeking liar. Reckless and stupid comments deserve to be called out. On most other forums I’m a part of, pretending like you have insider information and blindly posting blatantly incorrect rumors carries a ban. If I said “i have a friend who works with the devils who said we just traded for Johnny Gaudreau” at the trade deadline and nothing happened, I’d be banned from this place for good reason. I don’t think that bar should be lowered for posting nonsense about injuries. Speculating is fine; that’s what internet forums are for. Pretending to be an insider is absurd.

October 19th 2017: Nico 1st goal October 19th 2019: Hughes 1st goal October 19th 2021: Mercer 1st goal

In light of all of the unpleasantries of the last week or two, I wanted to mention it’s damn nice watching Devils hockey with you all again. Well, other than the dude who blocked me lol Yeah my man was definitely think about a handy lol.

You may have competition from Daneyko who just described Jacks beautiful sweet soft hands with lust in his voice.

We don't have a choice anyway. This is all just so they can get more emails and phone numbers.

I know it was definitely autocorrect gone wild, but this sentence has me LOLing thinking you’re a hillbilly chewing straw saying it. UNLESS them come wit some of them exertions!

Except you're clearly making a statement with this post. Take your own advice - keep your sh!t to yourself. Don't need more anti-science talk infecting yet another forum I frequent.

Mercer is an NHL player.