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"the obvious answer is Mackenzie Blackwood"

Jack proved his toughness during these playoffs.

Yeah between the blurb about Mac and calling Seves a “big decision”, the author clearly doesn’t follow the Devils closely at all. When you have three D locked up and a #4OA and a #2OA joining the fray, you don’t spend the $6 million or so AAV for 5+ years on Seves. It’s not much of a decision at all.

When someone writes something like that they obviously don't know sh!t.

Heard this on 32 Thoughts but also heard Fridge throw around the idea of Dallas buying out Suter. Imagine getting bought out of multi-year deals almost back to back seasons(maybe one in between). LOL Karma is a bitch, Ryan. Hope you were texting Zach again on this playoff run, ya Dbag.

Rags permitted to talk to Hynes LOLLLLL (dont know if this is posted in any other threads?) https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/report-new-york-rangers-permitted-to-interview-newly-fired-john-hynes-1.1967322

https://twitter.com/MollieeWalkerr/status/1663945141122375680?t=HA66Og0-fMIs_7MW8EoYIQ&s=19

How lucky are the Golden Nuggets? They have a chance to win a championship in two different sports in the same year. I mean, that’s gotta be a record I would think.

That day friggin' Messier was busting PK's balls relentlessly...I kept waiting for PK to say "Yeah you sure were a big help to Vancouver bud...oh that's right, you barely showed up when you played for them. And then of course, it was awesome when you came back to the Rangers as a shell of yourself, and oh yeah...you didn't make the playoffs with them either, even though you GUARANTEED that they'd make it! So what was that, seven seasons in a row that your teams missed the playoffs? Weren't you supposed to be such an incredible presence that you could find a way to will one of those teams into a playoff spot? You keep living in 1994 there pal...just like your Ranger groupies."

The old heads are clutching their pearls every time TNT shows a game. What a superior product on so many freaking levels compared to ESPN. Mouth breathing idiots are trashing PK in reaction to Chelios being let go as part of the ESPN purge. Hey morons, he’s the only one with something resembling a personality on that intermission report. Messier sucks, Chelios was boring, even Levy has lost the luster he had in the ABC days 20 years ago. PK brought fun and modern game experience to an otherwise fossil broadcast.

Not to harp on it but nothing about this series has me wanting to commit 8 or 9% of our cap space to Jesper Bratt. It’s brutal out there and I can’t see him ever thriving in this type of game.

How am I supposed to take that list seriously if it has a maple leafs on it?

Florida looks like they may be in real trouble here. If Aidan Hill is going to outplay Bobrovsky, I’m not sure how the Panthers win this series.

I’m legitimately excited to watch this series. Also, sure it’s Florida, but I’m well in college football territory, definitely not a hockey market and there is a buzz here about this series.

For the record I don't disagree with any of you. I'm just making conversation because it's the offseason and there's been a week long break between series, and because I already can't wait until October.

https://twitter.com/BR_OpenIce/status/1664661038560604167

Not a chance Bettman even begins to give a sh!t about that

We officially have another source of info now with James Nichols: https://newjerseyhockeynow.com/2023/05/31/welcome-to-new-jersey-hockey-now-with-devils-beat-reporter-james-nichols/

A rep that he has earned. It's bad when you don't score points, but when you're invisible? That's a hard $11M pill to swallow.

https://twitter.com/mikemorrealenhl/status/1666232558164619265?s=46&t=LbTlicr2R-wpEQlojJz9Sg

Jack would get right back up and be fine. He was giving just as good as he was getting during the playoffs. That hit would put Bratt in the hospital though.

I feel like it isn't common for trades to happen right now. It's like bonus entertainment.

Net cam shot of Hill’s save in game 1:

So many people complain about how dated the NHL is in a lot of what they do but I firmly believe there are a good amount of "no change" people too who are afraid of the NHL trying to be... Ya know... Entertaining. The old boys club fan base.

Bedard SAVAGING Biz 🤣 https://twitter.com/NHL_On_TNT/status/1665861864817917954/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1665861864817917954&currentTweetUser=NHL_On_TNT

I know and Gudas was going to try and put Barbashev into the ice. Probably one of the best reverse hits I've ever seen. Eichel did not look like he was in good shape either after the hit from Tkachuk. This is a brutal game. Huge hits. Tkachuk getting tossed is kind of nuts to me. Eichel had his head down and got caught. It was clean shoulder to shoulder. Even Gretzsky is saying that Eichel had his head down the entire way. I hope he didn't fvck up his shoulder that was hanging there. Maybe dislocation.

God that was brutal, Eichel loses his step too and falls into it. His facial expressions looked weird as he tried to get off the ice. Hope his neck is alright… https://twitter.com/spittinchiclets/status/1665900363927388160?s=46&t=iY7dOWxkATrezoqlCWW3zw

I guess this is my problem. Even when Jack was posting 30 point seasons, I never had a doubt he would grow into a superstar. I honestly don't watch Caufield that much but in general, I'm way less sure about a 5'-7" winger that is fairly one dimensional. I know that one dimension gets you PAID, but still. He probably will. I just feel like this seems high when you're committing this early. Also, I really just wanted to quote you to prove I read your post. 😉

Dude you come in with these responses and then I bet no one even reads what I have to say....lower the bar ffs!! In all seriousness, I agree. He's going to grow into the deal and MTL doing this is a nod to Caufield that they believe in him and I'm sure goes some way to keeping him happy in the next negotiation.

Big boom/bust potential with Roy. I want them to hire Hynes. That would be fvcking hilarious 🤣

I can't stand the Stalls and I hate that Tkachuk has a mouth guard to simply have it hang out of his mouth and chew on it the entire fvcking game so I hope Vegas sweeps Florida.

Could probably get a 5th or 6th rounder for his rights. If someone’s willing to give something up, why not?

This has been a fantastic game so far.

Honestly sad how the old boys club can ignore just about anything in favor of giving opportunities to the same people over and over again who have proven they don't deserve it.

I feel like this bratt thing is becoming more annoying than anything. I’m obviously no GM but fitz should basically toss two offers down a short term if bratt doesn’t want to stay and something longer term and the numbers are what the devils value him as and that’s it. Call it a day on this already, if he wants to be here he’ll take that path to stay, if he doesn’t let’s figure it out sooner than later so we can make the proper moves and decisions. Timo on the other hand, it’s constantly brought up that he didn’t produce much as far as points go in the post season, let’s keep in mind the guy was playing with some type of undisclosed injury ( yea I know a lot of players were) and a completely broken nose. On top of which timo brought A LOT of physicality that was very clear, and this team was starving for that. Pay timo and lock him up long term.

There was such a long wait between series that I think a majority of the sports world doesn't even realize hockey is still happening

"rememberable" I friggin' love Nico

Still hate that pick, but I wouldn’t mind some of this on the 4th line… https://twitter.com/papiblez/status/1664456359197446144?s=46&t=LbTlicr2R-wpEQlojJz9Sg

I don’t think anyone disagrees that 8 million is what he can probably get on the open market if he wants to ride this out to a trade or UFA. The question is if a team in our position should allocate that percentage of the cap to him for what he brings. In many ways he’s the offensive version of Severson. I absolutely think Severson will get a 7 million AAV in a 32 team league where everyone needs to fill out a top4. I don’t think a Tampa, Colorado, Carolina or NJ who have actual dreams of winning the cup should even think about paying him that. This one sentence perfectly sums up what I saw from Jesper Bratt in the 2023 playoffs and why I’m so concerned about his contract in particular going forward. Amen While I agree with the rest of your post, I disagree with this sentence because I think it’s exactly what separates a top GM like Joe Sakic or Steve Yzerman from a hack like Kyle Dubas. Sakic refused to overpay Landeskog and going back to the beginning of the Tampa run, Yzerman basically called Stamkos bluff and gave him a number the team was comfortable with and told him to take it or leave it. It set the tone for all the other contract negotiations going forward. Dubas probably overpaid Matthews, Marner and Nylander by a combined 5 million coming off their ELCs. While it may be splitting hairs for the stars, that’s the difference between paying guys like Haula and McLeod in the 2-3 million AAV range to populate the bottom 6 vs filling out the lineup with retreads and minimum wage plugs like Toronto does every year. It makes all the difference in fielding the deepest team possible With the acquisition of Meier and the emergence of Mercer, I believe Bratt is more of a luxury than a need for the Devils. He just can’t be the guy who insists on top dollar and we cave to. He’s exactly the guy who either needs to take a home town discount for the privilege of being apart of what Fitz is building or move on. This is actually the perfect opportunity IMO for Fitzgerald to lean into the “everyone needs to take a discount if we’re going to get to where we want to go” mantra. Even if it ultimately costs us Bratt, it sets the tone for everything moving forward and shows Fitz isn’t f’ing around.

I still don't like the idea of Bratt getting 8mm even if it isn't max term. Not that splitting hairs over 1-2mm is super productive, rumors were that the cap might go up 1-2mm this off season if they can find a way to not touch escrow anyway, but I am just generally not sold on Bratt at that price and just continually consider what else could be done with that amount of money.

Lots of cool possibilities for a cool Stadium Series uni...which means whatever the Devils come up with will somehow manage NOT to be cool, or at the very least will feel like a missed opportunity. The best uniforms to come out of the Adidas era are the Heritage jerseys and the RR 1.0...which of course were heavily based on pre-1992-93 jerseys. For some reason the design teams just can't seem to get "new" designs right. The Adidas red-and-blacks remain polarizing, as do the Jersey jerseys and the RR 2.0. Seeing teams like Calgary and Buffalo go back to their "old" look still has me hopeful that after next season, we'll see something very close to our old red-and-blacks make a comeback.

Since they typically go retro, my guess would be some variant with green but would love for them to finally adopt the 90s as retro and swing a black alt of those.

C'mon, Bratt was invisible for considerable stretches during the playoffs...Timo may not have come up with a lot of points, but he was a lot more noticeable in general. Bratt's lone goal came on an empty-netter...I can't really make much of a case for him having produced a lot of offense. I didn't see a guy who was unlucky or snakebitten, as much as I saw a player who was pretty easily neutralized, to a concerning degree. I gotta be fair though...it's not like the Devils lit it up offensively as a team come playoff time. As far as potentially "stepping back", after he got off to that flying start, he played 67 games (regular season and playoffs combined) and put up 23 G and 26 A...that's good for 28 G and 32 A per 82 GP. Now of course hopefully he doesn't slide back to that degree over the course of a full regular season...but if he did, I can't see a 60-or-so-points-pace per 82 GP thrilling anyone...BUT, if he had a season like that and then shredded it in the playoffs, people would forget a meh-ish regular season VERY quickly I'm sure.

I think Brunette was definitely helping to make an impact earlier on. Power play did improve under Brunette BUT it was hard to imagine that it wouldn't...Recchi had a history of being a lousy PP coach and that didn't change once he came here. Also there was too much young talent for the power play not to get better...but it still seemed like it wasn't as productive as it should have been. The Devils' coaching staff in general seemed to struggle with adjustments, once the league caught onto what they were doing (remember how the Devils were slamming opponents in shot differential when they went on that 21-2-1 bender)...not that they were bad after that of course...after their one real extended slump, they went 28-10-5 to close out the season. And of course, Ruff & Co found a way to stuff the Rangers in Games 5 and 7, which after Games 1 and 2 seemed like a pipe dream. Ruff's never going to give me the warm and fuzzies, but we'll see how much of this past season was due to Brunette's presence soon. Recchi and nASS were clearly an issue prior...still have no idea how nASS lasted as long as he did here.

Should be on the other side where AutoNation is

I know the Canadian hockey world is peddling this as a "worst case scenario" for the league, but I love when new teams/franchises get a chance to win it. I happen to hate the Panthers for how they targeted Nico, so I'll be pulling for the Knights. Should be a hell of a series.

And that's why I (and others) are a lot less bullish on seeing Bratt blindly re-signed, just because. I still think an extension for him probably gets done in time, but Bratt at Hughes money had better become a more consistent force...if he comes out slow next season, he's one of those guys fans are going to turn on quickly. He can absolutely be electric at times, no question, but he can also be MIA where you almost wonder if he's playing, sometimes for several games at a time, and these playoffs were NOT kind to him...he looked EXACTLY like the kind of player who vanishes come playoff time. Hopefully this past postseason was a real learning experience for him.

Good bye, good luck. I don’t think he was a difference maker in the future success of the team. Just my opinion.