Lateralous

I saw this on HF Boards. Supposedly a pic of Timo decked out in Devils gear working out with Nico back in Switzerland. Git-er-done Fitz! Edit: Here's the source of it. https://twitter.com/GianniNJD/status/1666445963991367681?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1666445963991367681|twgr^|twcon^s1_&ref_url=

I love that they finally committed to a much needed rebuild 2 weeks after the Connor Bedard sweepstakes ended.

They've always been a bit of a rudderless ship. You hear a lot about how young they are but most of their big names are 25 or older and you don't sign Gaudreau because you're targeting the '25-'26 season to turn the corner. Now they are going to throw Bobcock in there to light a match? Kind of amazing that Kekalienen is still calling the shots out there.

Eichel is back on the bench! Great to see …and he just made a gorgeous setup pass to Marchesault for another goal

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.

This is an ass kicking

I know you’re not paying him to be a set-up man but I just read that Cole Caufield only had 2 primary assists in 46 games this season. That’s crazy. That’s like Vanacek numbers

Barbashev absolutely destroyed Gudas on that one hit. Gudas took a shot from Barbashevs shoulder and then slammed his head a second time on the ice.

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 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. 😉

Right but given that they did bet on him for 8 years, shouldn't the number be lower for taking that risk? Hintz got 8.45 coming off 70+ point seasons and he's a center. Caufield has a career high of 43 points in 67 games which still only projects to 52.6 points over a full 82 games. If you're making a bet on those numbers, I feel like the AAV has to start with a 6. Maybe I'm just becoming my DAD where I think everything is too expensive now.

That's a shame. That would have been a highly flammable situation sooner rather than later that I would have enjoyed watching. Man, they don't mind paying top dollar up in Canada based on projections. The dude has a career high of 43 points. I know they all fell in love with Caufield during their run to the cup finals but he hasn't played more than 67 games in his two seasons. Seems like if you're locking him up long term now, this AAV should have been a lot lower.

Makes sense that some other team may want to get a jump on Severson given how thin the UFA pool is.

Yeah, this is some writer getting assigned to write up half the league and as you guys have pointed out, that’s pretty clear. When David Clarkson became a UFA, I realized most of these guys don’t know jack sh!t beyond the stat lines they read. All I heard that summer was how Clarkson was some sort of consistent 30 goal scorer with grit and never once saw any type of critique of his skating, hockey IQ or that he was coming off one of those unsustainable seasons where he got 30 goals because absolutely everything just went in for him. It was crazy, it was like there wasn’t a single guy in the media that had actually watched him play. Hell, I wonder how much the Leafs scouts actually watched him. it was similar with Gomez. Everywhere he went after NJ, they seemed shocked that they got a playmaker and not a goal scorer, especially in MTL.

The Hockey News is out with their draft preview which always includes team reports. The Devils report is fun because they literally admit they had a hard time coming up with a long term need for the team. Not sure I’ve ever seen that before. It just reinforces what a wonderful job Fitzgerald is doing.