DJ Eco

Hynes taking a 5-1 win against the Red Wings, worst team in the league, washing his hands and thinking he cracked the code and doesn't need to change anything for the game after, that's amateur hour coaching. A man without any ideas. You don't go 2 games in a row with players like Zacha and Bratt benched and Hayden and Seney in, you just don't. Amateur hour.

Go team. Don't ruin another Friday night.

He did that plenty when our team was 75% gritty unskilled plugs a couple years ago+. We weren't great then, but we made things really hard on teams, kept games tight, did things the right way. Hynes even got angry in pressers after some wins when we didn't play well. The players responded then because they knew their deficiencies and limitations as a unit, but saw that he was able to craft a system that played to their strengths (or lack thereof) and made them somewhat effective and competitive. Can't do that now. Can't really do that with a highly skilled team of very promising prospects and elite or borderline-elite players, seems obvious the guys aren't listening to him anymore, doubt they respect his vision or system, and it shows. He's only an effective coach for an unskilled subpar team to punch above their weight class, not vice versa, and it's obvious.

No, I thought I saw a couple of our reporters saying he's day-to-day, that's a little bit better (hopefully) than when they think someone has a concussion and don't want to give a timeline. Fingers crossed, Vatanen's been meeting the potential many saw in him from his days as a young Duck.

Nothing about the goaltending or defense this season makes sense or shows any sort of consistency, so Cory will probably save 39 of 41 shots, and we'll lose 2-1.

Could be wrong but I think they said 4-6 weeks for Carrick last week.

To Henrik's credit, he's kept it together a year or two longer than I thought he was capable of, the defense in front of him is historically bad, even worse than our defense in every underlying stat. But yeah, he's pretty much done, I'd imagine they're hoping and praying Igor Shestyorkin is ready for the show next season.

Do not boo Hall. It's one thing to be upset about what he said, and that's fine, but we don't need to make this more annoying than it has to be just to get the next word in. If you're thinking of booing him early before the game has taken course, wipe the sand out of your bikini and get over it.

Insufferable. And when you read her article on last night's game, that question and answer (Hall grading his personal performance) are no where to be found. Just sniping at fans for fun at this point, this guy wasn't even being disrespectful, there just seems to be a resentment for having to cover this team this season.

Where to start? Like I've been saying, it's hard to justify benching guys like Bratt and Gusev when, whether they're in the game or not, we're blowing multi-goal leads for fun anyway it seems. Bratt's and Gusev's poor defense isn't losing us games, the system and lack of balance and depth on D are. We're not going to win any more games trying to teach a player or two defensive/two-way play, our problems are more structural and systematic than a few players not chipping in defensively. We need a new system. Might as well just get the extra goal support instead of our 4th line in its current state, that escaped a 7-6 game with 0g-0a-0p somehow, with 2 of those players 0g-0a-0p on the season combined through 10 games. They're a known quantity (nothing much) at this point, might as well just get a 4th skill line going with some combination of Boqvist and Gusev that are deployed on offensive zone faceoffs or opposing team icings, etc., what do you have to lose? That way, you can still give them safe 5v5 minutes (10 or so), but put Gusev on the power play; I think that'd be a net positive effect for our team. As for Hall's comments, I didn't want to get mad about them, but can't help it. This fanbase has given this team such a long leash; most other fanbases would've been booing the team weeks ago already, especially Edmonton. It's surprised me how good some of the crowds have been so far considering not just our record, but how we're losing these games (we've lost 3 2-goal leads at home). Hall should've had the presence of mind as a leader on the team to understand that, and what this fanbase has been through, and he just turned heel pretty quickly unless he shuts everyone up with an explosive November. I don't know where I stand on his UFA situation. He's not playing well enough to justify the $10+ million he's probably asking for right now, and if that makes us say "okay, let's trade him," well that's a problem too, because his trade value is going down too. I feel like Shero did everything right this offseason, and I honestly don't envy his position right now. He was so active and gave Hynes so much to work with, and all he was thanked for is a situation where we're calling for "more changes!!! (D or goalie)" and a star winger playing his way out of a big contract or lucrative trade. I don't even know what I'd do if I were Shero.

I don't think anyone has a personal vendetta against Kevin Rooney, people aren't wishing ill on his family, or praying he gets injured. That's a disingenuous way to mischaracterize "Devils fans complaining about coach's decision to play [insert 4th liner here] over [Boqvist/Bratt/Gusev] after another loss." Even you feeling that way is fine, but you're not a Devils beat reporter during a horrendous start to a season. Not saying the people who insult or abuse our beat writers are justified, they're not, some of the stuff said to Amanda or Abbey is not cool at all, pretty awful sometimes. But when one of them keep "poking the bear" with dripping sarcasm and resentment everyday, it's almost like they want to annoy Devils fans even more. It's bad enough we have to watch this team crap the bed early this season, we don't need our few members of the press making it more annoying. Maybe I'm out of touch with what younger people (I'm 32 lol) want out of the media they follow, maybe they like all the sarcasm and daily complaining about [something] making their day harder today, awwww boohoo? It's not for me, it just seems so annoying and unprofessional.

Exactly. Stuff like this is just petulant and pointless, trolling really, with the sole purpose being just to annoy.

Yeah exactly, and I just feel like you're not going to turn every player into a two-way dynamo like Nico is, or like Coleman (at a slightly lower level) are. Shero gave Hynes a few offense-first guys in Subban, Bratt, and Gusev. Figure it out. Make it work. Use their strengths. Don't try to dull the blade too much to try and make them a more well-rounded player. Don't waste another season trying to make offense-first players turn into two-way players, you don't need 4 lines of two-way players. We have a good balance of both types of players, but Hynes is trying to make them all do the same exact thing, which is why Wood-Rooney-Hayden is so near and dear to him, because it feels comfortable. But comfortable only gets you 0g-0a-0p, which is Rooney and Hayden's total right now, and that's with an average TOI of 12 minutes a game that he's given them so far. He let our offense-first guys run wild at our home opener and look how they ran up the score. I think that was a peek into the true DNA of what this club is. We're not going to be good at defense, not with this roster, and that could be fine, if Hynes wasn't jamming some faux-responsibility hockey nonsense down our throats despite being extremely irresponsible with a whole bunch of leads that we've lost.

Thought I was the only one, agree 100%, he's a convenient scapegoat. I know he's not great defensively, but you'd think teams are scoring everytime he's on the ice, given all the talk you see about him. But Hynes benches him in the 3rd to protect leads anyway, and we lose those leads anyway, so it's hard to not see this as a deficiency in the system, and a coach who doesn't know how to tailor things to get more out of a few offense-first players within that system. He feels safer with Rooney and Hayden, so he gives them more 5v5 time, and our record shows it.

Yeah, the media coverage this season, or lack thereof, has compounded things to be even more unbearable, if that were even possible. And then they shoot back at people who dare ask them to ask better questions about stuff the fanbase cares about. And then retweet/elevate the few worst a-holes in the fanbase (who do say stuff that's targeted and inappropriate) presumably to get sympathy points and adulation. Rinse and repeat. It's like a sick joke of a cycle, what do we need to do to just have someone in the media that takes this job seriously enough to report the facts, the stats, and ask the common sense and straightforward questions we're all wondering like Tom Gulitti did? Lord knows Gulitti had his share of trolls, he generally shrugged them off, didn't elevate them, so they didn't become a problem. And he was then able to cut through the BS to give us cut and dry coverage of the team that we could form our own conclusions on.

When you put it like that..... I'm on board! Hope he can make the Rangers' Hugh Jessiman drafting misstep look like child's play!

I'd put money on Kakko getting sent to Hartford for a bit, he looks lost out there; built like a veteran, but doesn't use his body at all, so what good is that (for now)? I don't like rooting for a kid to fail, and not that's really what I'm doing here. But the amount of trolling Rangers did for 3+ months before the season on EVERY NHL or Devils post about Hughes, in EVERY Hughes article comment section, right through the first week of the season... man, that arrogant and petulant fanbase deserves a headline bust, big time.

Bratt being benched is indefensible, unacceptable.

Yep, correction, it was 9 minutes last night, I think I may have misread a tweet that was written during 2nd intermission.

I'll give him some benefit of the doubt and say he hasn't had the benefit of some of the media coaching and engrained American "earn your keep" mentality that Jack Hughes would've gotten over the years from his entire family being professional athletes. You can hear when Jack speaks or gives an interview how ahead of the game he is in understanding how to answer things and how to represent the team well to the press. Kakko's coming over from being the best young player in his country basically (in-league) for a couple years now as a 16-17 year old, a top 5 scorer amongst men there, so I think we're seeing a kid that hasn't been groomed to handle the North American media (add on top of that a slight language barrier), and has a slight ego from being the absolute sh!t in his home country for so long, while coming here just to play a little over 6 minutes in ice time a game (his TOI from tonight's game, believe it or not). I think he and Hughes probably have a lot of the same feelings, but Hughes is way more groomed to be able to handle the media a bit better. Including the World Championships, Kakko's usually been the most important player on his team, he averaged over 18 minutes a night in the Liiga, and here he gets 6.

Not really sure he's said anything new, just fills out a couple paragraphs with fluff to keep curious Canadian readers coming back for more next time he deals more fluff; typical Canadian hockey media. Any one of us could've written that article.

Wasn't on the "fire Hynes!" train before. I am now. Completely unacceptable.

From bad to worse

Those lines are puzzling to say the least. Really don't know what Hynes is doing.

Yeah, something's weird, in those 5 days of practice between preseason and the opener, it's almost like Nasreddine had them implement some completely new and different kind of breakout pass. Instead of our defensemen clearing the puck around the boards from behind the net or in the slot, I've noticed they just whip it up the middle, a few times whizzing dangerously close to our goalies, and many times ending up on the opposing stick. I don't know what the thought process could possibly be, other than "they would never think we're just going to whip it up the middle"???? But I've seen a bunch of our players do it, it's like a super ballsy move, but has turned into giveaways more often than it's worked in generating a rush. It's almost like they were told to do this, and are doing it even when it doesn't look like the best option. Maybe they see what we see on the ice, and don't want to do it for that reason, so like you said, it looks like they're confused, but yeah, I've seen it enough times early this season (trying to play from the back right up through the middle) that this might be on the coaches/system telling them to make that dangerous play.