Lundqvist, Rangers agree on extension

[DJ Eco]

I don't think they could've possibly let him go. That's a lot of money but in this case, Sather had no choice.

[Daniel]

Sure it does.  The Red Wings won a Stanley Cup with Chris Osgood in 2008.  Any goalie can get hot.

 

 

 

 

It has been an albatross insofar as the Devils have seen themselves unwilling to get anyone who could even think of challenging Brodeur's starting.  It definitely did not help the Devils last year - sure the team couldn't score, but the goalies could not stop anything.  They played Johan Hedberg for 10 straight games with a save percentage well under 90%.

 

 

 

 

 

I agree.  But he didn't come up with one.  Not even a flyer on a guy who's been real good in the AHL or overseas.  They signed a guy out of college.  That's about it.  And drafting either Vasilevski or Subban wouldn't've helped at all with this season or probably next season.

 

 

You could hope for the team to not go with horrendous goaltending for 3 years.  The Devils are extremely lucky to have come out of those 3 seasons with what they did, given the goaltending.

 

Now you're starting to sound like SD with the speculation/other teams hit the jackpot, so why couldn't we.  Maybe they could have found some goalie, that maybe could have been better.  Or better yet, just go find a diamond in the rough in the seventh round of the draft like Lunqvist.  Or even better, Lou should have just traded Parise for Schneider three years ago since Parise was going to leave anyway.    Until you suggest a specific alternative that was reasonably plausible, this just sounds like another gratuitous let's sh!t on Marty opportunity.

 

Otherwise, the implication is that good goaltending is overrated, since any goalie can get lucky.  Hey, the Wings won the Cup with a bad goalie, and the Devils had a great year with someone who was evidently the worst goalies in the league. 

 

The bottom line, the goaltending over the past three years has not been a calamity, and now, it could very well once again be a strong point.  It's very hard to complain about that.

[Devil Dan 56]

I know kicking Marty is a fun past time here but in reality, if the Devils can lock up Schneider for a 7 or 8 year extension (and he continues to play at the level he has so far in his career) we would have seen nearly 30 straight years of solid, consistent goaltending. I don't think there's a team outside of the 1950-1980 Canadiens who can say that.

[DJ Eco]

I know kicking Marty is a fun past time here but in reality, if the Devils can lock up Schneider for a 7 or 8 year extension (and he continues to play at the level he has so far in his career) we would have seen nearly 30 straight years of solid, consistent goaltending. I don't think there's a team outside of the 1950-1980 Canadiens who can say that.

 

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. What happened to the Islanders and DiPietro can happen to ANY team that signs their goalies to such long-term deals. I'm just going season by season and what I do agree with you on is that we need to re-sign Schneider.

[Revan]

Lundqvist is 31 - he'll be 38 when this deal expires. Which means there's a good chance this is the last contract he ever signs. Makes me feel old all of a sudden, lol. Feels like it was yesterday when he was playing his first year with the Rangers. Might be because his Stanley Cup victories total is exactly the same it was on the day of his debut.

[Devil Dan 56]

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. What happened to the Islanders and DiPietro can happen to ANY team that signs their goalies to such long-term deals. I'm just going season by season and what I do agree with you on is that we need to re-sign Schneider.

 

I know, that's why I included the "continue his level of play" part. He's had some injuries in the past, so he's not indestructible. The point was more that I don't think people realize how we fortunate we could be if this works out.

[sundstrom]

 

Brodeur getting hot this season definitely made things more complicated, no doubt, but Schneider is just too good for Brodeur to keep getting playing time at his expense, especially if he's not stopping pucks.  It's one thing when Marty's around .917 in save% and in the midst of a hot streak, but quite another when he's at .906 and falling, and Schneider's at .927 and can be expected to stay around there.  The too many Brodeur starts issue won't last much longer.   

 

 

this really hits the nail on the head - they gave the job to schneider. even marty gave it to him. and schneider had two not so great games and marty got hot. now we're back to where we were when they tried to give schneider the net the first time (sub-par to bad marty for 4 games, excellent cory for 3 games). assuming cory plays well, he'll get 3 of the next 4 and then we'll go from there.

 

as for lundqvist's deal affecting schneider, i don't think it's THAT big an influence. Schneider has not played more than 33 games in a season. you don't hear people talking about james reimer or jonathan bernier getting huge contracts. the fact is, lou is almost certainly going to be giving out a contract based on expectations rather than experience. there's 54 games left in the season. schneider has played 12. i think the best we can hope for, barring marty injury is a 34-20 split for schneider for the remaining games. that gives schneider 48 games started this year. hank has averaged 68GP since he started 9 years ago.

 

as has been stated, rask is the comperable. he got 8/56. its too early to tell, but unless there's a long playoff run that schneider backstops, i don't think lou gives that to him this offseason. i think lou would give him 7/45 this summer looking to get a bit below market.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

I know, that's why I included the "continue his level of play" part. He's had some injuries in the past, so he's not indestructible. The point was more that I don't think people realize how we fortunate we could be if this works out.

 

True, the only year of really dreadful goaltending from beginning-to-end since '93-'94 was last season.  There was a few seasons where Marty was propped up, and the last few have been inconsistent, but overall we have gotten damned fine goaltending (the guy who provided most of it is going to the Hall of Fame on his first ballot, and has set a lot of records), and there's a good chance the damned fine goaltending could continue (of course, assuming Schneider re-signs and stays healthy). 

[roomtemp]

And here's to 7 years of disaster for the Rags

[MadDog2020]

He needs them and they need him. At least he's not going to Pittsburgh now.

Or Philly. They would've offered him a piece of the team probably.

[Triumph]

Having two guys in their late 30s as your goaltending tandem isn't ideal, no, but I'm guessing Lou was hoping Frazee would be able to be a 15-25 start backup at some point.  Didn't happen, unfortunately. 

 

In fairness, the tandem did work out fairly well those first two seasons...maybe on paper, it shouldn't have, but it did, and you can't take that away from the Devils.  Yeah, it imploded in a big way last season, and we all had a hunch that it might, and you can get on Lou for going to that well one too many times.   

 

Brodeur getting hot this season definitely made things more complicated, no doubt, but Schneider is just too good for Brodeur to keep getting playing time at his expense, especially if he's not stopping pucks.  It's one thing when Marty's around .917 in save% and in the midst of a hot streak, but quite another when he's at .906 and falling, and Schneider's at .927 and can be expected to stay around there.  The too many Brodeur starts issue won't last much longer.   

 

Re:  the "horrendous goaltending for 3 years" comment from above, again, not really accurate, there were long stretches of good goaltending in the first two years.  It was not a bottomless hole of suck, and you're making it sound like it was. 

 

Fair, but the periods of suck made it virtually impossible to win games.  The only thing holding the 2011-12 Devils together was the shootout (where the goalies were very good).  

 

Re:  Frazee - also a fair point, he had a .916 or so SV% through his first 2 years in the minors.  Had he maintained that or gotten a little better I think he would've had a shot to backup Brodeur in 2011-12.  Still, he faltered.

 

Now you're starting to sound like SD with the speculation/other teams hit the jackpot, so why couldn't we.  Maybe they could have found some goalie, that maybe could have been better.  Or better yet, just go find a diamond in the rough in the seventh round of the draft like Lunqvist.  Or even better, Lou should have just traded Parise for Schneider three years ago since Parise was going to leave anyway.    Until you suggest a specific alternative that was reasonably plausible, this just sounds like another gratuitous let's sh!t on Marty opportunity.

 

Otherwise, the implication is that good goaltending is overrated, since any goalie can get lucky.  Hey, the Wings won the Cup with a bad goalie, and the Devils had a great year with someone who was evidently the worst goalies in the league. 

 

The bottom line, the goaltending over the past three years has not been a calamity, and now, it could very well once again be a strong point.  It's very hard to complain about that.

 

The goaltending has been at the very least not good overall, despite periods of being very good, and at times downright miserable.

 

There are goalies available from Europe.  Viktor Fasth was one guy.  Anton Khudobin was acquired by the Bruins for not much.  Anders Lindback was pricey and Ben Bishop pricier, so I can see why they didn't go there.  Bobrovsky.  There weren't many UFA backup types available - I forget the years where Biron, Giguere, etc. were available.  Vokoun signed with Pittsburgh as a backup.  And so on - I get the sense that the Devils didn't want any challenges to Brodeur's crease, and that was a mistake.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Fair, but the periods of suck made it virtually impossible to win games.  The only thing holding the 2011-12 Devils together was the shootout (where the goalies were very good).  

 

Re:  Frazee - also a fair point, he had a .916 or so SV% through his first 2 years in the minors.  Had he maintained that or gotten a little better I think he would've had a shot to backup Brodeur in 2011-12.  Still, he faltered.

 

It's kind of become a footnote, but Frazee not being able to contribute to the Devils (I'll defer to the Lou and the braintrust and assume they didn't think he could pan out in the NHL) is a pretty significant disappointment.  I think Lou probably saw him as a Dunham-type (Brodeur admitted in his book that the only time he ever felt pushed in his career was when Dunham was his backup), a guy who may not be good enough to take Brodeur's job outright, but a guy who could be a competent young NHL goalie, and who might even show enough as a backup that some other team might be interested in taking a shot with him as their starter...at the very least, they were hoping for a young, in-house option with some possible upside (the upside being able to possibly push Marty).  The fact that Lou continued to go back to an aging Hedberg (who to his credit was at least pretty good in his first two years) pretty much says what he thought of Frazee.  Hedberg's play in his first two Devil seasons really helped cover up for Frazee basically being a bust.  

Edited December 4, 2013 by Colorado Rockies 1976

[Daniel]

Fair, but the periods of suck made it virtually impossible to win games.  The only thing holding the 2011-12 Devils together was the shootout (where the goalies were very good).  

 

Re:  Frazee - also a fair point, he had a .916 or so SV% through his first 2 years in the minors.  Had he maintained that or gotten a little better I think he would've had a shot to backup Brodeur in 2011-12.  Still, he faltered.

 

 

The goaltending has been at the very least not good overall, despite periods of being very good, and at times downright miserable.

 

There are goalies available from Europe.  Viktor Fasth was one guy.  Anton Khudobin was acquired by the Bruins for not much.  Anders Lindback was pricey and Ben Bishop pricier, so I can see why they didn't go there.  Bobrovsky.  There weren't many UFA backup types available - I forget the years where Biron, Giguere, etc. were available.  Vokoun signed with Pittsburgh as a backup.  And so on - I get the sense that the Devils didn't want any challenges to Brodeur's crease, and that was a mistake.

 

None of those goalies would make the Devils significantly better, or gotten the Devils any further than they did in the past three years.  At best, and even this is a huge stretch, one of those goalies might have gotten the Devils into the playoffs last year.  So one bad year where lots of things went wrong, but that you can attribute in part to goaltending, when the available alternatives most likely wouldn't have gotten you into the playoffs, is not a disaster.

 

And it's quite ironic that you mention Bobrovsky, since his save percentage and other measurables were abysmal his second year in Philly, and they are not very good this year.  He was just "lucky" last season, and in the end, it didn't do much for Columbus's fortunes. 

 

EDIT:  I'll also add that it wasn't like the Columbus got Bobrovsky off the scrap heap.  They gave up a second and fourth.  Right now, it looks like we're doing much better with Schneider and Severson, then Bobrovsky and whoever you assume the Devils would have taken with the ninth pick last year.

Edited December 4, 2013 by Daniel

[dmann422]

Lundquist on wfan now with francesa

[Triumph]

None of those goalies would make the Devils significantly better, or gotten the Devils any further than they did in the past three years.  At best, and even this is a huge stretch, one of those goalies might have gotten the Devils into the playoffs last year.  So one bad year where lots of things went wrong, but that you can attribute in part to goaltending, when the available alternatives most likely wouldn't have gotten you into the playoffs, is not a disaster.

 

And it's quite ironic that you mention Bobrovsky, since his save percentage and other measurables were abysmal his second year in Philly, and they are not very good this year.  He was just "lucky" last season, and in the end, it didn't do much for Columbus's fortunes. 

 

EDIT:  I'll also add that it wasn't like the Columbus got Bobrovsky off the scrap heap.  They gave up a second and fourth.  Right now, it looks like we're doing much better with Schneider and Severson, then Bobrovsky and whoever you assume the Devils would have taken with the ninth pick last year.

 

Haha, you can't play this card.  I gave you ranges of things I thought might happen and you come back 'none of them would've made the Devils significantly better'.  Do you understand that the Devils had some of the worst goaltending in the league last year?  Literally anything would've been better.  And before I get told 'no one could've saw that coming' - their goalies were 40 and each had had sustained stretches of poor play.  Severson isn't a certainty even in your hypothetical - he's a 2nd round pick, the best you can do is typically something like Severson, the worst, well I can go down the list of Devils' 2nd round picks who haven't panned out.

 

Bobrovsky's numbers are skewed some by small samples and how much he played at 3 on 5 in 2011-12.  I don't think he's elite, but I don't think he's bad either.

[Daniel]

Haha, you can't play this card. I gave you ranges of things I thought might happen and you come back 'none of them would've made the Devils significantly better'. Do you understand that the Devils had some of the worst goaltending in the league last year? Literally anything would've been better. And before I get told 'no one could've saw that coming' - their goalies were 40 and each had had sustained stretches of poor play. Severson isn't a certainty even in your hypothetical - he's a 2nd round pick, the best you can do is typically something like Severson, the worst, well I can go down the list of Devils' 2nd round picks who haven't panned out.

Bobrovsky's numbers are skewed some by small samples and how much he played at 3 on 5 in 2011-12. I don't think he's elite, but I don't think he's bad either.

I was never saying the goaltending was great, only, all things considered it wasn't a calamity, like you've been asserting. You threw out a bunch of ok goalies that would have been an upgrade, but would not advance the ball very far, and that assumes you can recreate the world on a spreadsheet. That is not a sign that Lou badly mishandled the goaltending, which is your assertion that started this.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Derek21]

Lundqvist is 31 - he'll be 38 when this deal expires. Which means there's a good chance this is the last contract he ever signs. Makes me feel old all of a sudden, lol. Feels like it was yesterday when he was playing his first year with the Rangers. Might be because his Stanley Cup victories total is exactly the same it was on the day of his debut.

 

Actually, he's completing the last year of his original deal and is a cap hit of $6.875 million. The new deal begins in '13-14 and runs through '20-21. He'll be 39 by the end. There's no guarantee when you invest long-term on goalies. The Rangers overpaid. The current contract was too much from Sather and due to it along with Rask, he was forced to empty Dolan's pockets out of necessity. I would've preferred one less year at that cost. Or $7.5 million over seven years. It is what it is. Even with the cap increasing, I'm more concerned with how it affects their next two offseasons. The roster could look very different.

 

The Devil situation is different. They brought in Schneider for the future with the end in sight for Brodeur. Marty still has it. But the sentiment expressed is right. He should play less. It's a much better situation for them than in the past. They failed to develop Ahonen, who now stars in the KHL and Frazee failed. If memory serves, Kinkaid is left. When it comes to goaltending, you have to have a long-term plan. Unless you're the Flyers, who can't develop anyone.

[Muevelos]

Rangers have a lot to pay for the season. Giriadi is gonna need a pay raise himself. Should be interesting..

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Actually, he's completing the last year of his original deal and is a cap hit of $6.875 million. The new deal begins in '13-14 and runs through '20-21. He'll be 39 by the end. There's no guarantee when you invest long-term on goalies. The Rangers overpaid. The current contract was too much from Sather and due to it along with Rask, he was forced to empty Dolan's pockets out of necessity. I would've preferred one less year at that cost. Or $7.5 million over seven years. It is what it is. Even with the cap increasing, I'm more concerned with how it affects their next two offseasons. The roster could look very different.

 

The Devil situation is different. They brought in Schneider for the future with the end in sight for Brodeur. Marty still has it. But the sentiment expressed is right. He should play less. It's a much better situation for them than in the past. They failed to develop Ahonen, who now stars in the KHL and Frazee failed. If memory serves, Kinkaid is left. When it comes to goaltending, you have to have a long-term plan. Unless you're the Flyers, who can't develop anyone.

 

Not really fair, re:  Ahonen...they gave him five years and 178 games in the AHL to show something and to improve.  I'll give you that playing on bad River Rat teams every year probably didn't help him much, but at the same time, NHL team scouts are ALWAYS looking for possible future goalies, so if anyone thought that Ahonen had something to offer, I would think a team would've inquired about him, especially since, by the time Ahonen was playing for Albany, it was obvious that he was not going to play for the Devils as anything more than a rarely-used backup, and wouldn't have cost much of anything to acquire. 

 

It was only one pre-game warm-up session, so I don't want to make too much out of it, but back in 2005-06, when he was called up to be a backup, he looked BAD...just flat-out BAD.  I remember at the time thinking "Man, no wonder this guy has never really gotten a chance."  Great for him that he's doing some good things in the KHL, but he'll be 33 years old in a couple of months, and he's bounced around a lot of leagues in his pro career.  I'm not sure the Devils deserve blame for failing to develop him.

[DJ Eco]

Rangers have a lot to pay for the season. Giriadi is gonna need a pay raise himself. Should be interesting..

 

I don't think so, his play has taken a hit under the AV system. He would probably be making $1-1.5M more in his extension if Tortorella were still here, just because of the way he was used and relied on. He was the posterboy for the shot-blocking system and suddenly this year is just a mediocre defender that has cost them a couple games by badly timed shot-blocking or screens in front of Henrik..

Edited December 5, 2013 by DJ Eco

[Triumph]

I was never saying the goaltending was great, only, all things considered it wasn't a calamity, like you've been asserting. You threw out a bunch of ok goalies that would have been an upgrade, but would not advance the ball very far, and that assumes you can recreate the world on a spreadsheet. That is not a sign that Lou badly mishandled the goaltending, which is your assertion that started this.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I mean - you're just deluded.  The Devils have a team SV% of .906, .911, and .894 over the last 3 years.  Since the .894 was in a half year, that probably comes to an average of around .906.  That's close to the worst mark in the NHL over that time.  Just about anything would've advanced the ball.  

 

Of goalies who played 20 games - and I'm being generous to you here because of survivorship bias - Brodeur ranks 54th and Hedberg 50th in SV% out of 74 goalies over the last 3 years.   There are 2 goalies who played 100 games over the last 3 years and had a worse SV% than Brodeur.  Now scorer bias blah blah, indeed, but it's still bad.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

I mean - you're just deluded.  The Devils have a team SV% of .906, .911, and .894 over the last 3 years.  Since the .894 was in a half year, that probably comes to an average of around .906.  That's close to the worst mark in the NHL over that time.  Just about anything would've advanced the ball.  

 

Of goalies who played 20 games - and I'm being generous to you here because of survivorship bias - Brodeur ranks 54th and Hedberg 50th in SV% out of 74 goalies over the last 3 years.   There are 2 goalies who played 100 games over the last 3 years and had a worse SV% than Brodeur.  Now scorer bias blah blah, indeed, but it's still bad.

 

Part of what complicates the picture (and what you're ignoring) is the WAY Brodeur came to his season save%s in 2010-11 and 2011-12 (along with his stature within the organization). 

 

2010-11:  team in front of him plays god-awful hockey for the first half of the season (as does Marty), team picks it up in the second half, Marty plays quite well, second-half play is in line with the previous five post-2005-lockout seasons (he put up a .917 save% overall from '05-'06 to '09-'10).  Easy to point to the first half and just say, "Well, EVERYONE sucked." 

 

2011-12:  looks shaky through the end of January, but then goes on that 50-game rampage that helps the team get to within two games of a Stanley Cup.  Again, performance over the 50 games is about in line with post-lockout Marty from '05-'10.

 

If Marty had started strong and faltered in each of those seasons, then you can rightly go the "Marty is getting older, he's getting fatigued over the course of a full season." route, and maybe in that case, Lou tries harder to find someone better/younger than Hedberg for 2012-13.  But we know how it goes with a deep Cup run...you've got a legend in Marty who everyone wants to see retire as a Devil, he had played very well to close out 2012, he has a great relationship with Lou, and everyone's feeling good in general.  Even if you strip away the emotion, go the forensic Spock route, and say "Yeah, but Marty will still be a year older and can't be expected to keep bouncing back within seasons" (and I can't argue against the pure logic here), you know Lou was never going to look at it that way...not when it came to Marty. 

[NJDevs4978]

Marty played what, 130 of the 210 games combined in those years? And Hedberg had a very good 35-40 from '10-12. How were they ever going to appreciably improve the goaltending situation short of shafting Brodeur outright? (and that was never a realistic option)

Edited December 5, 2013 by NJDevs4978

[Mike Brown]

A lot of money, but it needed to be done by them.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Marty played what, 130 of the 210 games combined in those years? And Hedberg had a very good 35-40 from '10-12. How were they ever going to appreciably improve the goaltending situation short of shafting Brodeur outright? (and that was never a realistic option)

 

Tri will keep pointing to the pure overall numbers and saying the goaltending was awful is '10-'11 and '11-'12, but like I've said, the goaltending showed that it could be good for long stretches during those seasons as well...it didn't hinder the Devils from getting to the Cup Finals (and once they got there, if someone told me Marty would hold the opposition to one regulation goal in four games, I would've happily taken that).  Yes, it stunk in the first half of the 2010-11 campaign, but they were hardly alone in that regard.  It wasn't terribly good for a significant chunk of 2011-12, but the Devils managed to overcome it (and were helped by having a great year in the shootout, in part by the goalies playing well in them, as Tri has acknowledged). 

 

If Lou can really be criticized for anything, it would be for bringing back Hedberg...having two 40+ year-olds in net is a pretty dangerous way to go (Marty was clearly coming back, and I understand why, and support it), but Lou must REALLY have not had any confidence in Frazee at all.  Hedberg had put up a respectable .915 save% in two seasons (61 games) as a Devil as well, so one can see why Lou thought he might be able to squeeze one more solid backup year out of him.