GDT Carolina at Devils 3-1 7pm

[sokar]

I thank the devils for being entertaining team to watch but now lets go for as high of a draft pick we can get.  Who knows maybe we can win one of the lottery drawings. 

[RunninWithTheDevil]

2 minutes ago, sokar said:

I thank the devils for being entertaining team to watch but now lets go for as high of a draft pick we can get.  Who knows maybe we can win one of the lottery drawings. 

In a sea of Facebook and Instagram nonsense, a voice of reason cries out from the chambers of NJDevs

[Satans Hockey]

4 minutes ago, sokar said:

I thank the devils for being entertaining team to watch but now lets go for as high of a draft pick we can get.  Who knows maybe we can win one of the lottery drawings. 

It's not like this team really has to do much at this point to keep losing.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Law of averages are a real bitch.  It's all evening out...doesn't make it any easier to watch though.  

My daughter is starting to take much more of an interest in watching more games on TV with me and over the last couple of weeks has been asking almost every night "Daddy, are the Devils playing tonight?  Can we watch?"  Sucks in that she's going to have to watch a lot of losses from now through the end of the season...I was hopeful for better and a possible flirtation with 90 points, but I think that ship is just about ready to leave the dock and sail away.  I think a lot of that has to do with confidence...I don't think these Devils have much of it left, now that the wins have stopped coming, and they're sure as he'll not good enough to overcome much of anything.  

Oh well...not like the losing will hurt in the end with the draft and all, and like SH posted, with the current state of the team, they'll lose plenty just by showing up.  Just kind of a shame that it's ending up like this, even with a free-fall being so predictable.  

Edited March 2, 2016 by Colorado Rockies 1976

[bostondevil11]

1 minute ago, Martyisth3b3st said:

Re: the Facebook fans. It's hard to read, sometimes. I'm shocked that many of these people are even intelligent enough to use a computer. The Facebook consensus yesterday was that Shero (or Lou, mentioned a bit) was an IDIOT for trading away our YOUNG AND HERALDED goal scorer, Lee Stempniak, for USELESS draft picks. 

Im not kidding. The amount of people calling Stempniak a "kid" and saying "we can't keep trading away our young scoring talent!" made me want to jump from a really tall building.

HA man I stopped following the facebook stuff a long time ago.  

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

3 minutes ago, Martyisth3b3st said:

Re: the Facebook fans. It's hard to read, sometimes. I'm shocked that many of these people are even intelligent enough to use a computer. The Facebook consensus yesterday was that Shero (or Lou, mentioned a bit) was an IDIOT for trading away our YOUNG AND HERALDED goal scorer, Lee Stempniak, for USELESS draft picks. 

Im not kidding. The amount of people calling Stempniak a "kid" and saying "we can't keep trading away our young scoring talent!" made me want to jump from a really tall building.

Oh sweet Jesus.  We definitely have our share of extra chromosomes gumming up the works among segments of our fanbase.  Scary.  But those are the same fans that probably thought "How could Shero pull the plug on a team that was going to the playoffs?!" 

[NJDfan1711]

Yep, that loss was hard.  A point wouldn't have done much, even two points wouldn't have been a huge help, but beating a bad team would've provided at least some hope.  Hope for now, and the future.  Instead, a crippling loss with the goal that cost the game coming with less than two minutes left really hurts and shows that you really are down there with the bottom teams in the league, at least skill wise.

It sucks because we've been in this situation for the last 2-3 years now, and it hasn't gotten much better.  Blandisi has been a nice surprise, and I'd even argue maybe Boucher is going to become a legit 3rd/2nd line player eventually, but other than that we really don't have an exciting pipeline of players.  Couple that with the fact that other guys like Henrique, Palmireri, and even Cammalleri are having good and/or career years which they likely won't be able to duplicate, and the 2016-17 season is probably not going to be any different. 

As we all feared, by the time this is "fixed", Cory is probably out of his good years, and we'll go from not having scoring to not having any goaltending.  Unless of course we find the next Marty, and/or are able to make another deal for the next Cory.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

21 minutes ago, NJDfan1711 said:

Yep, that loss was hard.  A point wouldn't have done much, even two points wouldn't have been a huge help, but beating a bad team would've provided at least some hope.  Hope for now, and the future.  Instead, a crippling loss with the goal that cost the game coming with less than two minutes left really hurts and shows that you really are down there with the bottom teams in the league, at least skill wise.

It sucks because we've been in this situation for the last 2-3 years now, and it hasn't gotten much better.  Blandisi has been a nice surprise, and I'd even argue maybe Boucher is going to become a legit 3rd/2nd line player eventually, but other than that we really don't have an exciting pipeline of players.  Couple that with the fact that other guys like Henrique, Palmireri, and even Cammalleri are having good and/or career years which they likely won't be able to duplicate, and the 2016-17 season is probably not going to be any different. 

As we all feared, by the time this is "fixed", Cory is probably out of his good years, and we'll go from not having scoring to not having any goaltending.  Unless of course we find the next Marty, and/or are able to make another deal for the next Cory.

I gotta see what the offseason brings.  Shero has enough picks that he can make a move for a piece that can help next year's team right away.  They'll have money to spend too.  I don't see Shero being passive. 

I think Henrique and Palmieri can approximate what they're doing this year in seasons going forward, but not much better.

Lots of question marks for sure though...it's really hard to tell where this team will be in the next 2-3 seasons. 

[sundstrom]

a lot has to do with where the devils are at the draft. if they're 8-10, i don't think you'll see much more than what happened last summer with some picks, maybe an interesting trade and cheap UFA gambles.

if they get into the lottery though, that absolutely changes things. and if they win it and get 1 overall where they draft matthews, then they are actually in position to make a dramatic turnaround immediately with a different mindset over the summer (going after big fish UFA).

[DJ Eco]

14 hours ago, sokar said:

I thank the devils for being entertaining team to watch but now lets go for as high of a draft pick we can get.  Who knows maybe we can win one of the lottery drawings. 

We've lost 6 of our last 7, so I don't think we need to do anything different to get there at this point haha... Meanwhile, Carolina and Philly are doing our bidding by hitting a bit of stride down the stretch. Ottawa, Montreal, and even Columbus to a similar but less extent. They are not looking as bad as we are down the stretch.

This year was a success. They played their hardest, their play and effort kept the fans in the seats and kept the fans' interest for almost as long as possible so it didn't feel like a hopeless pathetic 50-60% attendance rebuilding year. They've seemed to dip at exactly the right time, just about one more month and 7 home games left (most of the rest of the season are our final road trips) and we very well might end up in a good draft spot like many of us wanted. We *will not* make that push for the playoffs and just come up short the last week of the season with the 13th-14th draft pick, which is the scenario most of us feared, just won't happen.

This might've even been the best case scenario, taking things like attendance and fan excitement into account. As a STH, I wouldn't have been able to handle more of these losses sprinkled into our record the past 5 months. They gave us something to rally around for most of the season and can now close the book at just the right time to make us better. Compared to the last 4 seasons, I feel like I got my money's worth this season, for whatever that's worth. Shero wanted us to be proud at season's end, and that's how I feel now, no matter how the last month unfolds.

Edited March 2, 2016 by DJ Eco

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

The downer right now has to be the (arrested) development of the young D.  Wasn't so long ago that we were hopeful about Merrill, Severson, and Gelinas.  One of them is already gone and looks like he won't amount to much (but will probably get some chances due to his shot).  The jury's still out on the other two. 

Also a bummer to see some individual confidence levels down...Palmieri passing up some shots last night was a sign of that. 

But yeah, if you're going to have a down year that doesn't see your team near the very bottom of the league, I guess this wasn't a bad way to go about it...putting up a good enough record to keep fans interested and coming out, as opposed to digging a huge hole to start to season and taking most of the season to get up to a respectable record.  Would've been interesting to see if Shero's approach would've been slightly different if the team had been able to notch some more points before the deadline...he probably still would've moved Gelinas and Matteau, but would he have kept Stempniak?  But of course we don't get to check out alternate timelines.

Edited March 2, 2016 by Colorado Rockies 1976

[NJDfan1711]

12 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

The downer right now has to be the (arrested) development of the young D.  Wasn't so long ago that we were hopeful about Merrill, Severson, and Gelinas.  One of them is alread

Precisely.  That was the saving grace, was that we had, not necessarily a stockpile at D, but at least 2 solid pairings with a decent 3rd to shuffle guys in and out as needed.  Now though, it's looking like this:

Greene -- Solid for now, but continues to get older each year and will fall off quickly before long I think

Larsson - Probably our best defenseman, perhaps now, and for the future

Moore - Probably a good second liner, we'll still need another top pair D-man when Greene retires or declines hard

Schlemko - Same as above.  I know some people weren't keen on him, but I think he's a good 2nd line guy.

Severson - A question mark after this year, but possibly still the most potential.

Merrill - Probably nothing more than a serviceable 3rd pair guy at this point.  If that.

Warsofsky - Or however you spell his name.  Don't know much about him, we'll have to see what he becomes.

The good news is, all of these guys are still young.  Really young.  Besides Greene, Schlemko is the oldest one, and he's only gonna be 29 in a few months.  He has 5 good years left in him hopefully.  Not saying we have to hang on to him, but I don't see any reason why he couldn't become a decent mainstay for us on the blueline.

 

[DJ Eco]

1 hour ago, NJDfan1711 said:

Precisely.  That was the saving grace, was that we had, not necessarily a stockpile at D, but at least 2 solid pairings with a decent 3rd to shuffle guys in and out as needed.  Now though, it's looking like this:

Greene -- Solid for now, but continues to get older each year and will fall off quickly before long I think

Larsson - Probably our best defenseman, perhaps now, and for the future

Moore - Probably a good second liner, we'll still need another top pair D-man when Greene retires or declines hard

Schlemko - Same as above.  I know some people weren't keen on him, but I think he's a good 2nd line guy.

Severson - A question mark after this year, but possibly still the most potential.

Merrill - Probably nothing more than a serviceable 3rd pair guy at this point.  If that.

Warsofsky - Or however you spell his name.  Don't know much about him, we'll have to see what he becomes.

The good news is, all of these guys are still young.  Really young.  Besides Greene, Schlemko is the oldest one, and he's only gonna be 29 in a few months.  He has 5 good years left in him hopefully.  Not saying we have to hang on to him, but I don't see any reason why he couldn't become a decent mainstay for us on the blueline.

 

Agree with everything you said.

Maybe I don't really know what I'm talking about, this is just eyeballing: but I feel like there aren't many teams anymore with a truly "great" unstoppable defense anymore. The realities of salary cap and accommodating $8-9-10 million forward contracts and the sharp rise in good goaltending has forced a lot of teams to have to make compromises on what 6 defenseman they could acquire and dress. I think just 2-3 years ago, many teams' defenses were at a much higher level (Rangers, Predators, Blackhawks) but a lot of that talent has been let go or traded and spread more evenly around the league. I look at Greene and Larsson and defensively, they are as sound as any top 4 D-men in the league. I look at Schlemko the past couple months and he is just as sound as any bottom 4 D-men in the league. It's offensive contributions from them that we're lacking but I like our defensive depth. Hopefully Santini rises to the occasion soon, and Severson breaks out of his sophomore slump.