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Devils aquire Sami Vatanen for Henrique + Blandisi + '18 3rd


SterioDesign

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27 minutes ago, lucifer91 said:

Op is not me...this is a real FB my friend Anthony put up saying goodbye to Henrique...

28219.png on another note, i heard that Sami has been injury prone,  any truth to this?  

Looks like he’s never played a full season,with 71 games being his high twice. 

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43 minutes ago, Satans Hockey said:

Don't recall if anyone posted this but this makes Greene and Zajac the last remaining players who were on the team the last time we made the playoffs. 

Yeah, it's been talked about. It's crazy, it seems like just yesterday we were discussing the last players remaining from the '03 Cup team. Now we're discussing the last players remaining from the '12 team. It's hard to imagine that last cup win was almost 15 years ago. Scott Stevens hasn't played hockey in well over a decade. What?

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To even think of that playoff run at all is crazy. It was so long ago, I was still stationed on a CG ship in Key West driving up to the games for that series against the Panthers. Seems like eons ago. Now I've been stationed in Philly for the past 5 years, a STH all 5 of them, and I'm engaged... my whole damn world is different lol.

I'll never forget Henrique's contributions to the team, and I appreciate him being a bright spot during what is easily the worst stretch of Devils hockey in my lifetime. I am sure he will be fine in Anaheim. I also tend to agree with those who said he kinda lived off that ECF goal. Of course he had that 30 goal season as well, and he's generally had productive seasons here, but the writing was on the wall... Nico, Zacha, McLeod, even Jesper Boqvist further down the line... The thing I'm happiest about is that he was enough to get a legitimate bonafide top 4 defenseman. I mean we're talking about a guy who probably belongs on the 3rd line, but can give you 2nd line minutes too. Vatanen fills a need for us and overall just hard to argue against this move, my belief in Shero strengthens with practically every move he makes... we're are building towards something special here.

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49 minutes ago, vadvlfan said:

Not to worry, when Rico's contract is up in '19, Shero will sign him back here.  

Don't see that happening...there's still depth and youth beyond what's already here, and Rico will be a UFA, which means there's a good chance he gets overpaid...probably not drastically, but enough.  Shero will have other guys he'll need to start paying in the near future.

11 hours ago, CarpathianForest said:

Seems a hefty price to pay.

But it wasn't.  It's been explained in detail in multiple posts as to why, and sorry, not every trade is going to be an outright fleece job...you have to give to get.  Anaheim wasn't just going to give Vatanen away for someone that couldn't help them right away...they had a specific need, and Henrique will help fill it, even though he's a pretty average player.  Blender is really more of a throw-in...maybe he surprises us all and becomes a solid NHLer, but as it's been pointed out, he's already 23, and has already gotten two extended looks, including 27 out of the Devils' final 31 games last season...he didn't distinguish himself at all in that run.  In his last 50 NHL games, he's managed 14 points (3 goals and 11 assists) and is a -23...yeah, he's played on bad teams which can hurt the numbers, but he just seems like one of those players who will put up solid enough numbers in the AHL to have some fans wondering, "Man, why not bring this guy up and see what he can do?", and then will quickly remind you why he's not a full-time NHL player...like I said in a previous post, maybe eventually a bad team gives him a full season at the NHL level because they really don't have anything to lose by giving him a shot.  He has 68 NHL games to his credit...if he doesn't get a "what the hell, why not?" chance with a team that knows that they're not playing for anything for a few years, I'd be surprised if he plays much more than 200 nondescript games or so in the NHL. 

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i'm still processing this. Clearly still not over it lol

Again as a hockey trade it's perfect.

What i'm really hoping is that it's not impacting the chemistry of the team. I could see Henrique being the heart of that team, the fun guy who's been there for a long time and rallying everyone together. He was truly a great leader and apparently he's the one who started the trend of moving to Hoboken to make it cool again. I heard a podcast that Henrique made the Devils cool again. And i kind of agree. He was really active with the fans and especially on social media.

Again, i know it's a business and those guys are professionals but i really just hope that it's not impacting the team spirit too much. 

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1 minute ago, SterioDesign said:

i'm still processing this. Clearly still not over it lol

Again as a hockey trade it's perfect.

What i'm really hoping is that it's not impacting the chemistry of the team. I could see Henrique being the heart of that team, the fun guy who's been there for a long time and rallying everyone together. He was truly a great leader and apparently he's the one who started the trend of moving to Hoboken to make it cool again. I heard a podcast that Henrique made the Devils cool again. And i kind of agree. He was really active with the fans and especially on social media.

Again, i know it's a business and those guys are professionals but i really just hope that it's not impacting the team spirit too much. 

That’s my concern as well. Has to be a consideration when you move pieces in or out of a successful team. 

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5 minutes ago, EdgeControl said:

again, I wonder if zacha was a choice in this and hynes moved him up in bratts spot so the ducks scouts could get a look at hi m.. conspiracy theory

oh well marcus and sami are in... LGDs

Why isn't it just as likely he got moved up because he's been playing well since he got back in the lineup? I don't know why everyone is so ready to trade this kid, Anaheim probably asked for him, Shero probably said no. They clearly still believe in this kid, he's only 20 years old too.

Given the choice, I'd rather give up Henrique than Zacha, for the record.

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Just now, CommonDreads said:

Why isn't it just as likely he got moved up because he's been playing well since he got back in the lineup? I don't know why everyone is so ready to trade this kid, Anaheim probably asked for him, Shero probably said no. They clearly still believe in this kid, he's only 20 years old too.

Given the choice, I'd rather give up Henrique than Zacha, for the record.

It very well could have been that, Im actually a zacha supporter... but they are obviously not thrilled about his playing style.. so im just speculating

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I get the whole messing with team chemistry thing off the ice, but just dont think it's that big of a deal. I think he was pretty close with Palmieri, Hayes, Kinkaid and others. Who is not to say Sami won't be a good locker room guy, either? I heard a funny story yesterday about Vatanen when he initially got called up to the Ducks. He was staying at the same hotel the Sharks were and was in search of his morning coffee. Instead of going to a Starbucks or whatever, he just intrudes on the Sharks' team breakfast and helps himself to their coffee without saying a word or acknowledging anyone. The Sharks had no idea who he was because he was still a prospect. Point is, each guy brings his own quirks to the locker room dynamic.

On the ice, we know Henrique didn't have good chemistry with anyone since Elias and before that, Parise/Kovy. With limited vision, average speed and ok hockey iq, he wasn't married to anyone like Nico/Hall or Zajac/Parise or Elias/Zubrus or Elias/Gomez or Elias/Gionta or Elias/Clarkson or Elias/Sykora(COME BACK PATTY :(). He just wasn't an easy guy to play with. The only above average traits in Henrique's game are finishing and penalty killing. He wasn't a possession driver, not a shot generator, not a great playmaker and his effort was a little spotty at times. I'm not big on calling out effort but you could see he wasn't engaged all the time. The thing I'll be interested in seeing is the new pk pairs. My guess: Zajac/Bratt.....Gibbons/Coleman....Hischier/Zacha

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5 minutes ago, EdgeControl said:

It very well could have been that, Im actually a zacha supporter... but they are obviously not thrilled about his playing style.. so im just speculating

I see it more so from the quotes that they like his playing style very much, they just want to see more aggressiveness out of him on a more consistent basis. There's a lot to like there, very good two-way player, great passer, seems to have a good hockey IQ and I think he's a more capable goal scorer than he's shown thus far, it's just finding the compete out him more often I think is the key with Pavel.

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On 11/30/2017 at 10:22 AM, sundstrom said:

If Rico wasn't a handsome social media darling with the most important goal in 10 years, everyone would be thrilled with this move.

Sometimes that's all it takes my friend. For me.. the man single-handedly exonerated 94. That alone was enough to earn him a lifetime of loyalty. Add in an additional 8 seasons of service, and you get a luminary.. in what has otherwise been (outside of 2012) some hard times for this franchise.

You will be missed Rico.

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I can't help but feel this is a good trade all round. Rico has looked like he could do with a change of scenery and Blandisi just hasn't shown enough to stay with the big club. We get an upgrade on defence, that we all knew was needed, at a reasonable age on a reasonable contract.

Thanks for everything Rico. You'll be missed. 

Welcome Sami. We look forward to seeing what you add to this new Devils team.

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