GDT: Devils at St. Louis at 8pm 2/12 - MSG+

[aclc79]

And where do we go from here?

[Antiquated Colorado Rockie]

21 minutes ago, aclc79 said:

And where do we go from here?

to the draft lottery

[Triumph]

11 hours ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

The team's being graded on the wrong curve in some ways...it's been discussed, but if someone told us that Cory would have barely played in the NHL this season and not been good whenever he did manage to play, and that Hall would miss this much of this season (with no end to his being out of the lineup in sight), the overall record is probably about what we would have expected.

This being said, man does it seem like this team has become way too comfortable with losing and mailing it in.  As a Met fan, I know full well what it's like to root for a team that is seemingly in perpetual "later, next year" mode.  I already saw one season that effectively got "punted away" in 2016-17.  And now it's happening again...I get that a variety of circumstances led to this (some of which can still be tied back to the prior regime), but it doesn't make it any less aggravating or disheartening.  At the very least, I'd least to see these guys try a little more...I usually don't try to read too much into effort levels (bad teams can look like they don't give a fvck just because), but I just don't see any real fight from this team.  On any level.   

I mean, we both know this team right now with the players they have is just going to get outplayed most nights.  There's not enough talent on the ice.  I feel like a lot of fans I see blame effort on a lot of nights when that's not the problem.  But last night, Severson's just not doing enough.  The way the team in general to me doesn't look like a team playing without 'effort' - if anything, there's too much effort, too many guys trying to do it themselves, or guys forcing plays.  It's unfocused effort.

 

[Neb00rs]

21 minutes ago, Triumph said:

I mean, we both know this team right now with the players they have is just going to get outplayed most nights.  There's not enough talent on the ice.  I feel like a lot of fans I see blame effort on a lot of nights when that's not the problem.  But last night, Severson's just not doing enough.  The way the team in general to me doesn't look like a team playing without 'effort' - if anything, there's too much effort, too many guys trying to do it themselves, or guys forcing plays.  It's unfocused effort.

 

This team constantly looks exasperated on the ice, especially after an opposing team's forward walks in with little trouble and scores. They seem like they have been putting in full effort the whole season. They're just bad, really bad and on top of being bad the coaches are lost, which makes the players at a loss to figure out what to do to at least stop the bleeding some nights. I'm no Xs and Os guy but you can protect a bad team from itself to an extent, so there aren't constant odd man rushes and other high quality scoring chances.

[Satans Hockey]

I've been so annoyed about this game I couldn't even bother to post till now. By far the worst performance of the season. Absolutely fvcking embarrassing. 

It wasn't all ED's fault but I'm done with him. Waive him, trade him for a bag of pucks, just get him off this team already. Put Chico in at this point when Cory can't play. I don't care anymore. I've had enough. I'm so happy he's gone after this season. We better not fvcking re-sign him. 

Edited February 14, 2019 by Satans Hockey

[Satans Hockey]

7 hours ago, jagknife said:

My issue with swapping guys like Yak for Gryba is its sending the message of guys being punished good performances. The perception to the fan-eye [myself in this case] is that regardless of good performance, if Hynes wants a specific player in, they get the slot over guys who are making pushes to earn that ice time. Yak, Murphy, namely two recent cases.

I freaking hate that Drew Stafford is getting solid minutes. I knew the second we kept him on, he would eventually become a permanent fixture. I hate that Hynes is trying to revive the enforcer role with Gabriel [admittedly I have no clue what he got his misconduct for last night, so if anyone can fill me in, I'd appreciate it.]

That's a big issue with me too, Gryba fvcking sucks and somehow Yak and Murphy are the ones who aren't playing. Mirco and some of the others don't make any sense being played over them either. Until Yak and Murphy keep making the same stupid mistakes that the rest of this sh!t defense keeps making then let them play. Bench Andy Greene for a damn game on a back to back. Not like it matters if he's captain at this point or not with how it's going. 

Gabriel gets picked on a lot here and other places but at least he shows some god damn passion unlike the rest of these god damn pathetic losers. He's been hitting everything in sight and if he can stay out of the box I'll take a whole 4th line of Gabriel's over  1 Drew Stafford. fvcking hilarious that Drew called a team meeting not so long ago, like what the fvck can this loser say? Hey guys you need to be less sh!tty than me! fvck off. Get rid of him. 

Gabriel tried to get Maroon to fight and he didn't want to go originally so he got a misconduct. Game was over at that point so I was fine with it. 

Edited February 14, 2019 by Satans Hockey

[PacificDevil]

Blame for this monstrosity should be evenly divided in three:

1) Management - you can’t tell me there haven’t been at least a few NHLers to sign in the off-season. Even if they weren’t household names but couple of solid 3rd liners who could play 2nd if asked to would alleviate some pressure on young kids and/or Hall. Why old, “out-of-touch with modern NHL” Lou was able to find some to bolster the depth? Why not go after DeHaan? Even during the season - for example Niederreiter was available via trade

2) Coaching staff - seems like every team is outcouching them collectively. What does Grier even do? How does Hynes not adjust at all on the road all season long?

3) Players - other than Coleman and Nico everyone from the “wave of the future” either not progressing or regressing 

 

[Gunslinger27]

All in !

[mfitz804]

8 hours ago, Satans Hockey said:

That's a big issue with me too, Gryba fvcking sucks and somehow Yak and Murphy are the ones who aren't playing. Mirco and some of the others don't make any sense being played over them either. Until Yak and Murphy keep making the same stupid mistakes that the rest of this sh!t defense keeps making then let them play. Bench Andy Greene for a damn game on a back to back. Not like it matters if he's captain at this point or not with how it's going. 

Gabriel gets picked on a lot here and other places but at least he shows some god damn passion unlike the rest of these god damn pathetic losers. He's been hitting everything in sight and if he can stay out of the box I'll take a whole 4th line of Gabriel's over  1 Drew Stafford. fvcking hilarious that Drew called a team meeting not so long ago, like what the fvck can this loser say? Hey guys you need to be less sh!tty than me! fvck off. Get rid of him. 

Gabriel tried to get Maroon to fight and he didn't want to go originally so he got a misconduct. Game was over at that point so I was fine with it. 

I don’t feel like that about Murphy, he played well in one game. Would I like to see more? Yes. Can I say he’s better? Not yet. 

Yakovlev has played well in 14 games. I think that’s a good enough sample size to say he should be in there. 

Of course, with the season being a bust, it’s the perfect time to see what everyone can do. I wouldn’t mind seeing a bunch of guys from Binghamton cycling through, just to see what they can do at the NHL level. 

[mfitz804]

7 hours ago, PacificDevil said:

Why not go after DeHaan? Even during the season - for example Niederreiter was available via trade.

How do you know we didn’t pursue both of those, and others?? That stuff is done outside your view. 

[Satans Hockey]

39 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

I don’t feel like that about Murphy, he played well in one game. Would I like to see more? Yes. Can I say he’s better? Not yet. 

Yakovlev has played well in 14 games. I think that’s a good enough sample size to say he should be in there. 

Of course, with the season being a bust, it’s the perfect time to see what everyone can do. I wouldn’t mind seeing a bunch of guys from Binghamton cycling through, just to see what they can do at the NHL level. 

I'd like to keep playing him and find out if he is or not. Murphy played well in his 1 game so why not reward him with another game instead of throwing Gryba back in there? Seasons over so let's figure it out. At least Murphy is only 25 and could possibly be part of the future going forward. Gryba is 30 and what you see is what you get. 

Yak is a no brainer me to get more games but they don't agree with us for whatever reason. 

Edited February 14, 2019 by Satans Hockey

[Aitchmack]

4 minutes ago, Satans Hockey said:

I'd like to keep playing him and find out if he is or not. Murphy played well in his 1 game so why not reward him with another game instead of throwing Gryba back in there? Seasons over so let's figure it out. At least Murphy is only 25 and could possibly be part of the future going forward. Gryba is 30 and what you see is what you get. 

Yak is a no brainer me to get more games but they don't agree with us for whatever reason. 

I agree with that. We've seen what Rooney, Seney, etc can do so why not call McLeod back up. He had all of five minutes last time. Studenic ha also been pretty good in the AHL this year and, in my opinion, is worth a look.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

12 hours ago, Triumph said:

I mean, we both know this team right now with the players they have is just going to get outplayed most nights.  There's not enough talent on the ice.  I feel like a lot of fans I see blame effort on a lot of nights when that's not the problem.  But last night, Severson's just not doing enough.  The way the team in general to me doesn't look like a team playing without 'effort' - if anything, there's too much effort, too many guys trying to do it themselves, or guys forcing plays.  It's unfocused effort.

 

I usually don't play the "(lack of) effort card" for this reason...bad teams (or even pretty good teams just not playing well) can look like they're not giving effort simply by virtue of not being good enough.  I rarely bring up effort. 

I'll definitely give you that some guys are probably trying to do a little too much.  But right now there does seem to be this general acceptance of losing...yeah, with this current roster, they're going to lose and in some of their games look noncompetitive, but I guess I'd just like to see them look a little less passive about it, not seem to resigned to it?  I don't know.  I'm just glad this season is winding down. 

[mfitz804]

1 hour ago, Satans Hockey said:

I'd like to keep playing him and find out if he is or not. Murphy played well in his 1 game so why not reward him with another game instead of throwing Gryba back in there? Seasons over so let's figure it out. At least Murphy is only 25 and could possibly be part of the future going forward. Gryba is 30 and what you see is what you get. 

I don't disagree. I'm just not prepared to say that he should be playing over other people based on performance in one game. 

Do I think he should have been sent back down after that game? No. And I wouldn't mind never seeing Gryba again, he brings absolutely nothing to the table. I don't find him to be especially physically imposing despite his size. I mean, he's not Brian Boyle non-physical for his size, but he's not exactly a one man wrecking crew either. 

26 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

I'm just glad this season is winding down. 

We still have another month and a half of being tortured lol. 

[DevsMan84]

I still think a lot of you are focusing too much on these little silly lineup decisions.  Our team is not teetering on if Yak and Murphy are in over Mueller and Gryba.  Frankly, all four of those plus a lot of our players on our roster are simply just not that good.  Like a lot of you, I didn't like Stephen Gionta either but stepping back, him and his 5-8 minutes a game were not the reason why the Devils lost a ton in those years he was on the team.

Without Hall, we have an OK top line.  We have a black hole as our entire second line.  Our third line is alright and fourth line is nothing special.  Our defense outside of Vatanen sucks and both of our NHL-level goalies are terrible.  Basically, we need help everywhere and the only fix is a few more years of rebuilding.  It sucks, it's painful, but it is what it is.

[HellOnICE]

A lot of these line up tinkers are deck chairs. There's some hope for next year, but we need health, we need Blackwood, a great top pick, and a FA. 

[mfitz804]

15 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

I still think a lot of you are focusing too much on these little silly lineup decisions.  Our team is not teetering on if Yak and Murphy are in over Mueller and Gryba.  Frankly, all four of those plus a lot of our players on our roster are simply just not that good. 

I wasn't suggesting it would improve our team. I'm only thinking its a good idea to check out what we've got. At this point, you and I could be the top defensive pairing and it wouldn't make much difference. 

[DevsMan84]

23 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

I wasn't suggesting it would improve our team. I'm only thinking its a good idea to check out what we've got. At this point, you and I could be the top defensive pairing and it wouldn't make much difference. 

I don't think a lot of these guys are really promising, so I am not sure how much there is to check.

On a roster of 20 on any given night, Devils really only have 3 players that I would even consider above average talent; Palms, Nico and Hall.  I am not saying it's realistic to have a roster full of stars, but what we have is pretty pitiful.

[Aitchmack]

38 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

I still think a lot of you are focusing too much on these little silly lineup decisions.  Our team is not teetering on if Yak and Murphy are in over Mueller and Gryba.  Frankly, all four of those plus a lot of our players on our roster are simply just not that good.  Like a lot of you, I didn't like Stephen Gionta either but stepping back, him and his 5-8 minutes a game were not the reason why the Devils lost a ton in those years he was on the team.

Without Hall, we have an OK top line.  We have a black hole as our entire second line.  Our third line is alright and fourth line is nothing special.  Our defense outside of Vatanen sucks and both of our NHL-level goalies are terrible.  Basically, we need help everywhere and the only fix is a few more years of rebuilding.  It sucks, it's painful, but it is what it is.

Surely then it makes sense then to evaluate players to see if they could help the team down the line rather than rinse and repeat with players you know don't have any future value? Which is what I'm (and, I think, some of the others on here) are getting at when we go on about Yak & Murphy. etc.

[mfitz804]

14 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

I don't think a lot of these guys are really promising, so I am not sure how much there is to check.

On a roster of 20 on any given night, Devils really only have 3 players that I would even consider above average talent; Palms, Nico and Hall.  I am not saying it's realistic to have a roster full of stars, but what we have is pretty pitiful.

Yeah, I'm not disputing that either. I think Yakovlev could be an NHL player. Is he going to be a superstar? No. Are we going to have 6 superstars on defense? Also no. You need average NHL players to fill in spots, and I would like to know if McLeod or Yakovlev or even Murphy are prepared to fill in those spots. 

In no way am I suggesting that any of them would improve our team, that's got to be done through the other three methods: drafting, trading, free agents. 

Oh, and by the way, talking about our roster any given night, who is this Hall guy? I don't remember such a player being in our lineup.

[Nicomo]

33 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

I don't think a lot of these guys are really promising, so I am not sure how much there is to check.

On a roster of 20 on any given night, Devils really only have 3 players that I would even consider above average talent; Palms, Nico and Hall.  I am not saying it's realistic to have a roster full of stars, but what we have is pretty pitiful.

Did anyone know Palms was going to be an above average player when he was in Anaheim? 

Who knows where the younger guys like Bratt, Blackwood, Butcher, etc will be talent-wise in a few years. 

[DevsMan84]

2 minutes ago, Nicomo said:

Did anyone know Palms was going to be an above average player when he was in Anaheim? 

Who knows where the younger guys like Bratt, Blackwood, Butcher, etc will be talent-wise in a few years. 

There were some sense he might be.  The issue is that the Ducks had a very crowded forward corps at the time and so he was pushed to third line duty.

I think between Blackwood, Bratt and Butcher, only Blackwood is the only one where I truly don't know what his potential is going to be.  I think Butcher is probably about as good as we are going to see and Bratt may get a little bit better.

[DevsMan84]

25 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

Yeah, I'm not disputing that either. I think Yakovlev could be an NHL player. Is he going to be a superstar? No. Are we going to have 6 superstars on defense? Also no. You need average NHL players to fill in spots, and I would like to know if McLeod or Yakovlev or even Murphy are prepared to fill in those spots. 

In no way am I suggesting that any of them would improve our team, that's got to be done through the other three methods: drafting, trading, free agents. 

Oh, and by the way, talking about our roster any given night, who is this Hall guy? I don't remember such a player being in our lineup.

Oh yeah you definitely need average NHL players, but we have too many players that I wouldn't even say they are average.

McLeod has been up and down in the AHL and Yakovlev is alright, but nothing anything special.  I guess he is better than the Gryba's and Mueller's on our team, but again it is marginal.

[DevsMan84]

40 minutes ago, Aitchmack said:

Surely then it makes sense then to evaluate players to see if they could help the team down the line rather than rinse and repeat with players you know don't have any future value? Which is what I'm (and, I think, some of the others on here) are getting at when we go on about Yak & Murphy. etc.

Yak and Murphy have and will get time in the AHL as well where they are also being evaluated.

[NJDfan1711]

2 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

Yak and Murphy have and will get time in the AHL as well where they are also being evaluated.

I think the point is to see what they can do against NHL competition, and with "NHL" caliber teammates, though with our current roster, I use that term loosely.  This season is a lost cause, so it doesn't hurt anything to bring them up.  Murphy's also 25 and Yak is 27, so it's really now or never.  Evaluating them in the AHL does absolutely nothing right now.