Devils 2019-20 Lineup/Notes Thread

[DevsMan84]

Just like I am sick of people posting the 14-15 lineup to excuse Shero, I am sick of people using Zacha's age to prop him up.  He is closing in on 250 NHL games.  I am also tired of hearing how great he is in advanced stats while he is a black hole on every line he is apart of.

He is definitely a bottom 6 forward on most NHL teams, I'd just prefer it be a team not named the Devils at this point.

[Gunslinger27]

4 hours ago, Devilsfan118 said:

So in other news, Friedman mentioned on the latest podcast that Greene fully intends on playing next year, and that he "hasn't thought" about whether he wants to be traded to a contender this year.

Some Athletes stick around a little too long trying to convince themselves and the team they still have it, but in reality they don't, and their just log jamming the pipe line.

Time to move on...........

[DevsMan84]

Just now, MB3 said:

Zacha’s age *does* prop him up. He could go pointless for another three full fvcking seasons and he’ll still have accomplished more than forum-pet Blake Coleman did by his age 25 season. 

Some players take time to develop. This is a bottom feeder franchise right now; why not let him develop? You’d rather trade him and see more games for Rooney and Hayden and whoever the living fvck Ben street is? 

I look at games played for players more than age.  I am not saying age isn't a factor, but I am not going to use it as an excuse either.

I really don't see him developing any more.  He might, but like JJ I don't want to sit around for multiple seasons waiting for him to put it together (this is where my comparison is, not level of talent) .  Also, I don't see how Zacha being shipped out means Rooney and Hayden are destined to get more games.  It is also not that hard at all to replace Zacha's 25-points per season average anyways.

[SterioDesign]

9 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

Just like I am sick of people posting the 14-15 lineup to excuse Shero, I am sick of people using Zacha's age to prop him up.  He is closing in on 250 NHL games.  I am also tired of hearing how great he is in advanced stats while he is a black hole on every line he is apart of.

He is definitely a bottom 6 forward on most NHL teams, I'd just prefer it be a team not named the Devils at this point.

Well if it makes you sick to hear legit and reasonable justifications maybe get that checked? 

Edited January 17, 2020 by SterioDesign

[Daniel]

2 minutes ago, MB3 said:

Implying that playing in the NHL as an 18/19 year old is similar to “going to summer school” is bordering on SD-levels of terrible metaphors. 

You made a suggestion that he's better than people are giving him credit for because he is second out of two possible players on the team that might plausibly meet the criteria for a statistic you came up with.  If anything, the summer school analogy is too kind to him.

Playing a full NHL season in your D+2 year on a bad team is not some outstanding feat and it certainly doesn't demonstrate that you are or not a good NHL player.

[DevsMan84]

1 minute ago, Gunslinger27 said:

Some Athletes stick around a little too long trying to convince themselves and the team they still have it, but in reality they don't, and their just log jamming the pipe line.

Time to move on...........

Reminds me of another long-time Devil.....

Anyways I do still like Greene personally, but yeah it is time to move on from him.

[DevsMan84]

9 minutes ago, SterioDesign said:

Well if it makes you sick to hear legit and reasonable justifications maybe get that checked? 

You can join me to get that hatred of Lou that is still blinding you checked as well.

Edited January 17, 2020 by DevsMan84

[SterioDesign]

19 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

You can join me to get that hatred of Lou that is still blinding you.

I don't hate Lou. But to Kool-aid drinkers who simply cannot admit that the guy could do anything wrong... yeah i'm sure pointing out some of his flaws could be seen as hate.

I mean come the fvck on. Everything i said about Lou was about his systematic ways that could only lead to one result and that result was exactly the team in 2015. Old group, no core, no assets and no future. No hindsight 20/20 there at all. I called it from long ago and exactly what i said would happen did happen. And now the same fans praising him are sh!tting on Shero for not being able to fix his mess in only a few seasons, plus they don't want to hear that as an excuse which is 500% reasonable.

Shero inherited from that horrible mess which would take years to rebuild from almost nothing. 4-5 years in the process fans are whining that he cannot build a team.

While Lou goes to the Islanders coming off a 100 pts season and 94 pts seasons before with a very young group and a few top prospects. He couldnt re-sign tavares then let his captain walk but he still re-sign and his young guys have incredible seasons. Makes a few moves and  thats it.

And to some fans... Shero is a loser for not being able to rebuilt from almost nothing in 4 years and Lou is a hero for getting the Islanders back in the playoffs after they had one decent but not enough to get a spot in a super strong division.

But yeah i'm the one who's blinded here. 

 

Edited January 17, 2020 by SterioDesign

[DevsMan84]

Just now, SterioDesign said:

I don't hate Lou. But to Kool-aid drinkers who simply cannot admit that the guy could do anything wrong... yeah i'm sure pointing out some of his flaws could be seen as hate.

I mean come the fvck on. Everything i said about Lou was about his systematic ways that could only lead to one result and that result was exactly the team in 2015. Old group, no core, no assets and no future. No hindsight 20/20 there at all. I called it from long ago and exactly what i said would happen did happen. And now the same fans praising him are sh!tting on Shero for not being able to fix his mess in only a few season.

Shero inherited from that horrible mess which would take years to rebuild from almost nothing. 4-5 years in the process fans are whining that he cannot build a team.

While Lou goes to the Islanders coming off a 100 pts season and 94 pts seasons before with a very young group and a few top prospects. He couldnt re-sign tavares then let his captain walk but he still re-sign and his young guys have incredible seasons. Makes a few moves and  thats it.

And to some fans... Shero is a loser for not being able to rebuilt from almost nothing in 4 years and Lou is a hero for getting the Islanders back in the playoffs after they had one decent but not enough to get a spot in a super strong division.

But yeah i'm the one who's blinded here. 

 

I don't know how many times I have to tell/remind you that I was pretty harsh on Lou as well in his last few years here.  I have many of the same complaints about how he handled things in his last 10 years as you do.  I am not arguing that.

However, it is also 5 years from when Lou last touched this team.  At some point the finger must also be pointed at Shero as well since most of the guys on our current roster are products of Shero.

[SterioDesign]

6 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

I don't know how many times I have to tell/remind you that I was pretty harsh on Lou as well in his last few years here.  I have many of the same complaints about how he handled things in his last 10 years as you do.  I am not arguing that.

However, it is also 5 years from when Lou last touched this team.  At some point the finger must also be pointed at Shero as well since most of the guys on our current roster are products of Shero.

When Shero makes a systematic mistake vs something that simply didnt pan out. Then im all for sh!tting on him. I was sh!tting on his decision not to sign Hall before the season started. I can understand that it was a tricky situation because of his injury but going in the season without having him signed was also a huge risk and sure enough... almost all his moves were moves that didnt quite pan out but were good moves on paper. It was always a deal or a now risk move.

Out out curiosity, did you go through the tread i made about Shero's track record? I know damn well it's easy to just vaguely say "Well 5 years is a long time"... yeah it's a long time. But in context, when you start with what he had... and go through every season, see who was available on the market... at the draft... and all the possible moves that could have been made to get more talent. It was almost impossible to get a better team "on paper" than what we have now. Not to mention we got EXTREMELY lucky to win the lottery twice. We shouldn't even have those 2 guys.

Edited January 17, 2020 by SterioDesign

[titans04]

 

[DevsMan84]

2 minutes ago, MB3 said:

Have you not been paying attention? Of course that's what it means. What else would it mean? 

So that means there is no possibility of a trade, free agent signing or bringing up a prospect?

OK.

[DevsMan84]

5 minutes ago, SterioDesign said:

When Shero makes a systematic mistake vs something that simply didnt pan out. Then im all for sh!tting on him. I was sh!tting on his decision not to sign Hall before the season started. I can understand that it was a tricky situation because of his injury but going in the season without having him signed was also a huge risk and sure enough... almost all his moves were moves that didnt quite pan out but were good moves on paper. It was always a deal or a now risk move.

Out out curiosity, did you go through the tread i made about Shero's track record? I know damn well it's easy to just vaguely say "Well 5 years is a long time"... yeah it's a long time. But in context, when you start with what he had... and go through every season, see who was available on the market... at the draft... and all the possible moves that could have been made to get more talent. It was almost impossible to get a better team "on paper" than what we have now. Not to mention we got EXTREMELY lucky to win the lottery twice. We shouldn't even have those 2 guys.

This point makes Shero look worse....

Shero made great moves, and not so great moves.  However, when you are going to end season 5 with the same or less points as season 1, that's just tires spinning in the mud.  Maybe at that point it is time for a different perspective rather than the possibility of 5 more years of spinning tires.

[Daniel]

Just now, MB3 said:

I didn't realize that I was the one who came up with this incredibly weird statistic called "points before their age __ season". I'm definitely in the wrong profession, that seems like a real money maker.

Again, Zacha is one of two players currently on the team that made it to the NHL early enough to get a certain amount of points before whatever age you came up with.  
 

Travis Zajac came into the league as a 21 year old and destroyed what Zacha did at the same age.  Jesper Bratt has been better than Zacha every year they’ve been the league together.  I could keep going, but those comparisons are much more valid.
 

I really don’t know what you’re trying to prove here.  Zacha is disappointing for a sixth overall pick based not only on that draft position but who the Devils could have drafted instead. And there’s not much of a chance that he’s going to get significantly better, but it’s not implausible that he does.  That said, he’s a perfectly capable NHL player.  Picking out some statistic that only demonstrates that he made it into the league at a younger age than almost everyone else on the team reflects only that, not that he is or is not particularly good now or in the future, which is what we’re talking about.

[SterioDesign]

13 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

This point makes Shero look worse....

Shero made great moves, and not so great moves.  However, when you are going to end season 5 with the same or less points as season 1, that's just tires spinning in the mud.  Maybe at that point it is time for a different perspective rather than the possibility of 5 more years of spinning tires.

That's simply not true at all. Are you purposely not looking at the big picture on purpose? if so. why?

First of all you didnt answer my other question. Did you go through the thread i made tracking his moves and the state of the team as it went on and what was possible? If you would look at it subjectively maybe you'd finally understand.

I mean how can you even suggest that finishing a season with the same points... but having a bunch of young guys not even in their primes yet and assets to make moves... and having an old group with no core and all players are past their prime and about to retire and no assets and not a single promising prospect is spinning tires and not an upgrade in that sense?

Honestly dude come on

[DevsMan84]

15 minutes ago, SterioDesign said:

That's simply not true at all. Are you purposely not looking at the big picture on purpose? if so. why?

First of all you didnt answer my other question. Did you go through the thread i made tracking his moves and the state of the team as it went on and what was possible? If you would look at it subjectively maybe you'd finally understand.

I mean how can you even suggest that finishing a season with the same points... but having a bunch of young guys not even in their primes yet and assets to make moves... and having an old group with no core and all players are past their prime and about to retire and no assets and not a single promising prospect is spinning tires and not an upgrade in that sense?

Honestly dude come on

That's because there are no awards, trophies, or banners out there that I know of for teams with the youngest, fastest or most talented players (well maybe Nashville may come up with one....).  At the end of the day what matters are wins and points in the standings.

You are not going to convince me this is "improvement"

[Devil Dan 56]

8 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

That's because there are no awards, trophies, or banners out there that I know of for teams with the youngest, fastest or most talented players (well maybe Nashville may come up with one....).  At the end of the day what matters are wins and points in the standings.

You are not going to convince me this is "improvement"

You're forgetting about all the assets that can be continuously flipped. 

[SterioDesign]

31 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

That's because there are no awards, trophies, or banners out there that I know of for teams with the youngest, fastest or most talented players (well maybe Nashville may come up with one....).  At the end of the day what matters are wins and points in the standings.

You are not going to convince me this is "improvement"

Well if you look at things that black and white no wonder you get it.

When you're rebuilding it's not about current success it's about the future.

The future of the 2015 team was GUARANTEED to get worst and worst and worst, there's just no way around it... 200% trending down.

This team now has the potential to trend up. We know some players will get better and we have assets to make moves now. Just that is improvement. 

 

Edited January 17, 2020 by SterioDesign

[Devilsfan118]

3 hours ago, MB3 said:

And again, since you guys will all spit at the sound of his name until DM does the merciful thing and shuts down the website, I'll defend him just as adamantly. He's on pace for 111 points through his age-22 season. Do you know who else on the current New Jersey Devils had 111 career points by their age-22 season?

1. Nico Hischier

that's the list. 

Did you intentionally omit the number of games played, or did do not consider it?

Edit: I've got to stop grabbing quotes before reading the rest of the thread. 

Regardless, I think it's pretty clear that that's a relatively meaningless statistic since few players break into the league at 18. And perhaps that's the problem, maybe we rushed him.

Edited January 17, 2020 by Devilsfan118

[DevsMan84]

1 hour ago, SterioDesign said:

Well if you look at things that black and white no wonder you get it.

When you're rebuilding it's not about current success it's about the future.

The future of the 2015 team was GUARANTEED to get worst and worst and worst, there's just no way around it... 200% trending down.

This team now has the potential to trend up. We know some players will get better and we have assets to make moves now. Just that is improvement. 

 

[SterioDesign]

4 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

I mean.. how can you say that you're sick of people using a specific excuse to justify a situation... then refuse to look into said excuse and give it a fair understanding.

I dont wan't to guess but the only reason you don't want to hear it is cause you don't want to accept it. 

I asked you many times if you went through Shero's track record starting with what he had to work with... and went through the timeline to see what was possible to get on paper by now. You keep ignoring it. It doesn't have anything to do with Shero or Lou. Any fvcking GM having to start with that roster would require a lot of work, time, luck and everything going his way.

Cause that very thread is a great, fair and comprehensive display of why we're using that "excuse". It's literally displaying the evolution of the roster, step by step, what was possible, realistic and how long it can take to rebuild a team. It's showing that we didn't make many bad moves "on paper". An incredible amount of moves didnt pan out but that's outside of anyone's hands in the management.

It's easy to say "5 years is too enough" when you're completely ignoring the situation. We had to replace like 80% of our team, the other 20% was average at best.. and you can only add players through trades...we didnt have much to trade... through signings... we could only sign guys around 28 years old... too old for our timeline and who would want to sign with this sh!t team? or draft them... but then it takes time to develop players. 

 

 

[Nicomo]

Man there’s a lot of back and forth going on in here over the same sh!t for the millionth time. Let me some up where I stand as simply as possible...

Zacha sucks, and no matter how many times you bring up his age my opinion won’t change unless I see drastic improvement from him on the ice on a consistent basis. Guy has 3 goals ffs. 

Lou was a better GM for the Devils than Shero was. Only looking at what he did his last handful of years is just as unfair as not taking into account what Shero inherited. 

[Devil Dan 56]

41 minutes ago, SterioDesign said:

I mean.. how can you say that you're sick of people using a specific excuse to justify a situation... then refuse to look into said excuse and give it a fair understanding.

I dont wan't to guess but the only reason you don't want to hear it is cause you don't want to accept it. 

I asked you many times if you went through Shero's track record starting with what he had to work with... and went through the timeline to see what was possible to get on paper by now. You keep ignoring it. It doesn't have anything to do with Shero or Lou. Any fvcking GM having to start with that roster would require a lot of work, time, luck and everything going his way.

Cause that very thread is a great, fair and comprehensive display of why we're using that "excuse". It's literally displaying the evolution of the roster, step by step, what was possible, realistic and how long it can take to rebuild a team. It's showing that we didn't make many bad moves "on paper". An incredible amount of moves didnt pan out but that's outside of anyone's hands in the management.

It's easy to say "5 years is too enough" when you're completely ignoring the situation. We had to replace like 80% of our team, the other 20% was average at best.. and you can only add players through trades...we didnt have much to trade... through signings... we could only sign guys around 28 years old... too old for our timeline and who would want to sign with this sh!t team? or draft them... but then it takes time to develop players. 

 

 

Sometimes moves have to be better than just good on paper. The team was becoming a revolving door. Constantly acquiring assets to then swap for other assets wasn't doing much. 

We're now at the point where assets that were supposed to help fix the team are now being traded for other assets again. Sooner or later you need to figure out which players are going to stay and create your culture

[SterioDesign]

16 hours ago, Devil Dan 56 said:

Sometimes moves have to be better than just good on paper. The team was becoming a revolving door. Constantly acquiring assets to then swap for other assets wasn't doing much. 

We're now at the point where assets that were supposed to help fix the team are now being traded for other assets again. Sooner or later you need to figure out which players are going to stay and create your culture

Well to me it was always clear that the goal was to build a younger group that could win together. We simply didn't have a group that we could re-tool. As much as Hall was our best player Nico was the player we had to build around. Then we got Jack. And it became even more apparent that our real window was always going to be around them.

Now last summer we got the opportunity to infuse a lot of talent in the lineup for cheap. So suddenly with Palms, Subban, Hall, Vats in their prime and maybe Gusev... we suddenly had a potential window. I even commented that this summer... that it was cool that we kind of had 2 windows... cause when you win the cup... you usually have a setup of... vets in their prime... and some really good young players still cheap and a good supporting cast. Window 1 didn't happen as many of the players didn't pan out as much as we hoped and coaching, goaltending and a bunch of stuff didn't go our way. So it made our players in their prime expendable and if the goal is to really surround our young core... we're better off betting on a 18 years old joining jack and Nico... than an overpaid vet who's about to decline

We still gotta remember that our real window is to win around Nico. And with Hall having a step out of the door... with his injury history... etc etc well we're likely going to look at this situation as a bullet dodged just like we're seeing Kovy now. Hall in 6-7-8 seasons at 10m + could have very well been a disaster. 

Edited January 18, 2020 by SterioDesign

[devlman]

Re Zacha: Is he still technically ‘young’ and capable of developing further? I suppose. Does he look, in any way shape or form - in any fvcking world - that he is progressing? Absolutely not. He honestly looks embarrassing out there. The effort literally isn’t there. 

The last game against Washington I spotted him coasting entire shifts. He doesn’t appreciate being here and given the chances his draft position has afforded him. He can gtfo.

As far as other lineup decisions go, why is McLeod or any other kid not playing over Hayden and Rooney?? I am so fvcking sick of seeing those two worthless sacks of sh!t get penciled into an NHL lineup every night. What have they done to deserve it? So tired of it. The one good thing from being a bad team is that you get to give your young players valuable NHL time and experience. Why is John Hayden on this team? I’m done...why is Nas still our coach? (Even from before Shero got fired? I can’t anymore with this garbage.

Edited January 18, 2020 by devlman