GDT: Devils @ Rags 3/7 7PM

[SterioDesign]

2 minutes ago, Devil Dan 56 said:

Blackwood didn't start out too great. He played terrible coming in for Cory in the first game and then got crushed against Buffalo. 7 goals or something? 

It took a little time for him to settle down. 

He's pretty much been the starter though once it became apparent that Cory wasn't recovered. Mac played 6 of 10 in October (including that home opening relief appearance), and then 12 of 15 in November. 

to me goaltending was the biggest issue for this team. All the blown lead were mostly because of the goaltending. So many weak goals that you can't put on coaching

[NJDevs4978]

9 hours ago, njbuff said:

I ask this question to the experts on here.............

 

With this recent surge, is the future not as bleak for the Devils or is all this a mirage?

In terms of Blackwood, no mirage.

In terms of everything else, color me skeptical.  Especially with dudes like Mermis and Claesson on defense.  They can't really be better than Greene, Vat and Butcher and our defense wasn't that great WITH them.  Well maybe they're better than Butcher.  And Cory hahaha his junktime surges are becoming as regular as clockwork.

Edited March 9, 2020 by NJDevs4978

[NJDevs4978]

3 hours ago, mfitz804 said:

What about the whole “Fire Hynes” movement, I thought coaching was most of our problem?

It certainly didn't help, and Nas of all people getting this kind of performance out of a liquidated team makes Hynes who had the full roster look even more laughably bad.  Heck the only run they had with Hynes this year was with Fitz behind the bench too.  But we don't know who the coach is going to be next year, mostly cause we don't know who the GM's going to be.  So I'm not getting too attached to Nas.

Edited March 9, 2020 by NJDevs4978

[SterioDesign]

1 minute ago, Devil Dan 56 said:

That wasn't his only mistake. You keep trying to hammer this flawless way to never lose a UFA but it's an incredibly narrow view that leads to endless asset procurement

I didn't say it was his "only mistake" i said it was the one time he didn't do it the right way and he sure paid the price for it.

It's also the best way to actually keep your players before they can feel the pull of leaving

[NJDevs4978]

And if he had given Hall a blank check sight unseen off of injury and he'd fluttered around with the middling season he's had (16 goals and 52 points in 64 games) how hideous would that contract look?  So how did Shero 'pay' for not signing Hall?  He didn't lock himself into a bad contract and got something for him, this wasn't Parise 2.0 though it had the same inherent problem of the guy getting hurt before his walk year.

Edited March 9, 2020 by NJDevs4978

[SterioDesign]

16 minutes ago, NJDevs4978 said:

And if he had given Hall a blank check sight unseen off of injury and he'd fluttered around with the middling season he's had (16 goals and 52 points in 64 games) how hideous would that contract look?  So how did Shero 'pay' for not signing Hall?  He didn't lock himself into a bad contract and got something for him, this wasn't Parise 2.0 though it had the same inherent problem of the guy getting hurt before his walk year.

You can buyout players, you can trade them for cheap worst comes to worst (see how we got Subban) etc etc At least you're keeping control and as much as it sucks its still better than losing a player for nothing, especially if you're rebuilding

[mfitz804]

21 minutes ago, NJDevs4978 said:

And if he had given Hall a blank check sight unseen off of injury and he'd fluttered around with the middling season he's had (16 goals and 52 points in 64 games) how hideous would that contract look?  So how did Shero 'pay' for not signing Hall?  He didn't lock himself into a bad contract and got something for him, this wasn't Parise 2.0 though it had the same inherent problem of the guy getting hurt before his walk year.

It also assumes that he would have accepted a deal. He specifically said that he wouldn’t and was going to wait to see what level of commitment the team had to winning.

If you want to argue that had he been offered a deal and said no, he should have been traded sooner, that’s a better argument. But you also had him coming off a lost season and didn’t know what shape he was in. Like mentioned in the quote above, you might have paid him $11-12m a season for 16 goals and 52 points, and people would still have been calling for Shero’s head. 

In any event, he’s gone, so fvck that big lipped motherfvcker. 

[Devil Dan 56]

29 minutes ago, SterioDesign said:

I didn't say it was his "only mistake" i said it was the one time he didn't do it the right way and he sure paid the price for it.

It's also the best way to actually keep your players before they can feel the pull of leaving

It’s not the right way. It’s just your favorite way. And while it keeps assets it also keeps you in a perpetual rebuild which is exactly what we saw here. 

And signing Hall to the contract he was going to be looking for would have been an absolute mess with the way he’s been playing this season. I don’t know if Hall is getting back to MVP level. 

[SterioDesign]

43 minutes ago, Devil Dan 56 said:

It’s not the right way. It’s just your favorite way. And while it keeps assets it also keeps you in a perpetual rebuild which is exactly what we saw here. 

And signing Hall to the contract he was going to be looking for would have been an absolute mess with the way he’s been playing this season. I don’t know if Hall is getting back to MVP level. 

It's funny cause we had to rebuild because we had no talent, no core and no assets to do anything. That's undeniable.

Where we are NOW is not a result of anything we did in the last 5 years. We're in a "perpetual rebuild" (lol) because we started rebuilding from almost NOTHING and because of that it was going to take a long time to gather enough assets and restock the roster with talent. Which was a result of years of letting top guys with value walk for nothing, not getting anything for them, not drafting much, drafting badly when we did, patching holes with old guys that would just fade out and trying to win when we had no chance and being a perpetual aging bubble team.

I mean as if that we're in a perpetual rebuild now because we're... getting too many assets? haha i mean what are you even saying here?

Edited March 9, 2020 by SterioDesign

[sundstrom]

The devils sucked because of bad goaltending. The devils are now half decent because of very good goaltending. 
 

the rest of the team was and is still, pretty average. 
 

this isn’t rocket science. 

[Guadana]

3 hours ago, SterioDesign said:

It's funny cause we had to rebuild because we had no talent, no core and no assets to do anything. That's undeniable.

Where we are NOW is not a result of anything we did in the last 5 years. We're in a "perpetual rebuild" (lol) because we started rebuilding from almost NOTHING and because of that it was going to take a long time to gather enough assets and restock the roster with talent. Which was a result of years of letting top guys with value walk for nothing, not getting anything for them, not drafting much, drafting badly when we did, patching holes with old guys that would just fade out and trying to win when we had no chance and being a perpetual aging bubble team.

I mean as if that we're in a perpetual rebuild now because we're... getting too many assets? haha i mean what are you even saying here?

Oh boy can we let it go this time when we had nothing 5 years ago?

ok we had nothing those days, now we had five real players. Or six. Hughes and Hischier - it’s good to have first picks but you can’t give gold medal for mathematical luck to your gm in seasons when team svck. And this picks are questionable still(yeah I like both but shero didn’t shot in bull eye). Palms was a good trade, he is 7th best rw in scoring in last five years in nhl.  but look at njdevs forum - we have enough guys who want to trade our best and only one scorer. From team that has only one scorer and needs in scorer for something that can became or can’t became useful. It’s more a question to their logic but we had much rumors about that. Zacha is a useful third line center, but he was picked in this five years and he is only third line center. Is it a coaching question or picking question - it’s not even bronze medal. We had Bratt and he is good, we have Blackwood and now he is a best from what we have in this five years.  And Gusev who can walk away and can’t play against real players. Other than that everything bad has context. But in five years that’s all we have now. This team should get real fight for playoff and our mvp resign. I’m glad we didn’t resign that crap but that was a strategy. Vats goes for b-prospect, hall goes for b-prospect + mathematics chances,  joha goes for not real math chances.

Shero had a strategy, had a peak of it, had his Hynes faith and in five years after all he had one working deal with palms and two real good draft picks. That all in five years of rebuilding. Team still far away from the rebuilds end.  We have good prospect smith but he lose his roster place to Mirco the great muller. We can’t say will he ever be a solid dman in nhl or he will be another butcher. All we have now for our future is Severson. Minus man of the league. 
 

we done with Lou and with his favored conte. And we done with shero because he didn’t win much except Blackwood and lose enough. Can we turn this pages?

[Devil Dan 56]

8 hours ago, SterioDesign said:

It's funny cause we had to rebuild because we had no talent, no core and no assets to do anything. That's undeniable.

Where we are NOW is not a result of anything we did in the last 5 years. We're in a "perpetual rebuild" (lol) because we started rebuilding from almost NOTHING and because of that it was going to take a long time to gather enough assets and restock the roster with talent. Which was a result of years of letting top guys with value walk for nothing, not getting anything for them, not drafting much, drafting badly when we did, patching holes with old guys that would just fade out and trying to win when we had no chance and being a perpetual aging bubble team.

I mean as if that we're in a perpetual rebuild now because we're... getting too many assets? haha i mean what are you even saying here?

"Years of top guys leaving" is your way of saying you can't get over Parise. We get it. 

And perpetual rebuild is exactly what Ray had us in. We became a revolving door. He was acquiring players for assets and then trading them again for more assets. Eventually you need to stop acquiring assets and start playing hockey. 

That "trying to win when we had no chance" line is so sad. The idea that you only "go for it" after a decade of losing and acquiring is insane. As is the idea that no matter what, you always need to be trading expiring FA's because you are terrified of losing them for nothing. 

 

 

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

10 hours ago, SterioDesign said:

I didn't say it was his "only mistake" i said it was the one time he didn't do it the right way and he sure paid the price for it.

It's also the best way to actually keep your players before they can feel the pull of leaving

What price was that?  He did exactly what you should do, when it's become clear that your team has no chance of making the playoffs, and you don't think you can re-sign your guy (or simply have decided not to)...he traded his big-name UFA-to-be and got a 1st-rounder and other pieces back.  I think that Shero handled the Hall situation about as well as he possibly could have.  I have zero issues with him over that one.  

[mfitz804]

39 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

What price was that?  He did exactly what you should do, when it's become clear that your team has no chance of making the playoffs, and you don't think you can re-sign your guy (or simply have decided not to)...he traded his big-name UFA-to-be and got a 1st-rounder and other pieces back.  I think that Shero handled the Hall situation about as well as he possibly could have.  I have zero issues with him over that one.  

Shero had no chance of re-signing Hall. The money was irrelevant and Hall made that clear by saying he wanted to see the team’s commitment to winning before discussing a deal. He knew (and still does) that the money would be there, either from us, or from someone else in free agency. 

That we tried to keep him and failed, I have no problem with that. It happens. 

Edited March 9, 2020 by mfitz804

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

1 minute ago, mfitz804 said:

Shero has no chance of re-signing Hall. The money was irrelevant and Hall made that clear by saying he wanted to see the team’s commitment to winning before discussing a deal. He knew (and still does) that the money would be there, either from us, or from someone else in free agency. 

That we tried to keep him and failed, I have no problem with that. It happens. 

I know you've firmly believed the bolded from Day 1, but I still think that Hall wasn't fully closed off from sticking around had the team played a whole lot better this season while he was here...but the early suckage (0-4-2 on their way to that putrid 9-17-5 start) killed whatever chances there were of Hall staying.

But yeah, going into the season Shero took a shot that maybe Hall could re-sign, but quickly realized it wasn't going to happen, and to Shero's credit, he didn't fvck around with an injury-prone player and dealt him off pretty early.  There's things people can get on Shero about (waiting too long to fire Hynes), but I don't think he screwed up with Hall at all (and I'm not saying that you're saying that he did...I agree with the last two sentences of your post, especially since Hall's value was mucked up by having missed a ton of games due to injury...at least he was here long enough to show just enough that a team was willing to deal for him, and not at a pure discount price).

I do wonder how big the money is going to be for him.  He's had a very ordinary kind of season, and even though it's clearly not all on him, two teams have performed better without him than with him in their lineups.  His agent isn't going to have a great case to make, as to how having Hall in the fold at top dollar is going to greatly improve your team.  He'll have to bring up 2017-18 (a season that's looking more and more like a real outlier) a hell of a lot.   

[SterioDesign]

3 hours ago, Devil Dan 56 said:

"Years of top guys leaving" is your way of saying you can't get over Parise. We get it. 

And perpetual rebuild is exactly what Ray had us in. We became a revolving door. He was acquiring players for assets and then trading them again for more assets. Eventually you need to stop acquiring assets and start playing hockey. 

That "trying to win when we had no chance" line is so sad. The idea that you only "go for it" after a decade of losing and acquiring is insane. As is the idea that no matter what, you always need to be trading expiring FA's because you are terrified of losing them for nothing. 

You seem to forget how i called Parise leaving based on how he handled things before. Elias almost walking, Rafalski walking, Niedermayer walking, Holik, gionta, gomez etc etc etc It was a systematic flawless approach.

You're missing the point, what i'm saying is not as black and white. All i want a GM to do is start a discussion early to get a sense of what the player wants. If you want to keep him and he's open to stay, then you sign him. If he's not sure or straight up don't want to. Then you have that information, which can help you make a decision then or later on. So you can actually control the situation vs blindly navigating through it.

Clarkson was a good example. We were a bubble team with not much chances at the cup then, he was at the top of his value and we just lost our captain recently to free agency.

Clarkson's demand was insane, like a day after they finally talked like a week before the draft Lou gave up on him knowing he'd never give him that sort of contract and let him walk. 

Now if you KNOW before the deadline what he's looking for and that you know you 100% won't be signing him. Then you can make an educated decision and gauge your chances with and without him, knowing you'll be losing that asset if you keep him. And if you decide to keep him, at least it was your call to lose him for nothing vs giving all the power to the player you want to keep to walk on his own. That's your fvcking job to make decisions so why wouldn't you want all the information you want when you make them vs "we have a chance, we go for it no matter what, fvck the future". Refusing to talk to players during the season is just a fvcking dumb rule. Even Elias called it out.

I mean... how delusional is to to actually want to sit and go over the scenarios, pros and cons and assess the current state of the team and it's chances and future of the team and make a decision trying to figure out what's best ultimately for the franchise, to make a move to win now or to make a move for the future. 

To say "if you have even just a slim chance go all in no matter what" is incredibly reckless. In what world does that make sense applied to anything? "oh let's go all out and buy lottery tickets with my whole paycheck even if i need to pay my bills and my kids needs to go to the dentist soon". In any situation you have to sit and analyse the situation, it's common sense

And it's not just about Lou. I said the same thing about Colombus last year or about Shero last summer. 

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by SterioDesign

[lazer]

Shero handled Hall as best he could imo, the owners didnt agree, thats the price he paid.

 

If that makes sense, it was out of sheros hands.

 

Although aquiring Hall in the first place was a good move by Shero; great even

 

[mfitz804]

1 hour ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

I know you've firmly believed the bolded from Day 1, but I still think that Hall wasn't fully closed off from sticking around had the team played a whole lot better this season while he was here...but the early suckage (0-4-2 on their way to that putrid 9-17-5 start) killed whatever chances there were of Hall staying.

i view that very differently. I think His mind was mostly made up, and what he said was "unless you can show me I am wrong", which he knew we couldn't and we didn't. I think he had zero intention of staying here past the current contract. 

And perhaps that's to his credit, I'm glad he said he didn't want to discuss an extension rather than doing so, getting my hopes up, and then never intending to actually sign it. 

[Devil Dan 56]

57 minutes ago, SterioDesign said:

You seem to forget how i called Parise leaving based on how he handled things before. Elias almost walking, Rafalski walking, Niedermayer walking, Holik, gionta, gomez etc etc etc It was a systematic flawless approach.

You're missing the point, what i'm saying is not as black and white. All i want a GM to do is start a discussion early to get a sense of what the player wants. If you want to keep him and he's open to stay, then you sign him. If he's not sure or straight up don't want to. Then you have that information, which can help you make a decision then or later on. So you can actually control the situation vs blindly navigating through it.

Clarkson was a good example. We were a bubble team with not much chances at the cup then, he was at the top of his value and we just lost our captain recently to free agency.

Clarkson's demand was insane, like a day after they finally talked like a week before the draft Lou gave up on him knowing he'd never give him that sort of contract and let him walk. 

Now if you KNOW before the deadline what he's looking for and that you know you 100% won't be signing him. Then you can make an educated decision and gauge your chances with and without him, knowing you'll be losing that asset if you keep him. And if you decide to keep him, at least it was your call to lose him for nothing vs giving all the power to the player you want to keep to walk on his own. That's your fvcking job to make decisions so why wouldn't you want all the information you want when you make them vs "we have a chance, we go for it no matter what, fvck the future". Refusing to talk to players during the season is just a fvcking dumb rule. Even Elias called it out.

I mean... how delusional is to to actually want to sit and go over the scenarios, pros and cons and assess the current state of the team and it's chances and future of the team and make a decision trying to figure out what's best ultimately for the franchise, to make a move to win now or to make a move for the future. 

To say "if you have even just a slim chance go all in no matter what" is incredibly reckless. In what world does that make sense applied to anything? "oh let's go all out and buy lottery tickets with my whole paycheck even if i need to pay my bills and my kids needs to go to the dentist soon". In any situation you have to sit and analyse the situation, it's common sense

And it's not just about Lou. I said the same thing about Colombus last year or about Shero last summer. 

 

Giving up a playoff chance for draft picks and a low prospect is just as reckless. I already pointed out in the past that very often teams who have “ very little chance" win it all. St Louis last year is an example. Or when 8th seed LA beat the Devils who were the 6th seed. Did we win? Nope but we came damn close and I bet those extra sold out home games pulled the team out of the red (or close to it) for a little bit. 
 

As for the perpetual rebuild, Palms, Hall, Vats, and Mojo were all acquired to "build around". Here we are and 3 of them are gone for more prospects and picks that we will be using to "build around." This tells me Ray grossly miscalculated something somewhere. 

I know you don't like to admit this, but this is a results oriented business, especially where this team is located. Hockey isn't very popular to begin with, and there are lots of options for people. 5-8 years of empty arenas with no playoffs can do a lot of damage to season ticket sales and also damage to how the team is generally viewed by both the public and the media. 

[SterioDesign]

9 minutes ago, Devil Dan 56 said:

Giving up a playoff chance for draft picks and a low prospect is just as reckless. I already pointed out in the past that very often teams who have “ very little chance" win it all. St Louis last year is an example. Or when 8th seed LA beat the Devils who were the 6th seed. Did we win? Nope but we came damn close and I bet those extra sold out home games pulled the team out of the red (or close to it) for a little bit. 
 

As for the perpetual rebuild, Palms, Hall, Vats, and Mojo were all acquired to "build around". Here we are and 3 of them are gone for more prospects and picks that we will be using to "build around." This tells me Ray grossly miscalculated something somewhere. 

I know you don't like to admit this, but this is a results oriented business, especially where this team is located. Hockey isn't very popular to begin with, and there are lots of options for people. 5-8 years of empty arenas with no playoffs can do a lot of damage to season ticket sales and also damage to how the team is generally viewed by both the public and the media. 

It's not reckless if it's a decision you make rather than just blindly going all out no matter what, and it's not "just for a "draft picks", it's keeping the wheels going. Any business plans for the future. That's why they make decisions every once in awhile depending on the situation, sometimes they focus on now and sometimes it's for the future. 

You know like when GMs like Sakic don't go and trade their top prospect like Byram for a better chance at the cup? It's exactly the same thing. You gotta look at both and make decisions depending on what you think is best for now and long term.

Just focusing on now gets you the roster we had in 2015. That's just a fact. And hell we got Palms because we FINALLY traded assets at the deadline. 

Edited March 9, 2020 by SterioDesign

[Devil Dan 56]

44 minutes ago, SterioDesign said:

It's not reckless if it's a decision you make rather than just blindly going all out no matter what, and it's not "just for a "draft picks", it's keeping the wheels going. Any business plans for the future. That's why they make decisions every once in awhile depending on the situation, sometimes they focus on now and sometimes it's for the future. 

You know like when GMs like Sakic don't go and trade their top prospect like Byram for a better chance at the cup? It's exactly the same thing. You gotta look at both and make decisions depending on what you think is best for now and long term.

Just focusing on now gets you the roster we had in 2015. That's just a fact. And hell we got Palms because we FINALLY traded assets at the deadline. 

Every GM In the league looks at both and makes decisions. Do you think only Shero figured that out? 

We were never sellers at the deadline to acquire assets because we were in the playoffs for nearly every season for 25 years. Why did they FINALLY trade for assets at the deadline? Because that was one of the first times they were out of the playoffs at the deadline! 

Why on earth would you trade Parise, Neids, Holik etc if you're trying to win cups? 

[Devilsfan118]

13 hours ago, sundstrom said:

The devils sucked because of bad goaltending. The devils are now half decent because of very good goaltending. 
 

the rest of the team was and is still, pretty average. 
 

this isn’t rocket science. 

Just like how people are now proclaiming PDB a genius coach for turning Vegas around.

When, in reality, they got sh!t goaltending early on and have gotten pretty decent goaltending since the hiring of PDB.  IIRC their underlying numbers were fantastic from the get-go.

I would hope folks here don't fall for the mirage that is February-March Devils hockey.  That isn't to say we can't enjoy it, but this team is way farther off than it appears right now imo.

[SterioDesign]

20 minutes ago, Devil Dan 56 said:

Every GM In the league looks at both and makes decisions. Do you think only Shero figured that out? 

We were never sellers at the deadline to acquire assets because we were in the playoffs for nearly every season for 25 years. Why did they FINALLY trade for assets at the deadline? Because that was one of the first times they were out of the playoffs at the deadline! 

Why on earth would you trade Parise, Neids, Holik etc if you're trying to win cups? 

Dude if you're not going to listen and try to understand what im saying there's no point arguing.

And you're right. Every GM in the league outside of Lou did it. Remember when Jagr, Lemieux, Modano, Roy and all those guys were weeks away from free agency and could have walk if they wanted? Oh right. No. You don't cause you don't let guys like that get to that point. I'm not saying to trade them. It's not like we were the only team ever to be in the playoffs lol All those teams were able to manage their ufas a lot better too. I'm saying that you need to fvcking take care of that before it's too late. I'm sure we could have kept a bunch of our guys if we would have offered a contract the summer before or during the season. But nope, for no fvcking reason we had to let them finish the season. It makes no sense. We've seen it where players we're given an ultimatum before the season and it made them sign. Why wait til they can be like "well i got to this point... i have this brother or good buddy on that other team, might be cool to play with them". Negotiation tactics, ever heard of that? You put yourself in the best possible position to get what you want

Why wouldn't you try to do everything you can to keep guys like Nieds, Gomez etc etc? Why the fvck would you wait til they are weeks away from free agency to finally reach out when you have absolutely no leverage? Why would you stick to "no talk during the season" and willingly give away any leverage you'd have to sign them at the right timing?

Edited March 9, 2020 by SterioDesign

[mfitz804]

5 minutes ago, SterioDesign said:

Dude if you're not going to listen and try to understand what im saying there's no point arguing.

And you're right. Every GM in the league outside of Lou did it. Remember when Jagr, Lemieux, Modano, Roy and all those guys were weeks away from free agency and could have walk if they wanted? Oh right. No. You don't cause you don't let guys like that get to that point. I'm not saying to trade them. It's not like we were the only team ever to be in the playoffs lol All those teams were able to manage their ufas a lot better too. I'm saying that you need to fvcking take care of that before it's too late. I'm sure we could have kept a bunch of our guys if we would have offered a contract the summer before or during the season. But nope, for no fvcking reason we had to let them finish the season. It makes no sense. We've seen it where players we're given an ultimatum before the season and it made them sign. Why wait til they can be like "well i got to this point... i have this brother or good buddy on that other team, might be cool to play with them". Negotiation tactics, ever heard of that? You put yourself in the best possible position to get what you want

Why wouldn't you try to do everything you can to keep guys like Nieds, Gomez etc etc? Why the fvck would you wait til they are weeks away from free agency to finally reach out when you have absolutely no leverage? Why would you stick to "no talk during the season" and willingly give away any leverage you'd have to sign them at the right timing?

I understand what you're saying.

BUT, I would add, that happened with Nieds and Gomez at a time where it was still desirable to be a Devil. That logic doesn't fully apply anymore, because there's going to be some guys that will just not want to be here no matter when you make an offer. Still others will be happy to receive your offer, but may want to see what other teams are going to have to say before locking themselves into a rebuild.  

In fact, Niedermayer may have been one of the originators of that, wanting to go play with his brother. Will we ever know if an earlier offer would have kept him here? No, we won't. I'd like to think probably not, but who knows. Still remains probably the biggest loss in free agency we ever had, including Parise IMHO. 

A policy of NOT negotiating extensions for guys during the season is incredibly short sighted, in my opinion. Again that does NOT apply to Hall, who specifically said he wanted to wait. I maintain my original position on that, which is that when a guy says that, making him an offer would be a horrible negotiating tactic. 

[Nicomo]

15 minutes ago, Devilsfan118 said:

Just like how people are now proclaiming PDB a genius coach for turning Vegas around.

When, in reality, they got sh!t goaltending early on and have gotten pretty decent goaltending since the hiring of PDB.  IIRC their underlying numbers were fantastic from the get-go.

I would hope folks here don't fall for the mirage that is February-March Devils hockey.  That isn't to say we can't enjoy it, but this team is way farther off than it appears right now imo.

PDB is a good coach. Always has been. That last game against the Devils was as well coached and executed as any I’ve seen all season. 

And I disagree we’re that far off. Maybe our top 10 pick makes the team out of camp, Ty Smith comes up, we add a veteran backup, we get more out of Hughes, Goose and Bratt’s play carries over to next season, etc. I don’t think it’s that unlikely they could be a bubble team.