What to do with #2?

[SterioDesign]

29 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

Which mid level former Devil will appear?

Trent Hunter i hope

[Devil Dan 56]

1 hour ago, mfitz804 said:

Which mid level former Devil will appear?

Grant Marshall and Colin White are locks. They always seem to be at these things 

[mfitz804]

1 hour ago, SterioDesign said:

Trent Hunter i hope

I’m hoping for Matt Taormina. 

[MadDog2020]

47 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

I’m hoping for Matt Taormina. 

It’s not really a party until the Polish Hammer, Krzysztof Oliwa, makes an appearance.

Edited June 23, 2022 by MadDog2020

[titans04]

Smells like a perfect fit for Dowd, they could keep the the mileage reimbursement to a minimum.

Backup choice would be Devils legend Olivier Magnan.

Edited June 23, 2022 by titans04

[CarpathianForest]

My money is on Vadim Sharifiajanov

[Crisis]

10 hours ago, MadDog2020 said:

It’s not really a party until the Polish Hammer, Krzysztof Oliwa, makes an appearance.

Edit: Had a few too many parking lot beers after our mens league game last night and probably didn't need to delve into all the gory details of my experience with him but I will just leave it at this.. Oliwa is a fvcking scumbag.

Edited June 23, 2022 by Crisis

[Puckbuster]

On 6/21/2022 at 1:55 PM, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

That's not really fair, re:  Shero having done "nothing" after 2017-18.  Look at all of the top producers of the 2018-19 team; pretty much all of those guys were expected to be back...fair amount of youth in the mix.  Hall only played 33 games...that was obviously a killer.  Some guys didn't take steps forward as quickly as we would've liked (or never took any at all).  Schneider was still signed to a lot of money long-term and wasn't that far removed from some terrific seasons; of course he was going to get another look, to see how he'd recover from injury (he started horribly but actually finished well).

Shero did go out and get PK (obviously didn't work out, but it was considered to be a big move at the time).  He locked up Nico.  Made one too many other moves that didn't pay off, sure.  If you're referring to UFA, not like upper-tier UFAs were racing to come to NJ at the time, and as far as trades went, it's not like Shero had this awesome asset pool to deal from; hence, the picks for NHLers with potential upside in several cases.  Wanna say he stuck with Hynes too long, no one's going to argue you on that one.  Wanna say he could've had a better Plan B in 2019-20 re:  Schneider potentially being finished, yeah, won't fight you on that either...sucks that his contract became so prohibitive so quickly.  But not like he did nothing.  

I was only referring to the 2018 off-season.  I was not criticizing his entire tenure.  However, despite his successes, there were also failures, and I think the 2018 off-season was a failure.  I think that it is a fair assessment.

[Guadana]

On 6/21/2022 at 8:55 PM, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

That's not really fair, re:  Shero having done "nothing" after 2017-18.  Look at all of the top producers of the 2018-19 team; pretty much all of those guys were expected to be back...fair amount of youth in the mix.  Hall only played 33 games...that was obviously a killer.  Some guys didn't take steps forward as quickly as we would've liked (or never took any at all).  Schneider was still signed to a lot of money long-term and wasn't that far removed from some terrific seasons; of course he was going to get another look, to see how he'd recover from injury (he started horribly but actually finished well).

Shero did go out and get PK (obviously didn't work out, but it was considered to be a big move at the time).  He locked up Nico.  Made one too many other moves that didn't pay off, sure.  If you're referring to UFA, not like upper-tier UFAs were racing to come to NJ at the time, and as far as trades went, it's not like Shero had this awesome asset pool to deal from; hence, the picks for NHLers with potential upside in several cases.  Wanna say he stuck with Hynes too long, no one's going to argue you on that one.  Wanna say he could've had a better Plan B in 2019-20 re:  Schneider potentially being finished, yeah, won't fight you on that either...sucks that his contract became so prohibitive so quickly.  But not like he did nothing.  

Shero did svck and make it hard. He was close to be worser than Lou on his last years. That’s great people only start to talk about that.

 

When he did join the team he could start rebuild, but he didn’t.
 

We did have zero prospects. Lou leave us with nothing in the pipeline. What Shero did? He did trade for Palms. It’s a good trade, but you can’t name it rebuild. And what he did? Nothing. If you want to compete, you need to make your roster stronger. If you want to make rebuild, you need to make a sale. 
Btw he drafted Zacha. He prefer center over defenseman, who develop longer. Remember that. We did have Severson, Larsson, Merrill and Gelinas after bad season. He did draft only Colin White in fourth round. 
 

let’s call it a season of watching. 2015-16

Palms and Adam score 30 goals, Zajac did return to his normal form. Camma played well. And Schneider save the day. Team was bad defensively, but Schneider was a God. Smith Pelly was yound and trade did work. Gelinas was trade away.

And Shero did trade for Hall. Trade is excellent in any day of the universe. But it’s not rebuilding move. And he didn’t sell anything. What he did? Trade for Bennet only. Didn’t fix defense. If he would want to make rebuild, he should sell someone here, but he didn’t. He did want to compete.
And drafted McLeod over defensemen. When we have Adam with 30 goals and Zacha from year ago. Zajac is still working. He drafted two defensemen in 5th and in 7th rounds.

 

2016-17.
All money on Hall. And everybodies pick was past, team was svck, only Zajac and Schneider were great for their role. Palms play solidly. Defense was really bad.

Great moment for rebuild… but he lost a lot of value and sell something small for something small. And… trade 2nd and 4th for Mirco Muller. Player with questionable skating, questionable iq and questionable play under pressure. His questionable skating was very questionable at least.

And trade for Johansson. Second and third. 
This is not rebuild. He invested in the team. 
 

But everything how he did decide to fix defense is trading for Mueller. What he did thinks?
He drafted Boqvist over defensemen. I understand the concept, but he did drafted centers before. Zacha, McLeod and Hischier. Pick wasn’t that bad, there were not a lot of good defensemen.

 

And Hischier pick is result of luck on lottery and fail of his tactics. He put the money (assets) in the team. He didn’t try to make rebuild. It’s a fail result. Thanks God he did draft Nico over Nolan. 
He drafted Walsh - small defenseman with questionable skating in the moment and very bad defensive game in the third round, he drafted other defensemen in 7th round.

 

2017-18.

Finally team make something great. I would say a couple of players. Kinkaid save the day, Hall was a king and Nico was great in his first season.

He FINALLY did trade for good defenseman. And we did make a play off with only one point in gap. That was a team of one line. After Nico, Palms and Hall next offensive player was Bratt with 35 points. 
He did trade picks for Grabner. 
Nowhere rebuild in this area.

And what he did decide to do.

Freaking nothing. Absolutely. Schneider was broken after using him over his strength.  Defense was very questionable or close to be bad. 
He could sell some players. He could sign some players. He did nothing.

And drafted Smith. Small defenseman with questionable skating in the moment and questionable defensive game. Remember something?  Pick was good in the moment of vacuum, but we could see and understand more about vision of Shero. Next pick was using for defenseman Bednar in fourth round.

2018-19. 

Hall was broken team did svck. Defense was bad. Shero did trade something small for something small, and return second picks with trading Boyle and Johansson. Not bad, but he lost value of picks. Blackwood was good but young, Schneider was bad. Kinkaid was traded.

Hughes wasn’t a result of rebuild. It’s was result of lottery luck and Shero fail. He did sell anything before the season, he lost the season. And thanks God we won lottery and Shero did draft Hughes over Kakko. Draft was finally good. He did take different defensemen. AFTER FOUR DRAFTS! He spent actives on defense. 
 

He sign Butcher. Small defenseman with questionable skating in the moment and questionable defensive game. Remember something? Sign was good in the moment, but we can understand something about his vision.

Subban was traded. Subban! Offensive defenseman with average or below average defensive game. For seconds! Where did you saw rebuild.

He traded for Gusev - one way iq freak forward with horrible skating. And sign Simmonds. Player who lost his wheels.

 

19-20.

He believe in Hynes, Hynes did svck, defense did svck, Schneider sh1t the bad once again. He beliebe in young Blackwood, Blackwood wasn’t consistent.  Yadayadayada.

Trading Hall to the Arizona. Arizona was a playoff team in the moment. And Hall should make them even better. It’s luck they lost their wheels because Kuemper injured and we were lucky to have Mercer on the boards. Fitz did awesome trade for Siegentaler after.

 

————

Overall. Shero did trust to his scouts and they did some very great picks with Bratt and Yegor. He did very good trades with Hall and Palms. He did make a couple of trades backs. Some were good, some were waste.

 

Thats all. Other than that  was bad.

He didn’t try to rebuild. He did make enough of bad trades. He did lost value of picks. His success on the draft was result of his failure. 
He always try to force rebuild, but he wasn’t active on the market.
He believe in Schneider and overused him, that did broke him, we still have him under  the cap.
Fvck you, Hynes.
He have NO VISION. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. especially how to build defense. He didn’t understand how should it wirk, what kind of defensive player will bring you success and will help. Only one defensive move wit h Vatanen was good. He started to draft defenseman YEARS after he should to start draft defensemen and invest in.
He drafted Swiss goalies and questionable students goalies with meh stats. Now everybody in metro have good promising goalies in pipe line. We have only Daws from Fitz draft, who doesn’t look like future NHL starter for now.

 

Shero was bad general manager. He he never did trying to really rebuild the team. His “success” was result of luck and failure. When you try to name him as example of something good, you are wrong. Thanks for picking two good players out of four players. Not thanks for drafting McLeod and Zacha instead defensemen, who should take more time for develop. Not thanks to make our defensive situation even more bad, than what we have after Lou. Same with goalie situation.
 

No love for you, Shero. If we will be ever successful team, this is not because of you. Leave your life far away from the Devils organization.

 

Rebuild did start in 20-21 season. Fitz did trade for first round picks. Did Shero trade for first round picks? Five years and only one trade with Hall. There were no rebuild before Fitz did start his service as GM.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Guadana

[Nicomo]

3 hours ago, Guadana said:

Shero did svck and make it hard.

[mfitz804]

1 hour ago, Nicomo said:

Sounds like he did some kind of “job”. 

[mfitz804]

7 minutes ago, MB3 said:

if only shero was able to make all those moves with guadana’s benefit of hindsight he would have seen he was sucking and making it hard.

Strange things happen in the dark. 

[nessus]

I liked Shero for a few reasons. He almost always got the better of trades, and sometimes by a long shot. He knew when to sell at the deadline, and which players to unload. He had a no BS attitude (e.g. when Zacha tried to hold out). Shero also had a vision for the team, and did everything to bring that vision to life. He brought in Castron who has been a huge upgrade over Conte. Shero had a star player in Hall, and Nico Hischier was showing what he could do. Bratt was showing his potential, although not quite realizing it yet. With a high draft pick in 2019, he felt like this was a core to start building around. I can't fault him for that, especially if management had anything to do with that decision.

I always wondered what was the last straw to get Shero fired. There was all this talk about analytics vs. Shero / management input vs. Shero. But ultimately, I think it comes down to the Hall trade. That marked the failure of the rebuild, since it was all around Hall. Ironically, this was a very good trade, because I would easily take Mercer alone over Hall at this point. But it was clearly time to restart the rebuild, and that probably required a new leader.

[Guadana]

18 hours ago, Nicomo said:

You finally catch the vibe, Nicomo.

 

14 hours ago, nessus said:

I liked Shero for a few reasons. He almost always got the better of trades, and sometimes by a long shot. He knew when to sell at the deadline, and which players to unload. He had a no BS attitude (e.g. when Zacha tried to hold out). Shero also had a vision for the team, and did everything to bring that vision to life. He brought in Castron who has been a huge upgrade over Conte. Shero had a star player in Hall, and Nico Hischier was showing what he could do. Bratt was showing his potential, although not quite realizing it yet. With a high draft pick in 2019, he felt like this was a core to start building around. I can't fault him for that, especially if management had anything to do with that decision.

I always wondered what was the last straw to get Shero fired. There was all this talk about analytics vs. Shero / management input vs. Shero. But ultimately, I think it comes down to the Hall trade. That marked the failure of the rebuild, since it was all around Hall. Ironically, this was a very good trade, because I would easily take Mercer alone over Hall at this point. But it was clearly time to restart the rebuild, and that probably required a new leader.

Nope, he has no vision. We have no defense, and after fim after five years we had less. He try to make retool, but he didn't sign players, and he did never try to make rebuild because when you are rebuilding team, you are not selling 2nd and third picks. He lost the value of this picks. He drafted and signed slow small defensemen with bad skating. He trusted to much in his coach, in his goalie when it was obvious they are broken. Even when he gamble on the roster and didn't understand the real deep of the roster, he didn't sign anyone after successful season. He was bad at all and made more bad trades than goods, but good trades were in the beginning. He gamble on questionable players time after time and it did ends badly.

 

Even hall trade was bad. Hall was hart trophy winner. And we got only one 1st round pick and a couple of b- or worser prospects. Arizona were the playoff team in the moment and hall should make them better. Thanks God he didnt and luckly Mercer was available. Its not a Shero success. Like a lottery winning in the seasons when he didn't try to rebuild the team. He did try the opposit, and the more funny thing, he didn't do anything in one way or another. He was bad. But yeah,  thanks for trust his scouts and thanks he picked Hischier and Hughes over Patrick and Kakko. Thats all for five years. I didn't ask contender, I did ask clear strategy and acting for that. Not a gambling and trading assets who can help on the long distance. 

[vadvlfan]

In all fairness, how can any of us say any GM isn't trying hard enough to sign UFA's? We have no idea who did or didn't "try" to sign.  I think NJ was in on JVR after Toronto but Philly was willing to give him that 7mil term.  When you're going to pursue a UFA, don't you set a price? We'll overpay a UFA (within reason) but not stupid $$$ and term? (correctly so) We signed DH to a big contract.   All GM's try, but many UFA (matured) don't want to go to a rebuilding team. They only got so many heartbeats.  

Husso may prefer to go to Leafs/elsewhere. We have cap space however. Who would want to play at the Rock? The Hall trade was a good trade @ the time.  He wasn't satisfied, we wanted to keep him around. Glad it worked out for both.

[CarpathianForest]

5 minutes ago, vadvlfan said:

In all fairness, how can any of us say any GM isn't trying hard enough to sign UFA's? We have no idea who did or didn't "try" to sign.  I think NJ was in on JVR after Toronto but Philly was willing to give him that 7mil term.  When you're going to pursue a UFA, don't you set a price? We'll overpay a UFA (within reason) but not stupid $$$ and term? (correctly so) We signed DH to a big contract.   All GM's try, but many UFA (matured) don't want to go to a rebuilding team. They only got so many heartbeats.  

Husso may prefer to go to Leafs/elsewhere. We have cap space however. Who would want to play at the Rock? The Hall trade was a good trade @ the time.  He wasn't satisfied, we wanted to keep him around. Glad it worked out for both.

I think this is the one thing we don't bring up enough. We have the cap space, but the player has to want to play here.

Edited June 26, 2022 by CarpathianForest

[mfitz804]

2 hours ago, vadvlfan said:

In all fairness, how can any of us say any GM isn't trying hard enough to sign UFA's? We have no idea who did or didn't "try" to sign.  

Add this to the list of about 20 topics that people speculate about without any idea, such as what our scouts did or thought, who is or isn’t a locker room cancer, who has a bad work ethic, etc. 

[SterioDesign]

6 hours ago, vadvlfan said:

In all fairness, how can any of us say any GM isn't trying hard enough to sign UFA's? We have no idea who did or didn't "try" to sign.  I think NJ was in on JVR after Toronto but Philly was willing to give him that 7mil term.  When you're going to pursue a UFA, don't you set a price? We'll overpay a UFA (within reason) but not stupid $$$ and term? (correctly so) We signed DH to a big contract.   All GM's try, but many UFA (matured) don't want to go to a rebuilding team. They only got so many heartbeats.  

Husso may prefer to go to Leafs/elsewhere. We have cap space however. Who would want to play at the Rock? The Hall trade was a good trade @ the time.  He wasn't satisfied, we wanted to keep him around. Glad it worked out for both.

This.

The doom and gloom posters are completely assuming when they don't see results that "nothing was attempted" and that the GM just "sat on his hands"

It's so incredibly dumb.

[Guadana]

Incredibly dumb is not seeing what was gonna happened in five years time after time. well, it's more stupid to confuse a consistently expressed analysis or an opinion about a subject or situation, with an opinion about an opinion or with an opinion about the speaker.

shero defendors is a most fun people in njd hockey community. And I really like the reaction. 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Guadana

[Puckbuster]

16 hours ago, MB3 said:

it’s almost impossible for this to be anything other than satire. holy cow.

Satire? Why?  He’s right.  Was Shero rebuilding or retooling?

[nessus]

I think Shero was brought in for a retool, and not a complete teardown. For that reason, I don't think it's fair to say he's a bad GM, even though a full rebuild is what was needed. You never know how much of these decisions come from ownership. However, if you want to assume that he had full autonomy, then sure, that approach was definitely not the right one.

[titans04]

How about the ones that base their view strictly based on results like wins/loses. Kinda lick fu$k how we got here we just know where we are, we've been here, we practically have lived here for almost a decade. We no longer take solace in 3 cups so many years ago, don't care who team's have never won a cup or when the last time was some other team did win one. Just simply don't give a sh!t about any other team. How about we choose to treat it like almost every other job in the world where you're solely measured on EOY performance.  Can't have it both ways, right. Should we cave to the participation trophy level of oh hell I'm sure from the owners to the GMs to the coaches regardless of who they've been I'm sure they gave it their all, tried hard, did all they could because we can't prove otherwise because we can't see behind the curtains we would be stupid to judge them?

We'll never get that view, if it's stupid to have opinions being based on not sitting in the owners box, gms office and locker room than might as well shut the board down.  Pretty sure nobody here has that view. So calling others opinions stupid because they're tired of losing I guess makes some of you guys better fans? It's great the apathy hasn't caught up to you guys as much as it has to some.  I'm sure there's an advanced stat somewhere that will show how much better the team has been over the last decade compared to their actual record. 

Are there brighter days ahead, sure. Odds are at some point if it keeps being repeated someday it may happen regardless of how many years it will have taken and then the soap boxes can come out and the other "stupid" people can yell I told you so. 

[Guadana]

1 hour ago, titans04 said:

How about the ones that base their view strictly based on results like wins/loses. Kinda lick fu$k how we got here we just know where we are, we've been here, we practically have lived here for almost a decade. We no longer take solace in 3 cups so many years ago, don't care who team's have never won a cup or when the last time was some other team did win one. Just simply don't give a sh!t about any other team. How about we choose to treat it like almost every other job in the world where you're solely measured on EOY performance.  Can't have it both ways, right. Should we cave to the participation trophy level of oh hell I'm sure from the owners to the GMs to the coaches regardless of who they've been I'm sure they gave it their all, tried hard, did all they could because we can't prove otherwise because we can't see behind the curtains we would be stupid to judge them?

We'll never get that view, if it's stupid to have opinions being based on not sitting in the owners box, gms office and locker room than might as well shut the board down.  Pretty sure nobody here has that view. So calling others opinions stupid because they're tired of losing I guess makes some of you guys better fans? It's great the apathy hasn't caught up to you guys as much as it has to some.  I'm sure there's an advanced stat somewhere that will show how much better the team has been over the last decade compared to their actual record. 

Are there brighter days ahead, sure. Odds are at some point if it keeps being repeated someday it may happen regardless of how many years it will have taken and then the soap boxes can come out and the other "stupid" people can yell I told you so. 

I even didn't ask wins and contender team. I was asking adequate analysis of situation and consistent work based on strategy step by step. Shero didn't make rebuild, for retooling he was absolutely incompetent in defensive building, and wasn't active on the market, couldn't analyze situation. I don't see any reasons why he didn't do anything in 2018 summer. Money were there, good players were there. He just gamble a lot. On Hall, on Schneider, on Hynes, summer of 2019 was a huge gamble with every move. Simmonds wasn't good, we believe he could bounce back from injury, Subban wasn't good, we paid not a lot for ex Norris winner, hope he could bounce back, gusev was added and he was interesting smart player, gamble on his translating the game and believe with even his skating he could be a player with positive impact on the ice. Gamble on defense. Again. All of his career he didn't sign any reliable defenseman except Lovejoy. And when our goalies were broken, that was horrible. This is what was going on. Its facts. 

After 5 years of his work, we have no shero defensemen in roster, and I think one of Okhotiuk/Bahl have a chance to be NJD defenseman in the end. If they would. 

I know Lou gave him horrible roster, but Shero used his five years badly. Even as a retooler. For rebuilder he made a lot horrible moves.

And the real Did start in 2020 season after  Shero firing, when Fitz finally traded for the first round pick and prospect from the first round, and year after traded for the first round pick. 

Lack of adequate analysis cost some years for this team. 

Hope Fitz will make a homework. Like Colorado and Tampa did, he used his money on homegrown talent, didn't trade high picks before we will start to contending. But he wasn't smart enough to trade down on the draft days(different teams did it) and ignored Russian goalies and right defensemen on the draft. And the move with Schnarr buried our AHL team. There was obvious lack of centers. Fitz isn't bad, but he isn't close to be perfect. And with time opinion about his work could change in different direction. And again I'm not asking Stanly cup. Sh1t happens, goalies could end their career or got injury. But sometimes gm should make hard job. Kahkonen was traded with reasonable price.

[mfitz804]

McKenzie says you draft Wright with #2. 

 

[SterioDesign]

Interesting article

https://www.allaboutthejersey.com/2022/6/27/23182433/logan-cooley-new-jersey-devils-nhl-mock-draft-2022