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Your New Jersey Devils Regular Season Thread: 2022-2023 Edition


Crisis

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24 minutes ago, Satans Hockey said:

Joy 

Maybe someone will throw one of these boring pieces of garbage on the ice if we get blown out again... 

 

That’s earlier than I thought. I may be able to send mine in for customizing and get it back before the end of the season…

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2 hours ago, Devil Dan 56 said:

Anaheim has given up a combined 13 goals to the Isles and Rags and scored 5 in those 2 games so if we are gonna get some of the stink off, tomorrow would be a good time to do it. 

You just know they’re shutting us out tomorrow

Edited by devlman
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13 hours ago, SterioDesign said:

I agree fully with you about advance stats often being meaningless.

but calling, 0-2-0 - Worst start in franchise history lolol sweet lord please help us

we started seasons with 6 and 7 losses before. Let's calm down or maybe juste maybe wait til we lose 6-7 in a row to make such a statement?

I used the word might in a half-joking post meant to be overly dramatic.  So you should relax yourself and not taking everything at face value.  And honestly, I can't remember a start to a season where this much negativity ran throughout the fanbase right from the jump, where the head coach was booed during intros on opening night, and had chants to fire him ring out throughout the game.  That is usually reserved for 5 games in.  

The loss to Winnipeg a few years ago was worse in that it was simply soul crushing, but to come out the way the Devils have these first 2 games, looking utterly listless in losing to a Flyers team (without Couturier) that is supposed to be in the Bedard sweepstakes, then a mediocre Red Wings team on a 2nd half of a back to back while we are playing in front of a full, energetic crowd in our home opener is pathetic.  Can't wait to see how they play tonight in front of 32 of their closest family and friends.  Maybe our goalies can come out and give up less goals than the other teams tender for once.  

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1 hour ago, Chuck the Duck said:

I used the word might in a half-joking post meant to be overly dramatic.  So you should relax yourself and not taking everything at face value.  And honestly, I can't remember a start to a season where this much negativity ran throughout the fanbase right from the jump, where the head coach was booed during intros on opening night, and had chants to fire him ring out throughout the game.  That is usually reserved for 5 games in.  

The loss to Winnipeg a few years ago was worse in that it was simply soul crushing, but to come out the way the Devils have these first 2 games, looking utterly listless in losing to a Flyers team (without Couturier) that is supposed to be in the Bedard sweepstakes, then a mediocre Red Wings team on a 2nd half of a back to back while we are playing in front of a full, energetic crowd in our home opener is pathetic.  Can't wait to see how they play tonight in front of 32 of their closest family and friends.  Maybe our goalies can come out and give up less goals than the other teams tender for once.  

well to be fair it's really hard to know when people are joking or not right now lol if you were just joking im sorry.

But again, how the guys actually play and start the season is a very different thing than how fans are reacting to it. Even some fully prepped teams with no injuries have "slow starts". And while i don't like excuses, we are indeed in a setup where it's understandable to have a slow start. New coaches, system, players, we were already not an amazing team to start with. One goalie is a new guy on a team, that can take time, the other one hasnt been playing regularly for... years... It legit can take some time to adjust and we're within that window.

Also well it's not about how you start a season it's how you finish it. Struggling early makes you work on things. When you start and everything goes your way, you may get bad habits and once it gets to another level or the playoffs, that's when you're not ready for it. So there's some silver lining in how you handle struggling early. Let's just see if our players and coaches handle this well. But what i know is that having the crowd booing you that early is simply not helping their mindset. Any player will tell you that the crowd can be like an extra player out there. Well if its working against you. Its truly not helping anything... outside of making themselves feel better. It's never helping players

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1 hour ago, SterioDesign said:

well to be fair it's really hard to know when people are joking or not right now lol if you were just joking im sorry.

But again, how the guys actually play and start the season is a very different thing than how fans are reacting to it. Even some fully prepped teams with no injuries have "slow starts". And while i don't like excuses, we are indeed in a setup where it's understandable to have a slow start. New coaches, system, players, we were already not an amazing team to start with. One goalie is a new guy on a team, that can take time, the other one hasnt been playing regularly for... years... It legit can take some time to adjust and we're within that window.

Also well it's not about how you start a season it's how you finish it. Struggling early makes you work on things. When you start and everything goes your way, you may get bad habits and once it gets to another level or the playoffs, that's when you're not ready for it. So there's some silver lining in how you handle struggling early. Let's just see if our players and coaches handle this well. But what i know is that having the crowd booing you that early is simply not helping their mindset. Any player will tell you that the crowd can be like an extra player out there. Well if its working against you. Its truly not helping anything... outside of making themselves feel better. It's never helping players

I don't boo the team/players, and don't participate in chants for anyone to be fired.  I get why some fans do it, but I don't believe in it personally.   But we all are just sick of the losing and the play with no sense of urgency whatsoever.  You can't win a Stanley Cup in October/November, but you surely can play you way out of contention for it in those months.  Through 2 games, this team looks like an extension of the past few seasons which is bitterly disappointing.  Hopefully they can turn it around with a good performance tonight.   

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50 minutes ago, Chuck the Duck said:

I don't boo the team/players, and don't participate in chants for anyone to be fired.  I get why some fans do it, but I don't believe in it personally.   But we all are just sick of the losing and the play with no sense of urgency whatsoever.  You can't win a Stanley Cup in October/November, but you surely can play you way out of contention for it in those months.  Through 2 games, this team looks like an extension of the past few seasons which is bitterly disappointing.  Hopefully they can turn it around with a good performance tonight.   

All of us:  C'mon guys, do you think you could not be completely out of things by late November this season?  Please?

Them:  No problem.  How about late October?

 

Of course they do have time to get it going, and of course that's what I'm hoping for.  If they get to 2-2 we'll all at least breathe a little easier.  And yeah, it's been said many times, but of course it's not that it's only two games...it's how disenchantingly familiar all of this is feeling.  Hopefully it's temporary. 

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22 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

All of us:  C'mon guys, do you think you could not be completely out of things by late November this season?  Please?

Them:  No problem.  How about late October?

There are only 9 games between the start of the season and late October, so I am confident we cannot be completely out of things by late October. 

"Mostly out of things" is still on the table. 

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On 10/18/2022 at 2:44 PM, Chuck the Duck said:

I don't boo the team/players, and don't participate in chants for anyone to be fired.  I get why some fans do it, but I don't believe in it personally.   But we all are just sick of the losing and the play with no sense of urgency whatsoever.  You can't win a Stanley Cup in October/November, but you surely can play you way out of contention for it in those months.  Through 2 games, this team looks like an extension of the past few seasons which is bitterly disappointing.  Hopefully they can turn it around with a good performance tonight.   

I certainly understand the frustration too, im frustrated about the team. But i still don't believe in booing either. It's fine if people admit that it's selfish and self-serving. Not done to help the team in any way but just... unleashing their frustration. It's just funny when they pretend that it's to "inform that you're not please" lol come on. It's mob mentality at its best. You'd never do it right to someone's face, but in a group... suuuure. 

If you're struggling at something, you know damn well. You absolutely do not need people booing to clue in. Having someone over your shoulder shouting that you suck will almost never ever help the situation, if anything it's going to make it worse. And prevent you from succeeding. It's deflating. To be fair it MIGHT light up a fire under a few guys. You really need the right mentality for that and im not sure too many young guys, especially the younger generations are equipped with that. Younger people tend to crumble under pressure more than feed off of it.

 

Edited by SterioDesign
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2 minutes ago, MB3 said:

I'd love that to be the case, but why are the 2 most recent periods more indicative of the team's play than the previously 7? 

Good catch, we actually don't know that, that's my bad. I legit meant "Hopefully", cause god knows at this point.

But i'd love to think that it's normal that we started slow considering new system (that's still debated), new guys, young team, new coaches, etc etc. And that we should start getting chemistry and the system down.

But also, we know damn well the way Jack (and a few other guys) played. That he just couldn't stay snake bitten like this for an extended period. They truly had TONS of high risk chances that just didn't go in.

I said this many times. It's not about how you start a season, it's how you play by the end. So hopefully we gain some momentum this season and that by the end... we're ready to have baby Hughes and Nemec joining and we'll have Bratt re-signed long-term. Next season is where things can really start moving in my opinion

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8 minutes ago, MB3 said:

I've mentioned a couple of times that I have a cousin who had a pretty good shot of going pro, got unlucky with injuries and then a minor illness that made it difficult for him to keep any weight on. He eventually switched to the scouting-type role and is currently employed by an NHL team. He was scouting in Florida and swung by to see his nephew last night and we watched the Devils game together and he had some interesting thoughts about the team. Or, I thought they were interesting at least. You might think they're dumb, that's ok.

  • He thinks goaltending is 50% of the team's issues. He watched both of the first two games and all of last season and said it's some of the worst goaltending he's ever seen. He particularly pointed out two things: he thinks their positioning is minor-league bad, and he attributes that to coaching. He said they're obviously being coached to be aggressive on the puck carrier but it's pulling them way out of position way too frequently. He also said that there's a chance these guys just aren't very good, like last year's crop. VV might be a good goalie, but there's a lot of noise there in his background as the Capitals were pretty great at limiting 5v5 chances and the goalie might not have been tested as much as he will be this year. Blackwood specifically seems to lose focus in games, which causes breakdowns in the fundamentals and results in some of the horrible rebound control issues that he's really had since breaking into the league. 
  • The other 50% is unsurprisingly coaching. Specifically in the defensive end. He said the Devils play the game with absolutely zero structure. They're insanely talented, but he said it looks like beer league sometimes. Breakouts are uncontrolled, players fly all over the ice wherever they want to go, and in the defensive end it's not unique to see 5 guys looking for the puck with 3 opposing players getting open. It's not fair to put it all on the goalie, and he HATES the "high danger scoring chance" stat because he said there are several degrees to a high-danger scoring chance and a goalie shouldn't be penalized for a wide open back-door goal the same as a wrister from the slot. 
  • He doesn't think it's a talent thing on defense. When Hughes and Nemec are playing they'll have a top-10 defense in the league, which is more than good enough when you consider the fact that they likely have a top-5 offense in terms of talent. He thinks they're a competent coaching staff away from being a perennial contender for a long time. 

He's probably spot-on, although if 50% of the problem is goaltending, and part of the goaltending problem is coaching, then its less than 50% goaltending talent, and more than 50% a coaching issue. 

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45 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

I would add poor defense to that list. 

Yeah. Honestly some goals against there's really not much our goalies could do. 

If we go through our goals against... (and this is all my personal interpretation of the play, might not be correct in some cases)

Philly goal #1: Lost a faceoff.... Not sure if Blackwood was screened or not but bad rebound control (terrible even), and obviously a guy left completely by himself for an easy tap in.

Philly goal #2: Bad goal. Should have stopped that one.

Philly goal #3: Bad defensive play, 2 guys behind the net vs 1 Flyers. Blackwood is watching the puck covering his post down low. Puck gets out to a guy wide open in front for a one timer top corner far post. Can't blame Blackie on that one.

Philly goal #4: Powerplay. Blackwood didn't see the puck. Was screened by a player right in front of him, you see him move his head aside to try to see where the puck was as the shot from the point was taken. He never saw it.

Detroit goal #1: Screened shot, he never saw it 

Detroit goal #2: Mishandled puck at the blue line leading to an odd-men rush. Great shot but he should have stopped that. Clean shot, no screen.

Detroit goal #3: Severson fvcked up behind the net. Very similar to goal #3 from Philly except Vanecek himself poked the puck directly to an open guy in front. Covering down low on   one side. Puck went it top on the other side. 

Detroit goal #4: Vanecek gets his stick knocked out of his hand making a stop. Then gets beat on the second shot. No idea where Smith thought he was going on that one.

Detroit goal #4: Bad defensive zone puck management and bad D in general. Should have made that stop though still.

Ducks goal #1: Faceoff lost. Screened shot through traffic.

Ducks goal #2: Bad D overall, complete mess and once again, guy left by himself right in front. Also Blackie didn't have a stick.

So overall, personally i don't even think goaltender overall was THAT bad in context. Definitely has to be better. Many of those goals were absolutely stoppable.  I think the D was more of a problem overall.

But also, to be fair though our goalies were beaten in other instances like Henrique's breakaway yesterday. But it just didn't go in. 

Edited by SterioDesign
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7 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

He's probably spot-on, although if 50% of the problem is goaltending, and part of the goaltending problem is coaching, then its less than 50% goaltending talent, and more than 50% a coaching issue. 

you know i suck at math. But this sounds about right

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Just now, Satans Hockey said:

As much bullsh!t as we sometimes get into on here I'm happy the moderation isn't absolutely ridiculous like over on HF where posts about a stupid chant that's happened at 2 games this season gets deleted and the mod labels it as "garbage" because they agree with that chant. 

That is really lame. 

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1 hour ago, MB3 said:

Breakouts are uncontrolled, players fly all over the ice wherever they want to go, and in the defensive end it's not unique to see 5 guys looking for the puck with 3 opposing players getting open.

If this ain’t the truth..what an embarrassing look for the coaching staff. Can’t blame Nass anymore either.

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3 hours ago, Satans Hockey said:

Between the ads that are hard to block on there and the sh!t mods I need to cut back on my posting there. Just wish some of the good posters over there came here instead and I'd never go there again.

The ads make that site borderline unusable for me. I wouldn’t go there at all if it wasn’t so much busier than this board is. 

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