GDT: Game 5 - Do or Die - 11 May @ 1900

[jagknife]

9 minutes ago, RizzMB30 said:

Well, I think the people who are advocating for passing on Bratt need to really think about who is going to come in and replace him and start voicing that opinion because it's regular season production that is going to get you to the playoffs. 

You subtract Bratt and some young guy doesn't come in and fill those shoes or you stand pat after losing Bratt, you are looking at missing playoffs again. 

Just sayin', it better be a good return or a good player coming our way that you have in mind or you are going to have a hard time convincing people. 

 

5 minutes ago, Lateralous said:

Not really.  It’s not about the return as much as it is about keeping quality depth as opposed signing one guys who has been a ghost for the last month to top dollar.  Cap space is more valuable than anything in todays NHL and you don’t waste it on a guy who I didn’t see win a single 50/50 battle for a puck along the boards all night.   

I also think if you move on from Bratt, be it for assets or futures, Palat is back in the top 6 and you’re keeping Meier long term.

you also are opening up a bottom 6 role for someone like Clarke or Foote to come up and be regulars or rotate together.

If Bratt is staying, he needs to understand even though his 73 points matched his career high from last year, his 1 goal all playoffs and a whole 2 points in the 2nd round were unacceptable for a player demanding as much as he has been

[Lateralous]

1 minute ago, RizzMB30 said:

This argument of we drop Bratt so we can afford McLeod/Haula/Bastian is silly. They don't/won't earn the same, even if Bratt takes less money to stay here. 

And you just simply dodgeball'd my question. Haula and McLeod are not going to replace Bratt's production, I don't care how much you pay them. 

What production?  His stats slowed every time the level of play was ratcheted up a notch this season and culminated in him doing jack sh!t in the playoffs.  

I doubt Haula/McLeod/Bastian will cost much more that 7 million combined so yeah, I could probably have them all with their new contracts for about the same as a favorable contract to Bratt.  

Besides, we just finished third in the entire NHL during the regular season with Meier only playing about 1/5 of the season for us and struggling to adapt early on.   He’ll be able to replace much of Bratt’s production on his own.   We’re hardly “looking at missing the playoffs again” just by losing Bratt like you claimed in your previous post.      

[Nicomo]

Luke logs the 2nd most minutes in what was their only competitive loss of the postseason. I feel vindicated for screaming for him going all the way back to round 1. 

Kid is a stud. 

Edited May 12, 2023 by Nicomo

[slasher72]

1 hour ago, devlman said:

Incredibly disappointed with Siegenthaler’s play for months. Bitterly disappointed with that absolutely idiotic pass by Tatar, who should know much better as a veteran player. Shaking my head at Graves for not clearing Kotkaniemi from the net front.

Just sick to my stomach right now. That team was beatable. The Devils decided to join the series far too late. Ran out of gas, I guess. fvcking hell.

Graves allowed Fast to park right in front. I hope we've seen the last of Graves here. 

[Lateralous]

3 minutes ago, Nicomo said:

Luke logs the 2nd most minutes in what was their only competitive loss of the postseason. I feel vindicated for screaming for him going all the way back to round 1. 

Kid is a stud. 

I still don’t think the Rangers series was the time to insert another rookie defenseman and I think Ruff actually handled Luke Hughes playing time perfectly during the playoffs, but yeah, the kid is an absolute stud.  I wish we could have extended the series another game tonight just to give him another 25 minutes of playoff hockey on Saturday.  

[Nicomo]

1 minute ago, Lateralous said:

I still don’t think the Rangers series was the time to insert another rookie defenseman and I think Ruff actually handled Luke Hughes playing time perfectly during the playoffs, but yeah, the kid is an absolute stud.  I wish we could have extended the series another game tonight just to give him another 25 minutes of playoff hockey on Saturday.  

We’ll just have to disagree. They could barely move the puck up the ice against the Rags even in a couple of their wins. Luke was exactly what they needed. 

Rookie smookie. He looked like a vet out there most of the time (barring one bad pass, and one bad line change). He’s just too good to leave on the bench for scrubs like Graves or Smith. 

I give Lindy a lot of credit for this season, and this run, but I think Schmid should have started game 4, and Luke should have drawn in much earlier. 

[Lateralous]

5 minutes ago, Nicomo said:

We’ll just have to disagree. They could barely move the puck up the ice against the Rags even in a couple of their wins. Luke was exactly what they needed. 

Rookie smookie. He looked like a vet out there most of the time (barring one bad pass, and one bad line change). He’s just too good to leave on the bench for scrubs like Graves or Smith. 

I give Lindy a lot of credit for this season, and this run, but I think Schmid should have started game 4, and Luke should have drawn in much earlier. 

Just curious, when do you think was the right time to put Luke in?   We had a pretty established top 6 heading into playoffs.  .   We looked dead after the first 2 games against the Rangers so maybe you put him in then but you referenced the bad turnover in his first game.   What happens if he does that in game 3 of rangers series?  After that we just rode a winning lineup until Game 7, didn’t we?   
 

Yeah, I understood giving Vanacek game 3 of Canes series to try and win back the job but I’m right there with you that Lindy dropped the ball going back to Vanacek in Game 4 just because he had won the previous game.  
 

 

[Nicomo]

1 minute ago, Lateralous said:

Just curious, when do you think was the right time to put Luke in?   We had a pretty established top 6 heading into playoffs.  .   We looked dead after the first 2 games against the Rangers so maybe you put him in then but you referenced the bad turnover in his first game.   What happens if he does that in game 3 of rangers series?  After that we just rode a winning lineup until Game 7, didn’t we?   
 

Yeah, I understood giving Vanacek game 3 of Canes series to try and win back the job but I’m right there with you that Lindy dropped the ball going back to Vanacek in Game 4 just because he had won the previous game.  
 

 

Let’s just say earlier, and leave it at that. Moot point now though because he’s never coming out again. 

[Lateralous]

My little guy refused to take his jersey off for bed last night.   Had to break the news to him early this morning that we don’t get any more JackHughes games until fall and yes, JackHughes is all one word.  
 

[MadDog2020]

 

[jagknife]

4 minutes ago, MadDog2020 said:

 

That plus them still having never been swept are still impressive.

I opened Twitter to a quote tweet from one of those people that oozes over analytics and they were intentionally stoking the fires, trying to say a certain player had a great playoffs based off the xGF/xGFCCWMIR/whatever else.

Daily reminder you cannot use advanced analytics the sole judge of performance…

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

1 minute ago, jagknife said:

That plus them still having never been swept are still impressive.

I opened Twitter to a quote tweet from one of those people that oozes over analytics and they were intentionally stoking the fires, trying to say a certain player had a great playoffs based off the xGF/xGFCCWMIR/whatever else.

Daily reminder you cannot use advanced analytics the sole judge of performance…

Metrics kinda suck.  Not totally useless, but damn they have this way of painting a far different picture than what we're actually SEEING...

[jagknife]

4 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

Metrics kinda suck.  Not totally useless, but damn they have this way of painting a far different picture than what we're actually SEEING...

Exactly.

i’m not gonna pretend to be versed in them at all, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that:

1) This team played a completely different style in front of Ole Yeller whenever he was in net this season.

2) They got a boost anytime that Nate Bastian was in.

3) the defensive pairs which either caused my xHR/60 (expected heart rate/60) or xBD/60 (expected beers drank/60) to skyrocket were: regular season Bahl/Severson. Playoffs: Severson/Graves.

4) in no universe did Bratt have a “good” playoffs. 

[pumpkin cutter]

59 minutes ago, Lateralous said:

My little guy refused to take his jersey off for bed last night.   Had to break the news to him early this morning that we don’t get any more JackHughes games until fall and yes, JackHughes is all one word.  
 

so cute. about the same size as jack too! 

[Lateralous]

Just now, pumpkin cutter said:

so cute. about the same size as jack too! 

Ha, that could very well be a game worn jersey! 

[pumpkin cutter]

crazy how playoff hockey is totally different. i know it's common sense, but we haven't been here since 2012. i don't count that fluke year. 

 

[Jerrydevil]

The Bratt question is a tough one. On the one hand he did not play well in the postseason and on the other, the team doesn’t have a tremendous amount of scoring forward depth. I do believe he cost himself some money this spring but he’s still going to get a healthy contract from somebody.

[Satans Hockey]

1 hour ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

Metrics kinda suck.  Not totally useless, but damn they have this way of painting a far different picture than what we're actually SEEING...

 

1 hour ago, jagknife said:

Exactly.

i’m not gonna pretend to be versed in them at all, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that:

1) This team played a completely different style in front of Ole Yeller whenever he was in net this season.

2) They got a boost anytime that Nate Bastian was in.

3) the defensive pairs which either caused my xHR/60 (expected heart rate/60) or xBD/60 (expected beers drank/60) to skyrocket were: regular season Bahl/Severson. Playoffs: Severson/Graves.

4) in no universe did Bratt have a “good” playoffs. 

I personally don't care about these kinda stats whatsoever. 

I recently watched an episode of the Simpsons where Lisa coached Bart's baseball team strictly using sabermetrics and it's all I think about when I see all these kinda stats now lol

And recently it's expected goals has a been a thing some red bulls fans have brought up because we've won xG in every game but one yet they only have 1 win in 11 regular season games. They just recently fired their head coach and the gm actually said "we do not need to talk about xG we want to talk about goals that go in" 

I'm fine with advanced stats being used along everything else but Bratt absolutely sucked this playoffs. He played like an absolute coward.

[pumpkin cutter]

watching the post game.  players seem to be holding back tears. 

 

Edited May 12, 2023 by pumpkin cutter

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

1 minute ago, Satans Hockey said:

 

I personally don't care about these kinda stats whatsoever. 

I recently watched an episode of the Simpsons where Lisa coached Bart's baseball team strictly using sabermetrics and it's all I think about when I see all these kinda stats now lol

And recently it's expected goals has a been a thing some red bulls fans have brought up because we've won xG in every game but one yet they only have 1 win in 11 regular season games. They just recently fired their head coach and the gm actually said "we do not need to talk about xG we want to talk about goals that go in" 

I'm fine with advanced stats being used along everything else but Bratt absolutely sucked this playoffs. He played like an absolute coward.

This isn't a "metric" but the one number that I look at the most is shooting%...it's often a great predictor as to when a guy is going to get hot or cool down.  We've seen so many examples of a guy like, say, Andreas Johnsson get off to a hot start, and some start to get very excited...but then you see that he's shooting over 25%, which you know won't be sustainable...and then will come the inevitable cool-off.

And of course, at the other end was this year's Haula..."HOW LONG IS THIS GUY GOING TO SHOOT UNDER SIX PERCENT?!"  It took longer than expected, but we saw things finally even out for him to the point where his goals scored and shooting% numbers (regular season and playoffs combined) from this year to last wound up not being too far off from one another:

2021-22:  85 GP, 19 G, 12.7 shooting%

2022-23:  92 GP, 18 G, 9.6 shooting%

Career shooting% regular season:  11.8

Career shooting% playoffs:  11.5

He'll probably be closer to his career shooting% next season.  

[slasher72]

We'll be back. Hopefully Fitz tweaks the roster with the right moves and doesn't hand out stupid contracts to Bratt, Severson, or Graves. I don't think he will. I trust he'll do what's necessary to get the team to the next level. 

[pumpkin cutter]

 

[RizzMB30]

9 hours ago, Lateralous said:

What production?  His stats slowed every time the level of play was ratcheted up a notch this season and culminated in him doing jack sh!t in the playoffs.  

I doubt Haula/McLeod/Bastian will cost much more that 7 million combined so yeah, I could probably have them all with their new contracts for about the same as a favorable contract to Bratt.  

Besides, we just finished third in the entire NHL during the regular season with Meier only playing about 1/5 of the season for us and struggling to adapt early on.   He’ll be able to replace much of Bratt’s production on his own.   We’re hardly “looking at missing the playoffs again” just by losing Bratt like you claimed in your previous post.      

His 73 points in 82 games production. 

6 points in 13 games isn't "nothing" or "jack-sh!t". I'm sorry, but that's not what those words mean. 79 points in 95 total games is not a horrible year all in all and you can't just make it a horrible year by just snapping your fingers and plugging X player into that spot. We both know that's not how this works and we saw how it works, when you lose players like Parise or Kovalchuk and you don't replace their production, the likelihood of replacing that production with a plug-in player is how the Devils got into a 10 year long mess. Trying to account for Parise's lost production by plugging in Clarkson didn't work out super well. 

I'm taking the whole year into account here in my evaluation while you are saying Bratt-bad because of the playoffs performance, but one bad playoffs does not make or break a good player and I think this whole team, including Dougie Hamilton, Nico, Hughes struggled against Carolina. Meier had 4 points through 11 playoff games and his regular season was mostly not with us but he had 70 points in 89 total games including the playoffs. Both of these players are big parts of this team moving forward. 

Meier = 4 points through 11 games
Bratt = 6 points in 12 games 

But Bratt has this horrible playoffs. Even by your own initial standard of saying production is all your looking at, Bratt had better production than Meier if we just take the playoffs. Is it his production or simply the way he played? I don't think either had a good playoffs, but Meier was only slightly better and had a few goals compared to Bratt's one. The entire team was down for the Carolina series, especially the defense and this dragged most of the forwards down with them. It's like saying that core should be blown up because of a series like the 2018 Tampa Bay series, which nobody in this fan base was saying, "blow up this team" after that series. 

Yes I do consider moving on from Bratt a drastic change to the forward core. This team isn't Toronto and I think we are better than them right now and I think they need to maybe do something with Tavares or Nylander. 

Edited May 12, 2023 by RizzMB30

[Lateralous]

8 minutes ago, RizzMB30 said:

His 73 points in 82 games production. 

6 points in 13 games isn't "nothing" or "jack-sh!t". I'm sorry, but that's not what those words mean. 79 points in 95 total games is not a horrible year all in all and you can't just make it a horrible year by just snapping your fingers and plugging this player into that spot. We both know that's not how this works and we saw how it works, when you lose players like Parise or Kovalchuk and you don't replace their production, the likelihood of replacing that production with a plug-in player is how the Devils got into a 10 year long mess. 

I'm taking the whole year into account here in my evaluation while you are saying Bratt-bad because of the playoffs performance, but one bad playoffs does not make or break a good player. 

I'm not trying to plug one guy into his spot, that's exactly it.  There's only room for so many top dollar players in a cap world and between us adding Meier (I'm assuming Fitz will get his deal done) and Bratt paying like a "coward" as @Satans Hockey put it, I think he's absolutely played himself out of being any type of high priced core piece of this team.   Also, 73 points in 2023 isn't exactly irreplaceable, especially when you're not bringing much else to the table.  It was good for 48th in the league in scoring this year and 47th last year.       

The best way I can summarize it is like this.   We might not ultimately have the same success as Tampa but I think we're now at a spot that looks a awful lot like the Lightning about 8-9 years ago on their way up.   Jesper Bratt looks a lot more like the Tyler Johnson of this juggernaut than the Nikita Kucherov and they couldn't move on fast enough from TJ when all the other big salaries started kicking in.       

[Nicomo]

Points don’t tell the whole story. Timo was infinitely better than Bratt down the stretch and in the playoffs. He was the team leader in hits in the postseason, and he made his presence known on a nightly basis. He literally shook the best goalie in the world off of his game. He did take a few too many penalties, but that comes with the territory when you’re playing a style like that. He never went completely invisible for entire games at a time like Bratt did.