The OFFICIAL Off-Season Thread

[jagknife]

God it sucks we’re making this thread now, but it’s only fitting since I doomed us, I kick off the worst part of the calendar year: the off season…

This team shocked EVERYONE.

now, get the fvck healthy and do it again!

[jagknife]

First, for new business:

1) Graves played himself off this roster in the post season. His vanishing act is something Houdini would be impressed by.

2) Severson earned an offer. I doubt it will be anything that can keep him here, but his playoffs were solid enough to warrant an offer

3) Bratt cost himself millions by also vanishing. Period. He did NOTHING outside of the assist on the Dougie OT winner. I don’t even count the empty netter. We counted on Bratt, he choked.

4) Timo’s contact extension talks should begin right this second, if they haven’t. He is a DEVIL. He needs to stay a long time.

I’ll come up with more

[smelly]

Timo must be signed. 

McLeod is THE must sign among the non-Bratt RFAs  Bastian a close second  

Bratt only if he and his agent get real. Otherwise moving him is the quickest way to improve the roster. 
 

Would keep Severson but he will get more elsewhere. 
 

Haula stays if the price is right. 
 

Sayonara to Graves, Wood, Shara, Tatar. 
 

Bahl comes cheap or see ya. 
 

Need to add grit and size. 
 

Explore the goalie market aggressively. Look at Val from NYI and kick the tires on Hellebuyck. Given where this team is in its physical and fiscal life cycle, I’d rather invest in him than Bratt. 

Edited May 12, 2023 by smelly

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

No to Hellebuyck.  He goes UFA after next season and whoever signs him will be paying top dollar for his Age 31 and beyond years.  That contract will have serious blowup potential.

Devils will be better off giving Schmid a shot and/or trying to develop other young goalies from within.  

[smelly]

3 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

No to Hellebuyck.  He goes UFA after next season and whoever signs him will be paying top dollar for his Age 31 and beyond years.  That contract will have serious blowup potential.

Devils will be better off giving Schmid a shot and/or trying to develop other young goalies from within.  

We just disagree. Gonna have to overpay somebody. Hate to waste the talent here while we can afford it with a weakness in net. But I hear you. 

[pumpkin cutter]

bratt 6x6 or gtfo. tired of this nerd and his agent driving up his price. hopefully trade him for someone who can play when it counts. 

timo- keep him. he's what we need. 7x8?

graves- gone

severson- keep at a fair price

mcleod-  give him a nice 4th liner 4 yr deal.  he proved it these playoffs. 

wood- unless he takes league min. gone

bastian- same as wood

sharangovich - he gone

boqvist-he gone

haula- 3x3?

tatar- same as haula?

who we need to target? hopefully trade bratt for a good player. 

 

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

1 minute ago, smelly said:

We just disagree. Gonna have to overpay somebody. Hate to waste the talent here while we can afford it with a weakness in net. But I hear you. 

VV’s ceiling may indeed be as a 1B, but Schmid might have more than that to offer.  Why not find out?  He’s much younger with far more prime years ahead of him, and should cost less.

[jagknife]

1 minute ago, pumpkin cutter said:

bratt 6x6 or gtfo. tired of this nerd and his agent driving up his price. hopefully trade him for someone who can play when it counts. 

timo- keep him. he's what we need. 7x8?

graves- gone

severson- keep at a fair price

mcleod-  give him a nice 4th liner 4 yr deal.  he proved it these playoffs. 

wood- unless he takes league min. gone

bastian- same as wood

sharangovich - he gone

boqvist-he gone

haula- 3x3?

tatar- same as haula?

who we need to target? hopefully trade bratt for a good player. 

 

Gotta keep Nate, he was the catalyst and it showed whenever he was out of the lineup. Keep him and Mikey.

Wood can go although he wised up after his benching, too little to late for me.

I want Haula back cause how he played at the end is what his game really is, not the offensive black hole anomaly he was early on.

[jagknife]

1 minute ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

VV’s ceiling may indeed be as a 1B, but Schmid might have more than that to offer.  Why not find out?  He’s much younger with far more prime years ahead of him, and should cost less.

And the team responded to him exceptionally well. He’s young and will have bad games. I’m not willing to throw the baby out with the bath water and panic with the young core cause I worry our window is short.

this team is build to contend soon, this year just happened to accelerate it. If anything we should be even more patient cause of how capable the can be. They proved it all damn year

[smelly]

The counter is that you can’t afford to potentially waste even one year of a cost controlled core in a capped league. If Smid works out, great. But if not, you will find yourself a whole lot closer than it seems to making some really painful roster decisions that will hurt the overall talent level. 
 

Someone will make a play for CH. Hate to see the Devils an annual bridesmaid while he heads somewhere like Ottawa. Not guaranteed, but def a risk. 
 

The Devs are in great shape. 
 

But the Canes aren’t going away. And the Sens and Sabres are coming. Great year. But need to keep moving forward. 

Edited May 12, 2023 by smelly

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

1 minute ago, jagknife said:

And the team responded to him exceptionally well. He’s young and will have bad games. I’m not willing to throw the baby out with the bath water and panic with the young core cause I worry our window is short.

this team is build to contend soon, this year just happened to accelerate it. If anything we should be even more patient cause of how capable the can be. They proved it all damn year

I also think people sometimes inflate a “top” goalie’s impact on a series.  Hellebuyck, Sorokin and Shesterkin led their teams to how many playoff wins this year?  Not saying they were all to blame by any stretch, just that having a bigger name in net doesn’t always guarantee playoff success.  

[jagknife]

2 minutes ago, smelly said:

The counter is that you can’t afford to potentially waste even one year of a cost controlled core in a capped league. If Smid works out, great. But if not, you will find yourself a whole lot closer than it seems to making some really painful roster decisions that will hurt the overall talent level. 
 

Someone will make a play for CH. Hate to see the Devils an annual bridesmaid while he heads somewhere like Ottawa. Not guaranteed, but def a risk. 

And when you make panic signings cause there might be a shiny toy out there, you become the Rangers or the Leafs.

Get the goalies healthy, Schmid now has solidified his place in the team. Him and VV get a full year to tandem and build and develop, and build on the experience. 

[smelly]

4 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

I also think people sometimes inflate a “top” goalie’s impact on a series.  Hellebuyck, Sorokin and Shesterkin led their teams to how many playoff wins this year?  Not saying they were all to blame by any stretch, just that having a bigger name in net doesn’t always guarantee playoff success.  

Shesterkin is a coin flip game 3 away from bouncingb the Devils quickly. And even then he almost stole the series himself. 
 

And WPG and NYI aren’t really relevant comparisons here IMO. 
 

Put their goalies on a talent-laden squad like the Devils and they can push you over the top. The fact that they couldn’t solely carry much lesser teams past top seeds doesn’t change that. 

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

3 minutes ago, jagknife said:

And when you make panic signings cause there might be a shiny toy out there, you become the Rangers or the Leafs.

Get the goalies healthy, Schmid now has solidified his place in the team. Him and VV get a full year to tandem and build and develop, and build on the experience. 

This, you start signing up guys in their 30s to 6+ year expensive deals (someone will give that to Hellebuyck), that’s how you screw yourself.  

[smelly]

4 minutes ago, jagknife said:

And when you make panic signings cause there might be a shiny toy out there, you become the Rangers or the Leafs.

Get the goalies healthy, Schmid now has solidified his place in the team. Him and VV get a full year to tandem and build and develop, and build on the experience. 

Totally different scenarios. 
 

The leafs messed up because they signed a luxury like Tavares when they already had a strong forward group. 
 

rangers acted similarly with Panarin, and paid way more than was sensible. I’m not advocating 11mm for CH. At that rate I pass. 
 

here though the devils have a true hole. 

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Schmid turned in some excellent playoff starts…even outplayed Shesterkin.  Not sure why he’s automatically being called a “hole”.  He’s done enough to warrant a further look.

[jagknife]

Just now, smelly said:

Totally different scenarios. 
 

The leafs messed up because they signed a luxury like Tavares when they already had a strong forward group. 
 

rangers acted similarly with Panarin, and paid way more than was sensible. I’m not advocating 11mm for CH. At that rate I pass. 
 

here though the devils have a true hole. 

No they freaking don’t and you know it.

You want to overreact to the blowouts then you’re clearly absolving the rest of the team from absolutely sh!tting the bed. They QUIT in game 4, everyone said it, hell even Nico called them out for it. He called the entire team out.

you want to put Hellybuck on the top of your dreamsheet this post season, awesome.

But to downplay the rate at which VV and Schmid delivered more times than not is outright ignorant and you’re simply trying to push your false narrative that the goaltending was the lone issue between this team and a cup.

[smelly]

18 minutes ago, jagknife said:

No they freaking don’t and you know it.

You want to overreact to the blowouts then you’re clearly absolving the rest of the team from absolutely sh!tting the bed. They QUIT in game 4, everyone said it, hell even Nico called them out for it. He called the entire team out.

you want to put Hellybuck on the top of your dreamsheet this post season, awesome.

But to downplay the rate at which VV and Schmid delivered more times than not is outright ignorant and you’re simply trying to push your false narrative that the goaltending was the lone issue between this team and a cup.

You aren’t reading very carefully. 
 

go see my original post in this thread. 
 

go see my posts in the game threads.  
 

 

then come back and tell me where I said that goaltending was the only issue and where I absolved the rest of the team. 
 

I’ll wait. 
 

the discussion about CH arose in response to another’s comment here. 
 

Here are the scores in the Devils losses going back to mid-March when they were fighting for the division down the stretch and then in the playoffs:

4-3

4-1

4-2

2-1

5-4

5-1

6-1

2-1

5-1

5-1

5-2

5-1

6-1

6-1

3-2

That’s a lot of crappy goaltending when it counts. Was is all the goalies’ fault? No.  But a lot of it was.
 

Fitz did a great job adding league average goaltending to a team that the underlying metrics said suffered greatly from that hole the year before.  Bravo.  
 

Now Fitz sees that the team is indeed in its contention window. I strongly suspect he will look to improve beyond league average netminding for next season, whether over the summer or at the deadline. Will it be CH? Who knows. I’d definitely investigate the price if I were Fitz. 
 

it won’t be too long before the devils will not be able to afford all of the shiny toys they now have. Fitz knows he needs to maximize what are the NFL-equivalent years while your stud QB is on his rookie contact.  Just watch. 

Edited May 12, 2023 by smelly

[NJDfan1711]

Looking ahead to next year, the two biggest things to consider right off the bat are Meier and Bratt.

Meier is an obvious must-sign.  I don't see reason why he wouldn't want to be here and why we wouldn't give him what he's worth.  I have a feeling Bratt may get a nice offer from another team and I don't think it'd be wise to match it beyond a certain point.  Guy has amazing hands, but is very soft and was clearly invisible in these playoffs - big time disappointment from someone who was supposed to be a top 6 player.  He looked like a fringe NHLer at best.

I would let Wood walk - great guy and gave a lot of effort during his time here, but he takes too many penalties and just isn't skilled enough.  I try to find a younger, grittier guy who can grind and also score to slot on the 4th line as his replacement.   Lazar may be it.

I'm hoping Boqvist, Bastian, and McLeod all sign reasonable offers.  McLeod certainly earned it - he's great on the PK, faceoffs, and has a nice scoring touch here and there too.  Total effort guy, and he deserves to be paid.  Bastian is size that we need and he still plays well with McLeod.  Boqvist is a good extra skater and fill-in at times.  Frankly, I'm very on the fence between keeping him or Sharangovich.  I think we can keep one, but not both.  I see Foote or Holtz taking their spots as potential regulars next year.

I'd like to see both Tatar and Haula back, perhaps only emphasis on the latter, but I also understand if they're gone too. Tatar with a bonehead play that cost us the game, and he was too streaky in the regular season.  Haula started terribly, but rebounded nicely and was a good energy guy.  He should remain on the third line if you ask me, as a good depth piece. 

On the blue line, I would like to see Sevs stick around for the right price - I think it's important to have veterans on the team, especially guys who have been here a while.  But if he wants too much money or Fitz doesn't seem him as part of the future, I understand it. The dude is only 28 so it's reasonable to think he could still have several good years left. 

I'd probably let Graves walk just because he doesn't seem to bring much - while he's not really a huge liability most times, he just isn't particularly great at any one thing.  Doesn't really use his size much, isn't fast, doesn't really kill penalties, and doesn't score.  Only real plus is that he's somewhat reliable in his own end, and he's young.  If we can get him cheap, maybe he sticks around as a 7th d-man, but I think he may have played his way off the roster.

With all these question marks, I wonder if our roster looks something like this to start next season:

Mercer - Hischier - Meier

FA/Holtz - Hughes - Palat

FA/Foote - Haula - Sharangovich

Bastian - McLeod - Lazar

Boqvist as an extra.

Hamilton - Marino

Severson - Hughes

Bahl - Sigenthaler

Smith/Nemec as extras.

Vanecek 

Schmid

[Lateralous]

You definitely don’t go chasing a goalie trade when you just had a guy with the equivalent pro experience of Kevin Bahl turn in that performance in the playoffs.   We roll with Schmid and VV until Schmid proves he’s not a guy and then we can start exploring other options.   

[smelly]

6 minutes ago, NJDfan1711 said:

Looking ahead to next year, the two biggest things to consider right off the bat are Meier and Bratt.

Meier is an obvious must-sign.  I don't see reason why he wouldn't want to be here and why we wouldn't give him what he's worth.  I have a feeling Bratt may get a nice offer from another team and I don't think it'd be wise to match it beyond a certain point.  Guy has amazing hands, but is very soft and was clearly invisible in these playoffs - big time disappointment from someone who was supposed to be a top 6 player.  He looked like a fringe NHLer at best.

I would let Wood walk - great guy and gave a lot of effort during his time here, but he takes too many penalties and just isn't skilled enough.  I try to find a younger, grittier guy who can grind and also score to slot on the 4th line as his replacement.   Lazar may be it.

I'm hoping Boqvist, Bastian, and McLeod all sign reasonable offers.  McLeod certainly earned it - he's great on the PK, faceoffs, and has a nice scoring touch here and there too.  Total effort guy, and he deserves to be paid.  Bastian is size that we need and he still plays well with McLeod.  Boqvist is a good extra skater and fill-in at times.  Frankly, I'm very on the fence between keeping him or Sharangovich.  I think we can keep one, but not both.  I see Foote or Holtz taking their spots as potential regulars next year.

I'd like to see both Tatar and Haula back, perhaps only emphasis on the latter, but I also understand if they're gone too. Tatar with a bonehead play that cost us the game, and he was too streaky in the regular season.  Haula started terribly, but rebounded nicely and was a good energy guy.  He should remain on the third line if you ask me, as a good depth piece. 

On the blue line, I would like to see Sevs stick around for the right price - I think it's important to have veterans on the team, especially guys who have been here a while.  But if he wants too much money or Fitz doesn't seem him as part of the future, I understand it. The dude is only 28 so it's reasonable to think he could still have several good years left. 

I'd probably let Graves walk just because he doesn't seem to bring much - while he's not really a huge liability most times, he just isn't particularly great at any one thing.  Doesn't really use his size much, isn't fast, doesn't really kill penalties, and doesn't score.  Only real plus is that he's somewhat reliable in his own end, and he's young.  If we can get him cheap, maybe he sticks around as a 7th d-man, but I think he may have played his way off the roster.

With all these question marks, I wonder if our roster looks something like this to start next season:

Mercer - Hischier - Meier

FA/Holtz - Hughes - Palat

FA/Foote - Haula - Sharangovich

Bastian - McLeod - Lazar

Boqvist as an extra.

Hamilton - Marino

Severson - Hughes

Bahl - Sigenthaler

Smith/Nemec as extras.

Vanecek 

Schmid

Very plausible. And would be very disappointing. The Metro will be tough again next year and a playoff spot is not guaranteed. Need improvements, not treading water. A Bahl-Siegenthaler pairing is downright terrifying. The dream is Severson stays. But that’s what it is - a dream. 

Edited May 12, 2023 by smelly

[RizzMB30]

25 minutes ago, smelly said:

You aren’t reading very carefully. 
 

go see my original post in this thread. 
 

go see my posts in the game threads.  
 

 

then come back and tell me where I said that goaltending was the only issue and where I absolved the rest of the team. 
 

I’ll wait. 
 

the discussion about CH arose in response to another’s comment here. 
 

Here are the scores in the Devils losses going back to mid-March when they were fighting for the division down the stretch and then in the playoffs:

4-3

4-1

4-2

2-1

5-4

5-1

6-1

2-1

5-1

5-1

5-2

5-1

6-1

6-1

3-2

That’s a lot of crappy goaltending when it counts. Was is all the goalies’ fault? No.  But a lot of it was.
 

Fitz did a great job adding league average goaltending to a team that the underlying metrics said suffered greatly from that hole the year before.  Bravo.  
 

Now Fitz sees that the team is indeed in its contention window. I strongly suspect he will look to improve beyond league average netminding for next season, whether over the summer or at the deadline. Will it be CH? Who knows. I’d definitely investigate the price if I were Fitz. 
 

it won’t be too long before the devils will not be able to afford all of the shiny toys they now have. Fitz knows he needs to maximize what are the NFL-equivalent years while your stud QB is on his rookie contact.  Just watch. 

Wrong. You have zero evidence showing that those loss numbers indicate bad goaltending and not simply bad defense. It's not as simple as you're trying to make it sound. 

Also NHL is not the NFL. Literally apples to oranges. In both player assets and finance assets

Edited May 12, 2023 by RizzMB30

[jagknife]

3 minutes ago, smelly said:

Very plausible. And would be very disappointing. The Metro will be tough again next year and a playoff spot is not guaranteed. Need improvements, not treading water. 

1) you’re never going to see me find a spot where you said overtly “goaltending is the sole reason they lost” but when you say it’s “a true hole” you and I both know what you’re getting at. Stop pretending you’re not saddling the second round exit on the goalies.

2) this team set so many franchise records. They need to tinker, not overhaul parts. The core is there, the framework is absolutely there.

We’ve been patient for so long, made the big moves when needed, goaltending is not the spot where a big move HAS to come for them to be successful.

You wanna save this post and a year from now, if goaltending is the reason they bow out, or worse miss the playoffs, I’ll slap a $100 donation to the site wager on it.

I’m that confident in a VV/Schmid tandem.

[NJDfan1711]

9 minutes ago, smelly said:

Very plausible. And would be very disappointing. The Metro will be tough again next year and a playoff spot is not guaranteed. Need improvements, not treading water. A Bahl-Siegenthaler pairing is downright terrifying. The dream is Severson stays. But that’s what it is - a dream. 

I love the idea of Bahl/Siegs as a third pairing.  Bahl moves very quick for his size and he isn't afraid to shoot either. I think he's only going to improve.  Siegs is what he is - an offensive black hole at times, but that's not his job.  His job is to play solid defense and for the most part he seems to do that just fine. Seems like the perfect guy to log 3rd line D-pair minutes.

[smelly]

9 minutes ago, jagknife said:

1) you’re never going to see me find a spot where you said overtly “goaltending is the sole reason they lost” but when you say it’s “a true hole” you and I both know what you’re getting at. Stop pretending you’re not saddling the second round exit on the goalies.

2) this team set so many franchise records. They need to tinker, not overhaul parts. The core is there, the framework is absolutely there.

We’ve been patient for so long, made the big moves when needed, goaltending is not the spot where a big move HAS to come for them to be successful.

You wanna save this post and a year from now, if goaltending is the reason they bow out, or worse miss the playoffs, I’ll slap a $100 donation to the site wager on it.

I’m that confident in a VV/Schmid tandem.

Point 1 is absolutely not true. I do not think that and saying they have a hole in net is not at all inconsistent with that. Go back and look at the game threads. I didn’t even mention goalie once. 
 

I loved this season. And I loved this team. 
 

but they can’t sit still or sit on their laurels or they will go backwards like the Rangers did this year. 

Edited May 12, 2023 by smelly