Devils have acquired Colin Miller from Dallas in exchange for our 2025 5th Round Pick.

[aylbert]

38 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

He got 6 years @ $4.5 million AAV from Pittsburgh.  Was a little surprised by the AAV…I thought that he was a lock for at least $5 million.

I’m sure if he wanted a short term deal…   Instead opted for term.

[RizzMB30]

1 hour ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

He got 6 years @ $4.5 million AAV from Pittsburgh.  Was a little surprised by the AAV…I thought that he was a lock for at least $5 million.

He's a good defenseman and easily could have earned his way back here. Was shocked by his play in the playoffs and I think that's what maybe turned Fitz off too from doing anything long-term.

Other than the Graves deal, I think Dubas did a good job going out there and trying to fix their depth and secondary scoring. Acciari is an excellent depth forward, small but grindy. Eller is a great depth forward. Nieto is decent. Jarry probably was one of the better options on the UFA market anyway so I would have tried to give him less term due to being injury prone, but if he can stay healthy and give them 50 games + play the entire playoffs with good injury luck then great. He has to stay healthy. This was kind of giving a better version of Blackwood the money he's worth. He's not Vasilevsky, but he can stay in the top 10-15 of save percentage. Both PIT and CAR are running it back with the same goalies because the market was so trash this year. Korpisalo went off the market quick and then the goalie market dried up. 

Fitz has been sitting through FA smiling and kicking his feet up I'm sure knowing he has Nemec and Hughes in his back pocket on team friendly salaries for a few years and going to try to save as much cap space as humanly possible. I think it explains the Miller deal. He's cheap and will add to our depth. We don't really need to go nuts. 

Edited July 2, 2023 by RizzMB30

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

8 minutes ago, RizzMB30 said:

He's a good defenseman and easily could have earned his way back here. Was shocked by his play in the playoffs and I think that's what maybe turned Fitz off too from doing anything long-term.

Other than the Graves deal, I think Dubas did a good job going out there and trying to fix their depth and secondary scoring. Acciari is an excellent depth forward, small but grindy. Eller is a great depth forward. Nieto is decent. Jarry probably was one of the better options on the UFA market anyway so I would have tried to give him less term due to being injury prone, but if he can stay healthy and give them 50 games + play the entire playoffs with good injury luck then great. He has to stay healthy. This was kind of giving a better version of Blackwood the money he's worth. He's not Vasilevsky, but he can stay in the top 10-15 of save percentage. Both PIT and CAR are running it back with the same goalies because the market was so trash this year. Korpisalo went off the market quick and then the goalie market dried up. 

Fitz has been sitting through FA smiling and kicking his feet up I'm sure knowing he has Nemec and Hughes in his back pocket on team friendly salaries for a few years and going to try to save as much cap space as humanly possible. I think it explains the Miller deal. He's cheap and will add to our depth. We don't really need to go nuts. 

Yeah I think Graves’ playoff killed whatever very slight chances he had of sticking around…but once Fitz was able to more or less painlessly sign Bratt and Timo to extensions, there was just no room left to keep him.  And keeping him long-term with the young D talent already here just made no sense.  When you come right down to it, the second that Nemec was drafted was the end of Graves being in the Devils’ long-term plans.  But I’m glad he was here to help the Devils reach the playoffs last year.

I had really thought that Nemec was almost a lock to start the 2023-24 season with the Devils (just a hunch), but Miller being here has me thinking otherwise.  Fitz clearly does not want to rush Nemec under any circumstances, and I get his being cautious.  If we have to wait just a bit longer for Nemec to make his debut, we wait.  Miller will afford the Devils that luxury.

[RizzMB30]

35 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

Yeah I think Graves’ playoff killed whatever very slight chances he had of sticking around…but once Fitz was able to more or less painlessly sign Bratt and Timo to extensions, there was just no room left to keep him.  And keeping him long-term with the young D talent already here just made no sense.  When you come right down to it, the second that Nemec was drafted was the end of Graves being in the Devils’ long-term plans.  But I’m glad he was here to help the Devils reach the playoffs last year.

I had really thought that Nemec was almost a lock to start the 2023-24 season with the Devils (just a hunch), but Miller being here has me thinking otherwise.  Fitz clearly does not want to rush Nemec under any circumstances, and I get his being cautious.  If we have to wait just a bit longer for Nemec to make his debut, we wait.  Miller will afford the Devils that luxury.

We are spoiled at this point with good team-building. It just means we don't really need to be super active around this time of the year really. We've mostly shedded players we can't afford and fit in. The Dougie Hamilton signing blindsided me and it feels since that big splash, we haven't really needed to make a big splash at the July 1st FA Spend-your-money marathon.

Last year the big goalie was Kuemper or maybe Husso and this year it was Korpisalo or Jarry (if he was able to test the market). Good goalies just don't hit that FA market very often and Jarry is a good example of that because PIT was pretty scared someone would throw 7 a mill or more at him. Teams are getting smart about goalies and wary about shelling out 8+ million a year. Look at the some of the back up deals. Johansson in Tampa at 775K/year, Raanta at 1.5 million a year. Kochetkov only 2 million a year. I'd be very interested to see how much Boston thinks Swayman is worth and if they can fit him under 5m a year, but they may not be able to give him a lot of term too. 

My poor goalies are getting killed out here and nobody rarely even play 60-70 games a year anymore.  62 was a lot for Sorokin this year. Vasilevsky has played 65 and 63 twice. The year he played 65 was one of his best years so those are freaks who can play that much and be consistently good. The freaks gets 8+ and only the freaks so to speak should. If Lou got Sorokin for under 8/7.5, it's not an awful deal at least. Sorokin has to live up to his end too and really try to stay healthy. 


A lot of the players I was possibly interested in like Colton are off the market so that's done, but I like that we are just going to look into our little pool of young players and pick out the best of that bunch and they can plug in and fill in spots. There are still a few in that forward rookie pool still believe it or not. I'd hard pressed to tell you players that I would really want at this point. Like I saw that Santini went to LA and thought about that guy, but I don't even think he's seen a lot of NHL ice in the past few years. Puljujarvi if we really wanted another guy on the right, but he couldn't stick in EDM and I thought, "Okay, not everyone can stick it with the two top players in the world, but EDM's has drafted plenty of busts over the years too." Then he couldn't make himself stick in Carolina, so now I'm pretty wary of that guy too. Just not a lot of guys who are going off the board on the UFA market and I'm bummed about it. 

If we only add Toffoli, Miller, and Kallgren all offseason, I'd be fine. I trust Fitz to do his homework on how these guys are in the locker room and that kind of thing because that's what he says he tries to find. 

Edited July 2, 2023 by RizzMB30

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

@RizzMB30 yeah I agree, only remaining biz is to get Bahl under contract.  Everything else that Fitz possibly could have hoped to accomplish this offseason, he’s already done it and then some.  He’s had one of best and flat-out most EFFICIENT offseasons that I’ve ever seen a Devils GM have.  

[RizzMB30]

27 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

@RizzMB30 yeah I agree, only remaining biz is to get Bahl under contract.  Everything else that Fitz possibly could have hoped to accomplish this offseason, he’s already done it and then some.  He’s had one of best and flat-out most EFFICIENT offseasons that I’ve ever seen a Devils GM have.  

And I expect Bahl come in at 2.2-2.6 AAV. Maybe less if Fitz can work his magic. 





Sitting pretty at 5.6 million in cap space. Core is strong, fourth line is big and mostly fast. Big d corps still. Love em goalies. 

Goals: Find cap space for Mercer, Nemec, LHughes, (possibly Holtz and Schmid) long-term. I don't envy Fitz. Even as a simple armchair GM, it's daunting. Palat and Hamilton's contracts are the obvious eyesores, but as it stands now those aren't bad contracts. Palat is looking it like it could be one quick if he doesn't come into training camp in really good shape and has some of his footspeed back. What we got post-surgery wasn't 6 million a year worth, so I expect him to come into camp looking better and hopefully quicker. Hamilton was the light scoring of the playoffs, but I don't mind him at 9 million. Everyone's going to be waiting for the regression years, but it wasn't this past season as he was a beast. So we'll see. Palat has a No-move I think so that one is probably going to sting at some point, but hopefully we get a lot more mileage out of Pally.  

EDIT: Toffoli, Smith, Miller will all be coming off the books so there is a little bit of space, but big decisions to be made is my point. We'll have around 9.8 in space by next July 1st if all other variables stay equal and barring no moves up until July 1, 2024.  

EDIT2: I just caught myself drooling at the P/GP numbers. That top six once Mercer catches up. 

Edited July 2, 2023 by RizzMB30

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

It’s a ways off but I can see Fitz buying out Palat with a year left on his deal, and trying to move Hamilton (possibly picking up some of his remaining money) with two years left on his contract.  But fortunately not a major concern on 7/1/23.

Also can’t see Bahl getting $2 million AAV.  Probably more like $1.5 million or so.  He still has a lot to prove…he’s played in just 66 NHL regular season games to date.  I could see two years $3 million or so total. 

Edited July 2, 2023 by Colorado Rockies 1976

[Guadana]

Good deal as always. Fitz gives Nemec one more year to cook. Miller was decent in 3rd pair role. This is exactly what he will doing here as a partner for Bahl. And he is experienced enough to play second pair role if someone will get an injury. Nemec is the first guy to being called up.

He was third best in preventing shots/chances/goals in Dallas. Played 17min per game. 

On he left side we have two good defensive prospects in Vilen and Misyul, both are mobile defensive first defensemen with good size and experience in adult leagues.. Both could be used if their game in AHL will be there and they will make good impression in camp before.
 

Siegs-Dougie
Hughes-Marino
Bahl-Miller
Smith
—
Vilen/Misyul-Nemec

 

Edited July 5, 2023 by Guadana

[njbuff]

On 7/5/2023 at 3:14 AM, Guadana said:

Good deal as always. Fitz gives Nemec one more year to cook. Miller was decent in 3rd pair role. This is exactly what he will doing here as a partner for Bahl. And he is experienced enough to play second pair role if someone will get an injury. Nemec is the first guy to being called up.

He was third best in preventing shots/chances/goals in Dallas. Played 17min per game. 

On he left side we have two good defensive prospects in Vilen and Misyul, both are mobile defensive first defensemen with good size and experience in adult leagues.. Both could be used if their game in AHL will be there and they will make good impression in camp before.
 

Siegs-Dougie
Hughes-Marino
Bahl-Miller
Smith
—
Vilen/Misyul-Nemec

 

I’d be surprised if Hughes-Marino isn’t one of the best D pairings in the NHL.