MadDog2020 Posted March 9 Author Share Posted March 9 5 minutes ago, capo said: IDK, I think if he's on the Devils he's balls. That Florida team is super legit. I realize he's 35 now but didn't he lose the job to Knight at one point? And he wasn't great last year. He ended up back in the starter role in the playoffs but he was shaky at times. I think Florida is definitely going back to the SCF but it's not because of him. Fair enough, but he has had a bit of a resurgence. Obviously being on a great team helps, but he has played well too and deserves some credit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njbuff Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 What grade do you give the Devils today? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ButlerBulldog Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 1 minute ago, njbuff said: What grade do you give the Devils today? C+. The Toffoli trade was awful, and Smith still being on the roster is almost as bad, but the other trades will give the Devils flexibility to pursue another goaltender in the offseason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satans Hockey Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 (edited) 26 minutes ago, njbuff said: What grade do you give the Devils today? F, never should have let it get to this place to begin with. F is for Fitz. F is for Failure. F is for fvcking waste of yet another season. Edited March 9 by Satans Hockey 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 (edited) 11 hours ago, njbuff said: What grade do you give the Devils today? I give him a B. Had Fitz been disappointing as hell this season, prior to yesterday? Between being nowhere to be found and his lack of urgency, yes, absolutely. But that doesn’t mean everything that he’s now doing automatically sucks as a result. Sure, a first for Toffoli would’ve been great, but getting nothing for Toffoli or 3+ more years of Toffoli would’ve been worse. As @nessus said elsewhere, people complain about his lack of speed and were terrified about Fitz blindly re-signing him to a long-term deal, but then get pissed when Fitz can’t get more for him. Basically Fitz couldn’t win here unless he somehow got a first-rounder that no one was offering, but to me the “disaster” scenarios involving Toffoli were either letting him walk for nothing, or keeping him for anything more than two years. So this return is really not so bad. Fitz had another third-rounder to work with as a result of the above, so giving one up for Allen to be next season’s backup (especially with Montreal retaining money) is fine. He’s making so little money that if Fitz decides that he needs to upgrade at backup at some point, he should be able to find a way to do it. Allen’s only under contract through the end of next season, so not like Fitz took on an odious deal here. I wouldn’t have minded Miller sticking around, but barring any other deals this offseason, the Devils will already have six D; Miller was brought here to be stopgap insurance for Nemec, which is no longer necessary. Dougie will be back. I’d be on board with re-signing him, but there’s probably better opportunities for him to play elsewhere. Might as well get something for him, and given that Fitz coughed up a fifth and was able to get a fourth back, it’s not exciting, but it will do. Getting out from under VV’s final year without having to retain so much as a penny is an absolute home run. Fitz would be getting DESTROYED if VV was allowed to be in the team’s plans to start next season…not only does he get rid of him, but Fitz somehow managed to avoid taking anything crappy back that was under contract beyond this year that would have hampered cap flexibility for next season. He’s in EXCELLENT position to take on a legit #1 and pay him accordingly, and as previously mentioned, should also be able to upgrade at backup in-season if the need arises. Of course, Fitz will have to now follow through and land a top goalie this summer, but I don’t see how he won’t. It will cost, but at least he’s very clearly going to address it. For all the bitching about him at the moment (and he absolutely brought a good chunk of that on himself, no question), there’s GMs who would’ve said “VV’s been pretty good the past three years and did a nice job for me last year, so I’m going to see if he can bounce back for me here.” That won’t happen. There’s going to be no double down Part Deux here, and the impact of that should NOT be minimized. Fitz obviously still has PLENTY of work to do this offseason, but all in all, yesterday was a good start to whatever recovery plan that he’s trying to implement. Edited March 9 by Colorado Rockies 1976 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadDog2020 Posted March 10 Author Share Posted March 10 2 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lateralous Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 That’s pretty funny. At least Meier is at the top. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadDog2020 Posted March 10 Author Share Posted March 10 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lateralous Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 22 minutes ago, MadDog2020 said: There sure are a lot of pucks in the net behind Jake Allen in that photo 😉 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ButlerBulldog Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 23 minutes ago, Lateralous said: There sure are a lot of pucks in the net behind Jake Allen in that photo 😉 Rogalski’s already working his magic 🤪. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capo Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 I like their masks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lateralous Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 17 hours ago, MadDog2020 said: All jokes aside, this is why you don’t publicly skewer a guy like Holtz the way Fitz did last week. All it’s going to take is a 9 day hot streak to start a month after you’ve traded him for another 30 something that may or may not work out to look like an absolute fool. If Holtz finds his groove somewhere else, Fitz set himself up for this type of thing to follow him for years. For the record, I don’t even have an issue with either the Zacha or Sharangovich trade but he also never pulled the sh!t he did last week with either one. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 19 minutes ago, Lateralous said: All jokes aside, this is why you don’t publicly skewer a guy like Holtz the way Fitz did last week. All it’s going to take is a 9 day hot streak to start a month after you’ve traded him for another 30 something that may or may not work out to look like an absolute fool. If Holtz finds his groove somewhere else, Fitz set himself up for this type of thing to follow him for years. For the record, I don’t even have an issue with either the Zacha or Sharangovich trade but he also never pulled the sh!t he did last week with either one. I mentioned it elsewhere but I wonder if Fitz hangs onto Holtz and gives a brand-new coach a chance to work with him. For a guy like Holtz, someone other than Lindy in charge of him might feel like a change of scenery all by itself. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lateralous Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 (edited) 24 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said: I mentioned it elsewhere but I wonder if Fitz hangs onto Holtz and gives a brand-new coach a chance to work with him. For a guy like Holtz, someone other than Lindy in charge of him might feel like a change of scenery all by itself. I doubt it. It’s seems like he hits a certain level of frustration with players and then just blows. Didn’t he make a snarky public statement about Blackwood and then eventually just moved on from him? For the life of me, I cannot figure out what purpose that Holtz rant served. That did more to damage my opinion of him than any lack of picks in a deadline trade. It’s literally 101 stuff. There was nothing in there meant to motivate the player, at least in NJ, so what was that? Running around doing every podcast and interview possible this summer when there was nothing but accolades for his work only to become an absolute ghost when sh!t hit the fan this season also didn’t help my opinion of him. I don’t disagree with you that his overall body of work is pretty good and he deserves a chance to right the ship, especially after Friday set us up for summer fixes. Unfortunately, I also think he’s personally come out of this season looking like an absolute fvcking clown and that sucks Edited March 10 by Lateralous 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slasher72 Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 (edited) 33 minutes ago, Lateralous said: I doubt it. It’s seems like he hits a certain level of frustration with players and then just blows. Didn’t he make a snarky public statement about Blackwood and then eventually just moved on from him? For the life of me, I cannot figure out what purpose that Holtz rant served. That did more to damage my opinion of him than any lack of picks in a deadline trade. It’s literally 101 stuff. There was nothing in there meant to motivate the player, at least in NJ, so what was that? Running around doing every podcast and interview possible this summer when there was nothing but accolades for his work only to become an absolute ghost when sh!t hit the fan this season also didn’t help my opinion of him. I don’t disagree with you that his overall body of work is pretty good and he deserves a chance to right the ship, especially after Friday set us up for summer fixes. Unfortunately, I also think he’s personally come out of this season looking like an absolute fvcking clown and that sucks Not to mention trashing Holtz makes you look like an idiot when you're trying to trade him. You'd think Fitz would want to talk up Holtz to other GM's, not the other way around. Maybe Fitz is too stupid to realize that. He seems to have very little self-awareness as a GM. Edited March 10 by slasher72 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ButlerBulldog Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 (edited) 23 minutes ago, slasher72 said: Not to mention trashing Holtz makes you look like an idiot when you're trying to trade him. You'd think Fitz would want to talk up Holtz to other GM's, not the other way around. Maybe Fitz is too stupid to realize that. He seems to have very little self-awareness as a GM. I don’t think Fitz is stupid, but he does seem to let his emotions cloud his judgement. His behavior during the press conference has me wondering if, at some level, he blames Holtz and other players who’ve underachieved for forcing his hand regarding Lindy and saw the media session as a fortuitous opportunity to attack Alex when asked a question about him specifically. Whatever his motives, however, it’s disappointing that an executive would make a personal grudge public, which is why I hope Fitz learns from this situation and offers more measured, tempered comments in the future. Edited March 10 by ButlerBulldog 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadDog2020 Posted March 11 Author Share Posted March 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 9 minutes ago, MadDog2020 said: It feels like Fitz has pretty much decided that Allen is his backup to start next year (with the option to upgrade in-season, if needed), but I wonder if Kahkonen outplays Allen by a significant margin, if that makes Fitz reconsider? Of course we know how volatile goalies can be...Fitz could decide to change course based on what he sees in this limited time, only to see Allen outplay Kahkonen next season. And of course there's the added extra work that would be required to re-sign Kahkonen and deal off Allen, for what might not be much of any real gain in the end. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJDevils1214 Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 It's going to be real funny if Allen and Kahkonen both nose dive here too. A real indictment on the coaching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadDog2020 Posted March 11 Author Share Posted March 11 3 minutes ago, NJDevils1214 said: It's going to be real funny if Allen and Kahkonen both nose dive here too. A real indictment on the coaching. I don’t know if ‘funny’ is the word I’d use…. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJDevils1214 Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 3 minutes ago, MadDog2020 said: I don’t know if ‘funny’ is the word I’d use…. You gotta laugh to keep yourself from losing whatever sanity you still have. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 5 minutes ago, NJDevils1214 said: It's going to be real funny if Allen and Kahkonen both nose dive here too. A real indictment on the coaching. Not like either one was lighting up for their previous teams, but of course it's fair to point out how bad their teams were. It's really about Allen anyway...Kahkonen is basically Dalton Prout, as far as the Devils go. Just a warm body to help get through the rest of this season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nessus Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 1 hour ago, MadDog2020 said: Lol way to welcome a new player to the organization. At least he's being transparent now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado Rockies 1976 Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 8 minutes ago, nessus said: Lol way to welcome a new player to the organization. At least he's being transparent now. Think he already said something similar when he first talked about his deadline deals...basically made it sound like Kahkonen wasn't really in the Devils plans, while praising Allen and saying quite the opposite about him. And of course made it clear that he's going after a legit #1 in the offseason. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadDog2020 Posted March 12 Author Share Posted March 12 https://thehockeynews.com/news/new-jersey-devils-to-hunt-for-a-goaltender-this-summer?fbclid=IwAR3UWaTrjqGaop--APjlU9csXz4k_pI29c4pX2lYekb1BsMXVKu6RzsvBDs_aem_AYNG68FSL3QrDAA6LWclzaG8-oZpjQnXMdsHIpNbtg_Q95YNwsOfvReFKhIL5VQn1qk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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