New Jersey Devils – Page 3 – Faxes from Uncle Dale

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Game #48 – Hawks vs. Devils: I Make A Lot Of Graphs

By Sam Fels January 14, 2019 1355 0

Game #48 Preview Suite

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Game #48 – Hawks vs. Devils: Lineups & How Teams Were Built

By Sam Fels January 14, 2019 1371 0

Notes: Ward gets the start tonight, which seems fine as Delia was a little wonky against the Knights. Overall fine, but his tracking and rebound control were not up to snuff, gives him almost a full week off before the Rangers on Thursday…Not too many other changes, though don’t be surprised if Murphy and Dahlstrom are split up late if it’s close. Dahlstrom really struggled on Saturday, and his first flash is fading. Still worth looking at, but maybe not under the glare of the hardest shifts possible…We’d like to see Jokiharju and Murphy together, but that would involve flipping Murphy to the other side and Coach Cool Youth Pastor doesn’t seem inclined to do that yet…we don’t know how Caggiula got himself onto that third line but he’s done jack and shit with it…

Notes: Taylor Hall is still missing through injury…we have Noesen listed but he’s hurt and is on IR…Blackwood is their prime goalie prospect and with both Schneider and Kinkaid either hurt or terrible it’s his net to lose for the next while, or years….Palmieri has one goal in his last eight, but he always seems to score against the Hawks…Hischier has eight points in his last nine games, which on this team is a veritable bonanza…

Game #48 Preview Suite

Columbus Blue Jackets

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You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: New Jersey Devils

By Sam Fels September 14, 2018 2166 0

There was probably no bigger surprise last year than the New Jersey Devils making the playoffs. Or it would have been if anyone outside of Newark and maybe Hoboken remembered the Devils existed for more than eight consecutive minutes. And looking it over, the Devils might be the most unlikely team to make the playoffs in years. They basically had a guy and a half scoring. But one of those guys was Taylor Hall, who put up 93 points with the half-guy, Nico Hischier. They only had two other players break 40 points. The top line of Hall-Hischier-Palmieri accounted for a full third of all the goals the Devils scored. Which seems sub-optimal.

So you’d probably think that Cory Schneider freaked the fuck off in net and that’s how they goofed their way into the last wild card spot. Well tough noogies, shithead, because that’s not what happened at all. The Ginger was awful last year, and was replaced by Keith Kinkaid who wasn’t even league-average over the whole season. Kinky went off in March to the tune of an 8-2-1 record with a .923 SV% and then basically spotless in three April starts that locked it down for the Devils.

But yeah, needless to say this was a really weird team that probably can’t be weird in a good way again. They have fully transferred from the aggressive interrogation method era under Nosferatu Lamiorello to an up-tempo, exciting team under John Hynes. But there are still many steps for this team to take.

Let’s get into it.

Goalies: Well, this would have been a murkier question, given that Schneider has struggled for two seasons now, matching a .907 SV% last year with a .908 from the year before. But The Ginger had hip surgery in May, and it’s unclear if he’s going to make an appearance in camp or preseason. He may not be ready for the season. The Devils have to hope that hip’s health was the reason that Schneider’s peak was lost to the abyss. On the other side, “hip surgery” is to goalies what “shoulder surgery” is to pitchers. Sure, you can come back from them but the likelihood of being the same is not all that high, especially when you’re 32 as Schneider is. This is dicey, dicey stuff for the Swampside Hockey Club.

The contingency plan again is Kinkaid, who spasmed something of a career season at 28. And even that overall was a .913, and without that incredible March it’s a lot worse. A hot month-plus is not something you’d call a foundation, so the Devils can only have more questions than answers about their goalie situation. And in case it all goes to pot, Eddie Lack is next in line. That’s a sentence you’d see scrawled on the wall of a rubber room.

The best case for the Devils is that Schneider is back early. But even that could be anything. This is not a good start.

Defense: This is a more intriguing unit than it appears at first glance. It’s led by longtime-servant and oh-that-dude Andy Greene, and including him the rest of the likely group is pretty nimble. That doesn’t mean that they’re any good, but they can get around the ice and given how the Devils want to play now, that fits perfectly. John Moore has departed just before he was egged and TP’d by Devils fans, which should see Will Butcher slide up the lineup. I still contend Sami Vatanen only helps you on the power play and gets utterly mullered at even-strength, but he looks to be serving out the top pairing with Greene.

Butcher is the one to watch, as last year he was able to dominate as a third-pairing bum-slayer while bum-dragging Ben Lovejoy over the ice every night. Damon Severson, while not making really doing anything that you’ll remember, is a huge upgrade in partner. Mirco Mueller and his hilariously long neck will now be on the third-pairing with Steven Santini, who are both pretty mobile themselves. Santini was thrown into the deep end at the beginning of last year with Greene, and the results were so horrific he was exiled to Binghamton, truly a hellish fate, in January and never heard from again. He’s much better suited for the third pairing, and this unit could actually be more dynamic than you’d think, and is clearly the big hope the Devils can surprise again.

Forwards: It starts and ends with Hall. When you beat out that season from Nathan MacKinnon (which he shouldn’t have but it’s hardly scandalous) to win the Hart, you’ve really done something. Hall dragged this team by the dick into relevance, even though he was the only threat anyone had to pay attention to. It mattered not. It’ll take that season again for the Devils to come anywhere near the playoffs again.

Hischier could improve in his second season, though that’s a mark that has seen some stumble. There won’t be any hiding this time, as he’s the #1 center from jump street. He’ll be flanked by Palmieri again, who I’m fairly sure I can’t identify what he does and yet he keeps ending up with 25 goals, so what do I know? Also, a guy named “Palmieri” playing in New Jersey is just about as perfect as it gets. HEY! GABBA-GOUL!

You could look for a breakout year from Marcus Johansson, as it just so happens to be his walk year. The Devils are going to need it, because it gets awfully thin awfully quick. Pavel Zacha is the #2 center, and his name has been a definition of flattering to deceive since he walked into the league. Jesper Bratt flashed at times last year but found consistency hard to come by. You can throw Blake Coleman, Stefan Noesen, Miles Wood, and Joseph Anderson in a bag, toss them around, and empty it in any order and none of you would be able to tell which is which.

Whatever the skill-level here, the Devils have packed this lineup with speed everywhere. So they could overwhelm some teams simply by putting cayenne pepper on their balls and turning up the volume to a point where the opponent couldn’t live with it (they did it to the Hawks twice). More teams are trending this way and the Devils won’t be able to catch as many by surprise. They’ll have to hope they catch enough napping in the doldrums of January and February to rack up the points they’ll need.

Outlook: Well, the Devils are kind of in between the different strata of the Metro. They’re not really all that close to the Penguins, Caps, or Jackets (as long as Bob is interested). They’re far better than the Rangers, Islanders, and almost certainly the Hurricanes if they continue to try and turn themselves into rock people.

That leaves them with the Flyers in the middle, possibly the Canes if they find goaltending. With the Panthers expected to compete hard for a wild card spot as well, there might be only one wild card spot for the Metro. A lot went right for the Devils, but given their youth and that growth is not always linear, along with the questions in net, it could be a lot rockier trip for them this time around. Likely they miss out while still taking steps forward in their development. Which could make things ultra-tricky, as Hall enters the last year of his deal next year, and he’s going to want proof that it’s worth sticking around New Jersey. Otherwise, next summer could be filled with Hall trade rumors, which would definitely set the Devils back a ton.

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You Get What Anyone Gets: Saying Goodbye To The New Jersey Devils

By Sam Fels April 24, 2018 1548 0

It used to be tradition that playoff exits were complimented by eulogies on Puck Daddy. But with Wysh off in the Connecticut hinterlands and those who remain at Yahoo! being a bunch of Canadian giblets who take things far too seriously (and Lambert being angry and definitely not a Bruins fan), we don’t need them to do what we do best. So fuck it. We’ll eulogize all 15 teams that will eventually fall. Now, the team from where if you were to give America an enema, you’d aim the hose here…

For most of this season, what you heard a lot was, “These aren’t your father’s New Jersey Devils!” I guess the contention was whenever the Devils are anything more than passable the hockey world just assumes they’re the Joy Division of hockey, a funeral dirge of a performance that somehow rose to prominence while everyone involved except for the leader would really rather be doing something more fun while their fans really try and convince you they enjoy it and aren’t totally miserable people. So I guess this version is Hockey New Order.

That assumes two things: One, my father gave a shit about the Devils which he and a lot of other fathers most certainly did not and Two, that the Devils’ brand of hockey in the past didn’t kill exponentially far more dads with its Kevorkian-like methods than those it brought joy to.

Either way, these Devils were more fun, except I couldn’t help but wonder…who gives a shit? This is still a team that plays its games in the second-worst New York-satellite area (the state of Connecticut as a whole being the worst) where no one goes to and those who do sprint the fuck back to the PATH to get the hell out of Newark ASAP when the game is over. Even Tony Soprano wanted nothing to do with the place and he was bleeding it dry. And really, how does New Jersey have a mafia? There’s nothing there to grift! On the other side, you can see how a group that doesn’t want to do any actual work would thrive in a place that doesn’t let you pump your own gas.

Anyway, as for this Devils team, they were Taylor Hall–perhaps the most or second-most entertaining player to watch in the league–a bunch of kids, and a bunch of scrap heap players whose names said aloud always cause you to go, “Oh right, him.” Kyle Palmieri has been here for years, and good, and you had no idea until I just told you that. Patrick Maroon ended up here and you probably thought he had been a Devil for a few seasons because that would make sense, or you thought he was Kyle Palmieri.

Go ahead, name a Devils defensemen. I’ll wait. You can’t do it, can you? And no, Bryce Salvador is on the broadcast team now. And if you came up with Bryce Salvador, I strongly suggest your life needs changes. John Moore is here, and all 12 Devils fans hate him. That’s about all I can tell you about the Devils blue line, and quite frankly I’m not interested in finding out more and it’s my fucking job!

Pavel Zacha is definitely a player they’ve been talking about for a few years, and I guess it’s because he helps carry the torch for the Devils of having the most players with a surname that begins with Z, joining Zajac on this roster now that Dainius Zubrus has gone to wherever people named “Dainius” go. I assume it’s an Eastern European sex club, but I’m not going to investigate as I fear the answers.

Anyway, the Devils made the playoffs with one plus forward and two goalies who were nothing but mediocre. Which I guess you have to hand it to them, as they made an excellent choice in picking a dogshit division while also getting to take advantage of the fact the other division in the conference was somehow way worse, opening the wild card spots. Of course, that always meant they were going to get steamrolled in the first round, and boy did they.

The Devils have been an excellent straight man for the Oilers, given Hall’s MVP-like performance this year. Maybe that’s something they can claim to gain attention. “New Jersey: It’s Salvation From Edmonton.” You can see it on the road signs, can’t you?

This wasn’t in the plan for the Devils anyway, as this was supposed to be a rebuilding season but the NHL as a whole was like, “We’ll show you! We’ll be so bad you have to make the playoffs!” So the Devils will have an excellent chance of being a “disappointment” next year as their development continues, except not enough people would notice for that to be the case. It’s hard to be more irrelevant than the Islanders, so kudos to the Devils for managing it.

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Watching The Party – FFUD’s First Round Preview – Ning vs Devils or: A Clear Line

By Matt McClure April 10, 2018 1664 0

vs

Schedule: G1 Thursday, G2 Saturday, G3 April 16th, G4 April 18th

After a serious push and some back and forth from the Bruins in the Flortheast division, ultimately the division and the top record in the east were held by the favored, well-rounded, and supple Tampa Bay Lightning, doing what they were supposed to do during the regular season. Their opponent, however, is somewhat unexpected in the New Jersey Devils, who managed to fall ass backwards into a playoff spot after a hot streak that saw them leading the Metro division even around Christmas time even in the middle of a supposed rebuild.

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Game #35 – Devils 4 – Hawks 1: This Is Why The Devils Can Get Their Arms Around Me

By Sam Fels December 23, 2017 2413 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

Not exactly how you begin a road trip. While I didn’t think the Hawks were particularly bad on Thursday, certainly not to the point with which they were unlucky, they needed a response tonight before a break and the rest of this trip. And they got one… it just came 20 minutes too late. And when you cough up a division game before this, you kind of lose your right to mail in one right before the Christmas break. The Hawks seemed to realize that in the 2nd, but that’s not good enough. You’re not going to claw three back against Cory Schneider the way he’s playing. And you’re especially not going to do it when Sharp and Sbarro can combine to do perhaps the worst Stadler And Waldorf On Ice in the history of time (a competition I would like to judge one day).

Let’s run through it:

The Two Obs

-Especially in a sport as closed off as hockey, it’s probably impossible to get to the middle of how a team that kind of needed this one tonight can come out so rotten as the Hawks did in the first. There must’ve been eight to ten turnovers in the first five minutes in their own zone. “highlighted” by Gustav Forsling with a beautiful centering pass to his own crease and then Panik with a layoff to Brian Boyle.

The easy way to go here is to lay it at the feet of Joel Quenneville, because obviously it’s the coaches job to get a team ready to play. If it is with him, it certainly not all with him. It’s a whole leadership thing. And this is where you’re free to wonder with the three lettered players–Toews, Keith, Seabrook–basically producing dick (except for Keith, really)–how much influence they might have right now. They have veteran cache, sure. But someone’s gotta take the blame for how often, on the road usually, this team just isn’t at the races. But we’ll circle back to this in a moment.

-What I can hang Q out to dry for, and frequently have and will continue to do so, is these bewildering lineup and deployment choices. How does Patrick Sharp go from a deserved healthy scratch to the second line with Toews with no in-between? Players notice that, and I’m sure a couple are wondering what they have to do to get such treatment.

Let’s go to the Devils 4th goal, and what was a back-breaker. The Hawks have some juice from the second, a two-goal deficit is at least doable, and then you get this from Sharp and Seabrook. While watching this, make note of where Murphy is and where Seabrook ends up:

How does Jordan Oesterle go from playing four games in two months to the power play? And if you think he’s good enough to be on the power play, why wasn’t he there before? That also gives you two, left-handed, mobile d-men, so do we really need Keith on it anymore? He’s not that good at it, never has been, and would be an excellent way to cut down his minutes. Then again, with more short-circuits like what led to the penalty shot, maybe we should keep Oesterle as far from it as we can.

Murphy is up on the play, as he should be as the Hawks push for another goal. And you want your defense to be active, but you don’t want them to be aggressively stupid, or suicidal. Seabrook is all the way up with two Devils behind him. Murphy is the one who’s pushing here and Seabrook has to play the free safety.

Of course, maybe this doesn’t matter if Patrick Sharp doesn’t execute the Ozzy Osbourne “Drop Pass To Nowhere” (leads to me). Good thing he was on the second line tonight.

-How does Jordan Oesterle go from four games in two months to the power play? Given what led to the penalty shot, this seems an even more valid question.

-Let’s keep going. Gustav Forsling sucks in his own end. I can’t put it lightly anymore. I’m not sure Jan Rutta is any better. So why are they starting a penalty kill you kind of have to have when you’re already down one? The one thing a kill can’t have is passes that go through the box. So of course it took Forsling all of six seconds to completely lose Palmieri behind him, and then be completely pointed the wrong way to turn into a goal-scoring bumper for the Devils.

-Right, so let’s circle back to the leadership thing again. Obviously, this blog and this writer has a complicated relationship with Patrick Kane. So the following is strictly on-ice. But if you had told me say even three years ago that when the Hawks are struggling and need a boost, it would be Kane who consistently provides it and Toews would just sort of have a vacant look on his face most of the night, I would have called you a filthy liar and then asked the bartend to cut you off if not outright remove you from the premises.

But that’s been the story. On a night where he could have easily chucked it, Kane spent the second period trying drag his team back into it. And this is hardly the first game, either this year, or last year, or the one before that, where he’s done it. Sure, there’s the whole difference of center-vs-wing, and the competition each play, and where they start. But this team needed a jolt and for someone to say “fuck this” and to try and come up with inspiration. Only one half of Daydream Nation did it.

-Remember when Brandon Saad was noticeable? Good times, those. Many laughs were had. A libation shared. I’m sad these are things we just reminisce about right now.

-Ok, that’s enough heading into the holiday. From all of us here, have a wonderful Christmas. And we’ll pick it back up when the Hawks land on the West Coast.

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Game #35 – Hawks vs. Devils: Spotlight – Boyle Or Mole?

By Sam Fels December 23, 2017 1968 0

While it’s hard to do, the following is going to do its best to ignore the off-ice story of Brian Boyle this year. Which isn’t fair, because it is a good story for what everyone agrees is a pretty good guy. Boyle was diagnosed with leukemia before the season, and is playing through the treatments, essentially. We’ll put that to the side.

Boyle signed as a free agent with the Devils this summer, after stops in LA, New York, Tampa, and a rental for the Maple Leafs last year. When you think of a checking center, or a center who coaches love because they simply win draws, kill penalties, and play reasonable defense, Brian Boyle is probably near the top of the list.

One of the reasons that hockey analytics has failed to catch on in the mainstream, or at least embraced by teams wholly (and they haven’t) is that there really is no way to evaluate a player like Boyle. Yes, he wins a lot of draws and you can measure that, but we also know that winning a lot of faceoffs doesn’t really connect to winning, or even being a good possession team. Individual draws can be important in a game, and it’s certainly a plus to have Boyle around for those, but overall they’re massively overrated. But given the nature of hockey coaches, try and tell them that a defensive zone draw with a one-goal lead and 80 seconds to go isn’t important. That’s where Boyle’s value is seen.

Boyle’s metrics have always been subpar. He’s only had a Corsi-percentage above the team rate once in the past six year. Same as his expected goals, and some are really below the surface of whatever team he was on. But is that fair to him? Boyle has never gotten good zone starts, and some years saw less than 30% of his shifts start in the offensive zone. Given that he’s pretty much a clydesdale when it comes to mobility, it’s asking a lot for him to turn the ice over. It’s doubly hard when he’s usually facing the toughest competition, as he’s tended to take on first and second lines with the Rangers, Lightning, and now the Devils. There are only a very few players who can do all that, and it’s basically Marcus Kruger.

So even winning all those draws, as he does, doesn’t really ever get Boyle out of his own zone that much. Then again, imagine what these numbers would look like if he didn’t win a lot of draws.

We can try and get to the bottom of it by seeing what Boyle’s teams surrender when he’s on the ice, as he’s always been placed to play defense. The past three years has seen Boyle’s Corsi-against per 60 minutes at 41 consistently, which is very good. For frame of reference your leader in that category this year is Adam Lowry at 38.09, and a mark of 41 would be top ten in the league. Sadly for the Devils, Boyle’s mark this year is 52.8, though obviously some of that is the possession problems overall for the Devils, including a creaking defense.

Boyle’s expected goals-against per 60 over the years has been very good as well, in the 15.-1.7 range the past three years before this one. That mark would be top ten in the league again, except this year Boyle’s at 2.46. Again, some of that is the Devils as a whole, but some of it is that Boyle is A. 33 and B. having to play himself back into shape.

Not all of this matters when you’re shooting 22% as Boyle is at the moment, and he is getting into more offensive areas as the Devils ask more of him than previous teams and coaches have. But we can safely say that while Boyle was a pretty handy 3rd or 4th center, age and health have caught up to him. And he probably can’t outshoot those problems for too much longer.

Game #35 Preview

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Game #35 – Hawks vs. Devils: Q&A With Some Palooka On The Corner

By Sam Fels December 23, 2017 1938 0

We still don’t know where @HellBlazerVice came from. And we don’t want to know. Luckily he was once again able to string some sentences together about the Devils for us. And now we run.

Last time we did this we asked you just what the hell the Devils are doing at the top of the standings. Well, they’re still there, it’s still supposed to be a rebuilding year, so what the fuck?

Outside of their star players playing like stars, they’ve continued to get contributions from nearly everyone in the lineup. Brian Boyle has been absolutely scorching of late with 7 points in his last 3 games and is on pace to shatter his career highs despite missing the first 10 games of the season and playing himself back into game shape. For Boyle’s sake I hope it lasts because if there’s one person who deserves that kind of luck it’s him. Blake Coleman and Stefan Noesen have managed to chip in some offense as well and Brian Gibbons has continued to be an effective player. Cory Schneider having a bounceback season also helps seeing as if they were going to be good again, having great goaltending would help seeing as they’re not a great puck possession team. It also helps that everyone in the metro is flawed in some way- the Rangers are pretty similar to the Devils (good goaltending, lots of skill, get badly outshot), the Pens, Isles and Canes can’t get a save when they need it, the Caps are top heavy and the Flyers insist on giving Andrew MacDonald significant minutes. The Jackets are probably the best team in the division but they’re one John Tortorella meltdown away from pissing the division away. The Devils haven’t as good as they were at the start of the season but they’re still atop the metro because everyone else can’t seem to string together some solid play or they’re digging themselves out of a hole.

How has Sami Vatanen looked so far in the swamp?

He hasn’t been their best defenseman but he’s been a workhorse who can play in all situations and they need that with Andy Greene slowly declining. The only complaint so far with Vatanen has been his lack of offensive production (1 assist through 10 games) but it’s excusable to some extent. He was playing himself back into game shape with Anaheim and got traded from an old, slow, physical team to a young, fast team built around skill so there will be some adjustment. It also doesn’t help that the Devils don’t have the same quality of defenseman as the Ducks- going from playing with Hampus Lindholm and Cam Fowler to a declining Greene and John Moore is like trading in your Ferrari for Ricky’s shitmobile. Adding Vatanen has been nice but there’s still a lot of work to be done on the roster so he’s really just another piece of the puzzle as they try and move away from ultra-safe defenders to guys who can move the puck and dictate the pace of the game.

Will Butcher was the college free agent everyone wanted to wave their dowry at over the summer. The Devils got him. Impressions?

Every time I watch Butcher I come away impressed with his puck skills. He always seems to make the right decisions with the puck as opposed to trying to force things or wait too long and get in trouble. His defense isn’t great, but it has more to do with a lack of experience as opposed to being bad defensively. His production has dipped a bit since his hot start but that has had more to do with the Devils’ sticks cooling off than him struggling individually. The Devils haven’t really had a defenseman like Butcher since Brian Rafalski- which is honestly less of a compliment and more of a statement of how bad the Devils organization were at assessing defensemen in the twilight of Lou Lamoriello’s tenure. That being said, John Hynes has put a lot of effort into trying to keep Butcher away from defensive minutes, which has been good in that he’s been able to focus on offense as opposed to worrying about his defense. It has come at a cost seeing as Butcher doesn’t play a lot (averages around 16 and a half minutes) and they could use him more often considering how ineffective Moore is and how Greene brings minimal offense.

Is Pavel Zacha ever going to be a thing? Yes we know, only 20…

The toughest part about assessing Zacha is no matter what, there’s always going to be angst about passing on Barzal, Werenski and Provorov to take him. I think the toughest part about him is that he’s an incredibly frustrating player because he doesn’t look like he’s doing enough at times. Most of the good things he does aren’t things that show up on the scoresheet- gaining the zone, setting up passes and playing defense. He’s a very good skater so he can get by half assing it, which was a problem of his in juniors and something that Hynes hasn’t been too fond of (which lead to several healthy scratches). He could also be a bit more selfish at times too, considering he tends to be more of a pass first player as opposed to a shooter. The good news is that he seems to have turned a corner as of late and has looked much better in general, especially considering he’s been dragging around the lifeless corpse of Drew Stafford for the past couple of weeks. I’d have to imagine that if Travis Zajac continues to be a non-factor on offense he should get another shot at the top 6. If he does become a good player, his development path will be much closer to someone like Josh Bailey or Sean Couturier where they were solid players before having a huge breakout season. Which might be fine considering that the Devils aren’t built to win now, but will be painful as long as guys like Barzal and Werenski continue to put their teams on their backs and rack up individual accolades.

Miles Wood… that’s totally a name he took from a porn star, right? Or is he a porn star on off days?

His dad is former NHLer Randy Wood, who also happens to have a name that sounds like it’s been taken from a porn star. According to Eliteprospects, his grandpa was named R. Norman Wood, which kinda sounds like a porn star name from the 60s. He has a brother named Tyler Wood who I can only assume he changed his name from “Richard” because he didn’t want to be known as Dick Wood. It’s entirely possible that his entire family is full of people who have taken their names from porn stars… or they’re a family full of part time porn stars.

Game #35 Preview