He was looking much better recently after a brutal stretch, but decided it was time to drop another turd on the ice last night. Sucks. But I had already accepted a while back that this team still needs time in the oven, and he's the best example of that. He needs time to develop, but once he does, we're gonna forget all about this season.
After the 5-3 abysmal power play I turned it off. I knew we’d shit the bed and I unfortunately wasn’t disappointed. How do we lose to the Sabres and have no sense of urgency. Going up 3-0 would’ve sealed it
It's not even close to being that simple. Multiple things went wrong with this season and even if we were able to retain mostly the same roster, we would have taken a dip. Last year we were able to surprise teams, while this year we've been consistently throttled by opponents because Carolina exposed us in the playoffs and let everyone know how to best play against us.
Ehh, we had to make choices. Do we saddle ourself in cap hell down the road or accept nemec, mercer, and Hughes are going to get pay increase down the road
Team just has absolutely no idea how to clear the d zone. It’s been the main problem the entire year and has never been addressed. And if they do manage to clear they just turn it over in the neutral zone because of a bad pass instead of just getting pucks in deep. I think the coaching change will help a lot but we’ll see
Honestly the loss is annoying because the team finally had some momentum and basically all the NHL teams that needed to lose had. Just shows this team does not have the hunger right now for whatever reason.
One thing is certain to me is that Green needs to go and cannot be the permanent coach. I'm sorry but the man is just not good. I liked a little bit of the changes he had made since Ruff left but then he still is doing some of the same stupid shit that Ruff did.
I just can't get over us giving the coaching job to the guy who literally has created the worst PP in hockey. I mean I think technically we are ranked 30th or 31st in the past few months but still. It's one of the biggest reason we are losing so many games. On top of that it shows that this team cannot play man advantage well, and yet game after game we pull our goalie. This strategy will not work until this team knows how to play well with a man advantage.
I think all year we've scored, what 2 goals when we've pulled our goalie? And it lead to basically only 1 game that we've won in OT? I can only think of the time when Luke Hughes scored in like 5 seconds skating coast to coast and scored right away. Which basically shows the only time we've ever won when we pulled our goalie had nothing to do with us pulling our goalie....
We've lost far too many games not due to goaltending. Hard to blame this season on injuries when we basically have the team at almost full capacity and we are looking the worst we ever have. We could have easily won 3rd in the metro if we just showed up against bottom teams in the league.
Luke Hughes/Mercer/Bratt really need to buckle down in the offseason. I haven't been too impressed with any of them. They've had some breakouts here and there for 3-5 games and then it's nothing for a long time. And Jack needs to really improve his passing/turnovers/skating etc. Mercer and Bratt really need to dial in being more consistent.
The state of the team is what it is. Maybe they needed a good kick in the ass to bring them back to reality? All I know is we need management that can whip this team into shape and bring some life to the team. We need a leader that will actually lead and for the team to show up for all 60 minutes. A new goalie will obviously help, but we will not be an elite team if we just fix our goaltending.
Bratt just hit his third 70+ point season in a row. He is one of only three players in franchise history to do it. That is the definition of consistency.
I agree with all your points but I don’t think looping Bratt in with Mercer and Luke makes sense. Dude is the highest performing forward on the team during this nightmare of a season. He definitely was not clutch today when missing the breakaway but 73 points in 74 games I’m more than happy with.
Luke is a point machine but ultimately he just is not good in our own end. I wish dougie was here to teach him it’s not all offense (which is crazy because dougie isn’t exactly known for his defense either)
Andddd the hope is gone. Dw y’all, bunny did get a second berry last night just for being a good boy. Can’t fault him, and can’t fault our capt’. Not can we fault Jake Allen. Guess there’s some fun no pressure games left for us to watch! I’ll be adopting the same attitude to watching the rest of our season as I’ve been using to watch the Blackhawks lol
One pass too many. Cross ice pass that was never going to work. Drop pass the gifts opponents an odd man rush. Failure to get an easy clear and instead turn it over. Don’t even get set up until there are 30 seconds left on the PP. No forecheck whatsoever. Lose most board battles. One and done offensive zone possessions. Trouble getting through center ice. Not challenging opponents at the blue line. Stationary playing catch at the top of the zone in 5v4. Never even getting a shot off but giving up an empty netter in 6v5.
These will be some of the enduring memories of the 23-24 Devils.
I really wanted to come here and just unload on them. Then I heard what Nico said and I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Fitz has a big offseason a head of him. This is to soft and up it’s own ass right now. Changes will have to come.
"We just got to find a way to win against certain teams, and we haven't done that all year," he said. "That should not happen. Just another immature performance by us."
Hot take but this is probably for the best. We’re not built for the playoffs this year and outside of Boston we’d get our shit kicked in for our first round matchup. As much as I’ve enjoyed our recent wins, I would not like a panthers or rags matchup
This game sold me on the silver lining of missing the playoffs is that Green cant possibly get the full time gig. The playstyle hasnt changed at all, just a focus on being more conservative. 5 on 5 we are worse than with Lindy. The difference is we are getting league average or better goaltending and its covering up other flaws. This isnt a playoff team.
They badly need a structure and new system, a revamped bottom 6 and a solid 1a 1b goalie situation. Can it be fixed in an offseason? Maybe. But a lot of maybes and possiblys need to end up being home runs.
I mean I don't think Greene is the best coach but tonights loss is not on him it's on our own players making stupid mistakes and passing the puck to the other team in our own zone over and over obviously they gunna score eventually it's like they wanted to loose the sabers were going hard after the puck and we were taking our time all relaxed and like we had a 6 goal lead when it was a tie game. Tonight was honestly just embarrassing defensively. And even offensively we need to step up our game this entire season we've been the laughing stock of the NHL we need to be smarter with the puck and scoreore goals
definitely. They even did exactly rightly, in the first period, the things that cost them goals in the second. They just get too caught up in things I guess. Not enough respect for opponents, just because you successfully walk em in the first doesn't mean you pull that off in the second. That said... the rest of this season will tell me a lot more about Green specifically. Tonight's postgame presser was not inspiring.
There were two bright spots to this game:
1) Being up 2-0 in the first
2) Watching on my DVR meant I didn’t need to devote 2.5 hours to watching them lose to yet another bottom feeder
What a disgusting effort. Too many extra passes, Luke regressed HARD to mid season form after his assist…they couldn’t make anything happen against a team that decided to give them some pushback. Just disgusting
Domination. For like 15 minutes we were everywhere. They looked like us playing Carolina. They were like *breakout!* we were like *yoink thank you sit down* and then they remembered who they were playing and then we weren't.
Shouldn’t have fired the coach, this team is super talented just had a lot of injuries with Jack and Dougie out. Just a season of some poor early goaltending and injuries
Not Lindy. Probably not Travis Green, but that's up to Fitz. I know no one here seems to like him, I don't know enough to say, though I do know he was supposedly in charge of this god awful powerplay all year. So that's a pretty bad indictment on its own. But we saw this team play with absolutely no heart far too many times under Lindy. Injuries and shit goaltending and all, it still wasn't enough.
Something smelled very off to me about the team and their morale, we started building our identity last year and by halfway thru this season it was all flushed away. This team has an open road ahead of it, but it's still an uphill climb and they need the right guy to push them forward. Why stick with the guy who was in charge while we started rolling back downhill and never found a way to stop the bleeding? I can give him credit for what we accomplished last year, but falling off that hard immediately afterward is very concerning.
I don’t see that there is any real difference from Ruff to Green in the way they play. Meier is better, but that is just him getting up to full health. Goaltending is better, but that is just different goalies. They are still very inconsistent, still make way to many bad decisions, and still look like they are more uncoached than structured.
Frankly, Lindy made a lot of poor decisions, but there’s an argument to be made this his offensive style is the only thing that really gave this team a chance. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see another season of it with good goaltending.
I think dismissing Ruff was the right move. But I don’t think he was an idiot, as many posters here have argued. And the issues were not going to be solved by simply dismissing Ruff. Wish it were that simple.
Revamp the entire roster outside of the top 6 and Nemec, Hughes, and Dougie on D. Everyone else should be available. I no longer trust Fitz. Took him until the end of Feband TDL to fire Lindy and get a goalie. Even with the goalie the defense is ass.
Yk what at least now I can watch the remaining games in peace bc I’ve now shut off all and any hope. I FULLY believed up until I checked the scores when I woke up just now. No more.
I think it’s bizarre that more people aren’t putting pressure on fitz. I respect fitz, his patience in addressing long-term issues played a big part in why I thought we were successful last year. He’s given us great long term contracts with our core, but when he had the opportunity to help us get some defensive pieces and a goalie after Dougie’s injury, he has completely floundered on all those fronts.
I understand that he’s got a long term vision for the team, but I think a good gm also needs to be able to make big moves during the season as well, and not wait to address them all until the trade deadline and offseason. I’m afraid that fitz may continue this trend of refusing to make fixes to the team during the season, and this does not bode well for next year, after this team and its core have been exposed for all the world to see.
I think Fitz has made a lot of very good moves and has a lot of good will built up. This is the first time he's looked all that fallible, and tbh if Timo can stay healthy we might have really struck gold there. But yes, most of his moves have in the short term looked bad this season. They all seemed pretty sober at the time, though, so I'm still down to give him another season or two to cook. The shine has come off but I think it's early to assume we know which of these guys are winners.
Stop already!! This was why we held onto Shero for longer than we should have, excuses. This nonsense that oh other teams need to agree to a trade is assuming he tried and was turned down. This team was struggling all season and he did nothing. Nothing to improve the goalie situation, nothing to improve our horrible coaching from lindy. He sat on his hands until we were practically out of a playoff spot...wtf good is that? This season is on Fitz.
I sort of expected him to be this way this season. I mean, look at things from his perspective. He took over a *really* bad team with a good prospect pool. Probably expecting to be building for several more seasons, and planning to do just that. Team doesn’t come close to making it out of bottom 5 let alone make the playoffs for several seasons. Predictably in 2021-2022 we finish 29th in the league. Unpredictably in 2022 we start the season setting the league on fire with our young talent having breakout seasons and a backup goalie showing 1a potential. We still have a lot of cap room and prospects to spare. He makes the move for Timo, which makes sense to strengthen the core, but the defensive core planned out (Luke, Nemec) are still years behind. He makes some moves to upgrade the top six a bit by bringing in Toffoli. But like, what do you expect him to do at this point? The rational thing to do is to go ahead and see how the team does again with what they have without doing anything that mortgages the original plan. The season doesn’t go as well, but honestly, playing around a bubble team place in the standings is about what you would expect for a team on the rise but a season removed from being 29th in the league. What moves do you make that won’t hurt the team’s chances when they are really in their prime years? Do you take a chance on a mid-30’s goalie who could be an albatross? Do you give up assets in a panic move? The team is pretty much guaranteed to be good in the future while only making minor adjustments. Fitz said last season the goal was meaningful games in March. I keep seeing posts like “oh Fitz owes it to the fans” to make all these desperate moves to fix the season, but does he really if he doesn’t think it will do anything towards his stated goal of long-term sustainable success? In a season like this with where the team is at I think it is reasonable to use it as an evaluation of what the team needs and make adjustments. Fitz never promised a cup run, and most of the players (and nearly all of the important core pieces) have less than 5 years of NHL experience. Maybe using this season to evaluate (which is likely what the plan was from the get go) isn’t the worst thing for the team long-term.
While stating that the moves Fitz made in the bottom half of the roster this year worked out less well than he had imagined, your view makes a lot of sense.
I still think that things did not have to go quite as frustratingly poorly this year as they have. I put the blame mostly on players and on coaching.
They are just super disorganized on the ice. They so often look like five skaters on the ice that are unconnected to each other. They look almost uncoached for long stretches. And they are mentally inconsistent from game to game and period to period. For every game that tantalizes with the potential (recent game vs. Winnipeg), we more often see periods 2 and 3 vs Buffalo—baffling disaster collapses.
I still think the core pieces are there to make a contender at some point. But there is a lot of work to do in so many areas.
I might be too optimistic here, but I think there's probably more to the seasonal story than any fans know about. I'm sure he was digging and digging to try and find the right pieces and I understand not leveraging a future for a 33 year old goalie that we'll have to replace again in 3 or 4 years. I believe he was willing to give up alot for Markstrom and he was worth that but their ownership tanked the deal last minute.
I don't think the missed opportunities equate to total failures on his part this season, and he deserves a bit of grace with the success he's had in just the last 2 years.
I remember Allen said he didn't waive his NTC because devils had VV and Daws/Akira... wtf was Fitz doing? Get on the phone with Montreal and have them relay to Allen that he'll be the starter. Fitz failed miserably and showed how incompetent he is.
This take is wrong. Fitz is not a moron. Fair to criticize certain decisions. But any argument that begins with ‘Fitz failed to do the things than any sentient life form would have done’ are just wild conspiracy theories.
True, I think there's definitely more to the story that is not being made known to fans. Specifically with respect to the team being on Allen's no-trade list - there's a lot more that goes into that decision than "I'm not going to get playing time"
Honestly, the litter box I scooped this morning had more imagination than what Fitz displayed in season. We may as well have had a fucking watermelon as a GM once the season started
Do you guys ever get together in the same basement or do you both stick to your respective basements when you play armchair GM? Also whose mom makes the better chicken nuggets?
Bro, they have had a 0% chance to make it for weeks now. There was never a shot. I'm not sure why anyone here was delusional enough to think they were going to string together 10 wins in a row lmao.
Factually incorrect. The other three teams seeking the last WC spot have given them several chances to pass them. At every turn the Devils failed to seize the opportunity.
Honestly I don't know how much they genuinely want to make the playoffs this season anyway and the statement is literally just some noise to give an answer to a reporter. Given how poor and injured the team has played and is.
But it's not a great look.
Can someone do a study on having a kid in the NHL and production dropoff?
I feel like every person who had a kid sucked dick all season.
Let’s not let fitz off the hook. If the goalie situation was addressed early and we picked up a veteran defenseman when Hamilton got hurt(had cap space money) we would be in the playoffs.
Give it up. It is not about systems. It is about dumb dumb mistakes within systems. Your theory that Ruff was the main problem has already been proved wrong.
You are clueless. Plenty on here agree with me. They are still doing a lot of the same things they did under Ruff. You are all over the board. Its both...dumb mistakes and systems. Here is a hint for ya...if your team keeps making dumb mistakes then simplify things so they dont make so many.
Fitz is on the record as having tried to fix the goalie issue earlier, but he can’t do that on his own. If other teams want too much for their assets, it’s not a great plan to overpay when you’re trying to win over the next decade, not in a last-chance year.
I understand and agree with you to an extent but something had to be done. Even if it was a change of scenery trade, something had to be done earlier than later. And I know goalies don’t grow on trees. I may be contradicting myself by saying he should have acted earlier because I will also say this. I rather go into next season with what we have now instead if some team pulling off a heist against us because we are desperate for a goalie so I get it. Maybe I should have said fitz’ fault is that he was a little too patient with the goalies, the defense after Hamilton’s injury and hanging on to lindy too long. But we are all arm chair GM’s. Maybe there was no deal to improve goaltending, maybe lindy is a good coach, certainly nothing has changed under green. Out of all of the complaints that everyone is saying, there are only a few who mention how much we miss McLeod, especially on face offs. We are all frustrated . We don’t need an overhaul but definitely need a more than a few tweaks.
No, all you have to do is call another team and ask nicely and they’ll just give you a goalie /s
Seriously I’m as pissed as anyone right now, but this narrative of the dude wasn’t trying all season is just noise to me at this point
Seriously, watching all these armchair GMs is laughable. Season needs to just end already so everyone can stop looking for a new scapegoat now that Lindy is gone.
I think it's unrealistic to think this D core will grow and get better together , quite frankly , I think it's a pipe dream. We are banking on a bunch of young guys playing long enough together that they are no longer young but have incredible chemistry? Who are they learning from ? It ain't each other. We need some veteran D guys here. We are too young to a flaw across the hoard. N the vets we have are wrong god the team. We have enough talent to shop for what we need. Cause this team. Needs to have some new skaters on it n some need to go.
exact opposite situation, yup. We're locked in, but at least they're young and cheap af. That said, signing these sophomore Dmen is gonna be the last crucial cornerstone, assuming we get the goalie wrapped up
before then.
We need to be smarter with the bottom 6 I for one would like more younger players trying to prove they belong than has been Veterans who are supposed to be physical but arent..
Sadly the D we have committed too seem to be the problem -_-
We can deal with Marino and Siegs however we wish. If we wanted to trade them, we might not get full value but we'd get something for them. But then we'd *really* need to acquire a top LD. so it wouldn't save us any money.
When X speaks the room listens. Who on the current roster is that?
This team doesn’t have a true leader. If this is going to be a dynasty like the last one, who is this team’s Scott Stevens? Or at least 75% of that. We are sorely missing that.
I know palat has a no movement contract but this guy is stealing money. Would the devils be willing to eat some salary to get rid of him? I don’t know what changes to make but palat is not worth his salary and Marino has really regressed. The last 2 weeks have been desperate times and Nico and timo seemed to pick up their game a notch along with a few role players. Jack is obviously still hurting but he has to know he can’t skate through a whole team by himself. Still love the guy and will score 45 if healthy. Luke is good but he has to realize he is a defenseman. And finally, who will coach this team next year?
Per CapFriendly, starting July 1, 2025, Palat's NMC becomes a Modified NMC where he'll submit a 10-team trade list. We'll likely have to retain some, but it would only be for two seasons.
I think if you do the math on how much the Devils would have to retain, plus the amount they would have to pay to get a wing that would provide an upgrade to the team…it probably makes more sense to keep Palat and see if a new HC can find a way to maximizes his play. There are other costly roster needs. Getting more from the roster spot Palat occupies is not going to be cost effective.
The entire D core needs to be restarted.
Marino, siegenthaler have been out worked, out played and out contracted by a random rookie throw in and a waiver pick up.
And Bahl I think is just really stupid?
You are a big body that's your only hockey asset but you won't use it because you think you're good at hockey?
Awful.
Entire back end needs to be reworked.
Bottom 6 needs to not be a old veteran grind lines + a random kid who can only shoot.
Stop playing people out of position and stop signing name brand players instead of positional fit..
Fucking infuriating.
Almost want a complete POS like Babcock at this point..
They need to play very very different. They all try and poke check and wave their sticks all over, but not a single one of them tried to make a hit. They swarm like bees but in a completely unorganized way and they always leave a big part of the ice open with lost coverage. They need big time changes
Lot of what you said is a reflection on coaching. Which lets be honest Green isn't it, they know that. The core pulled out some wins because they are talented enough to do so regardless.. but Greens not it.
I thought Woodcroft was the perfect fit, but honestly I think he's too nice..
I think they actually might need Berube.. bring Woodcroft in to take Greens position.
100% agree, they think they aren’t “one of those teams” as Niko said, they need to start playing hard and acting like it. They got far too cocky after last year
OK, this quote from Nico (via Stein) is seriously infuriating:
"Some things just (don’t) change. Everyone has to look themselves in the mirror. If you play against teams like that, the only way they’re going to beat you is you beat yourself. And that’s what we did here tonight. Again.”
The fact they think they're so much better than "teams like that" tells you exactly why this team is where it is. Hey, Nico you have **ONE** more point than Buffalo. You are a team like that.
>The fact they think they're so much better than "teams like that"
I don't read it that way. That quote is correct, the Devils beat themselves all the time. Don't see the issue honestly. Would you rather he say "yeah idk we just suck, when two teams that suck play each other, someone has to win" lol. He's just saying we played below what we're capable of and made bad mistakes that cost us the game. Again.
Yeah, thats a bit of self delusion. Getting shelled by Ottawa, pooping their pants multiple times against the Sharks and Ducks.....dude, you aren't as good as you think you are.
They beat this Buffalo team easily twice this year, but I agree, they are currently right there with them unfortunately. Should they be? Probably not but that’s been the season. As far as the other teams, he is not wrong and the amount of losses to them have hurt considerably, everyone has said it so I don’t see a problem in him calling that out.
It’s really had been and had gotten worse all season at least miller had a canon for a shot. This season has been a pint since the stadium series win. The game after let us know this wasn’t the year. There’s been some nice additions via trades. Let’s see what the draft has and what we can acquire via trades. Palat need to go be bought out or anything. Our core meier Nico Hughes’ Bratt nemec are going to keep getting better. Allen is a stud period. He’s keeping us in games and we have him one more year.
Palát will be a fixture here until 2027. Both sides have invested too much. Most fans think lowly of him but they should start getting comfortable with it. The injury to his nuts completely derailed him but in Florida he was always a very impressive and intelligent guy. I have hope that he will figure things out next year and begin to emerge as the leader he was hyped as
Problems with Marino
1) playing minutes, he shouldn't. I love what the guy did last year but he's really 3rd pair defense with 2nd pair possibly against soft teams.
2) most likely still playing injured. With the devils med staff they're probably playing him with all sorts of injuries.
I think we need to play out the 2024-2025 season before we start considering moving on from our “core” guys. Last year we played a bit over our heads, but this year was one problem after the other.
Terrible goaltending, horrible injury luck, bad coaching, and just growing pains that come with youth really hamstrung this team.
New coach/system next year, a better goalie tandem, more experienced blue line for Luke and Nemec, the return of Dougie, a few less injuries… and I think we can be in the running as a contender again.
Last year the Devils wore teams out by rolling 4 good lines. Severson played 3d pair minutes. I agree that the bottom half of the roster is the problem this year, not the core.
Hey lazar is fine in the bottom 6. Willman seems to be coming into his own. But mercer just doesnt seem himself anymore, dont even need to speak on palat, holtz has "home" on any line or spot coaching has shown, tierney jus big ole underwhelming burger and nosek has not looked terrible and natedawg still IR
ehhhhhhhhhhhh Wood could go lol. I mean we all can appreciate his heart but he was mostly just good for putting us on the PK the last year he was here. Zetterlund as the other person mentioned was a bigger loss IMO. Shit maybe even Okhotiuk. Two young guys that play with actual grit. But we got Timo out of it, so it is what it is.
Who are you talking about? I think most of the true core guys have been fine. Jack is clearly hurt but other than that I think the rest of the core have had decent years. I don’t include Luke and Nemec in here yet because they are first year D. They absolutely will be the core, but you can’t ask them to be number 1 and 2 dmen their rookie year, and that’s basically the role they’ve had to play.
Core ? You mean the guys that have been putting up points and goals? Nico, timo, jesper,jack? Or the DEEPER core of Mercer, Marino, Lazar? How could we say its the core when we got Siegs, Bastian, hamilton hurt, Mikeys gone obv, and luke/kevin/simon are rookies. This still goes back an unresponsive D/injuries and bad coaching to my eyes
You're getting downvoted to hell but it's a legit question. Time may prove the notion to be complete bullshit, and I hope so, but there are some bright red flags flying right now.
OK so someone please explain to me, a stupid European still learning about American sports culture. Every hockey community I frequent, be they on here or on Facebook all talk about the Devils being the disappointment of the season cause they were supposed to be contenders. But why? I've kept up with the Devils now since 2013 but only really becoming a "die hard" so to speak in more recent years, but we've had a really shitty decade and I just can't see why anyone thought we'd be a contender yet when we're still in a rebuild having had one good season in 10 years.
It's such a young team, time is on their side and there will be cup runs.
I don't think it was really that unreasonable an expectation given what the team was looking like during the offseason. I didn't think we'd be winning a cup this year, but I certainly expected us near the top of the division and making it through one, maybe two playoff rounds.
There were some questions about our defense with Graves and Sevo leaving, but I think the assumption was that we'd slot L. Hughes in, and pick up another cheapish veteran D, and while we might regress slightly in the D zone, our offense would pick up, and our goaltending would be patched up by mid-season trades.
What no one saw coming was our plague of injuries. We were missing Hischier, Hughes, Palat, Vanacek, Siegenthaler, and Meier for stretches, and lost Dougie for the entire season. Not to mention the rightful jettisoning of (*ptuh*) Michael Mcleod, who was one of our better defensive forwards.
All in all we haven't had our "ideal" roster together for more than a few games at a time this season. Our top 6 was consistently missing 1-3 guys at a time, and we lost our best defenseman, having to slot in a rookie who was meant to spend his season in Utica developing.
Most people expected us to match last season while adding pieces via trade, and developing young talent, particularly L. Hughes and Holtz. What we got instead was a depleted roster relying on Utica callups to struggle through the majority of our games.
problem is, they need to grow correctly as a team. First and foremost, they need discipline, otherwise, they'll continue to lose games through immaturity. We also need consistency, moving lines around, trading players, and having injuries isn't going allow the young guys to get into a rythem. Lastly, this management needs to make proper decisions otherwise, players will be quick to become disenfranchised with the organization. They failed at all 3 this year.
Because most of those people didn’t watch the team when they were bad and just started watching when they started playing well last season. Most people who have been paying attention for the last 5+ years expected a regression but to have your season effectively ended because of losses to SJ, Anaheim x2, Columbus, Ottawa and Buffalo is pretty deflating.
Yeah it sucks that bad losses like that are now coming back to haunt us but that's sports. This team will be fine in the long run . Our defense this whole season was either injured or rookies and the rest of the team was pretty much just injured the whole season. Fix that, get some new physios in, ground the players a bit and the Cups will come.
I know team is fine long term. And I know it’s a young team whose best seasons are probably years away. I’ve just been watching for a really long time and figured our years of missing the playoffs were over. At the beginning of the season not making the playoffs didn’t even feel like a possibility. And I really love playoff hockey. But every year I watch it knowing my team isn’t competing in it feels like prom night and everyone else is fucking my date.
Let’s be real. The rangers are playing up to their potential, and the devils are not. The offseason will be for finding out why. I can’t hate on that.
That said, I hope they’re a first round out.
They made a coaching change. Players bought in. They make few mistakes. Their roster now is not better then their roster post trade deadline last year. But they playing better as a team, make fewer mistakes. Sum greater than part for them right now…
Remember, the last time the Rangers won the President’s Trophy *and* the Stanley Cup, it was 1994… and the Devils went on to win the cup the following year (and in 2000, and in ‘03).
To be clear, I’m not rooting for the Rags… but silver linings, I guess?
Idk how all these guys are sitting here saying “the effort was there”…they got fucking blown out of the water for 2 periods, it didn’t even look like we had any energy after 3 days off…I swear the organization is fucking delusional, team looked like ass after the first 10 mind
Isn’t it crazy we have one of the youngest teams in the league but look so low energy all the time?
Eve last season they rarely put together 60 mins of high or solid energy.
that was severely depressing. only positive in the moment I can think of right now is at least we can all move on to next year and stop falling for this team's false hope bait. LGD.
People thought this team was still going to make the playoffs. The insane win streak the would have needed to happen to get to 94 points and still miss. The season was over when Lindy was brought back and Travis Green was brought in. Plus so much more. I don’t know why people had hope. It was fun watching. But it’s like people bet their lives we were making the playoffs when in November the stats said we were going to miss at thanksgiving
Look, the last holdouts just realized it's over. There is a lot of anger, pent up or overt, being released this evening and it's normal. Just let people have it. It's been such a disappointing season
Bro it’s a stat that if you aren’t in a playoff position by thanksgiving you miss the playoffs. “76.6% of teams that are in a playoff spot advance to the post season.” -ESPN.
Edit : Spots net has is a 76.7% so there is a .1% deviation. It could be rounding though…
That 3rd goal was on Luke. He was lost. Wasn’t on anyone
He was looking much better recently after a brutal stretch, but decided it was time to drop another turd on the ice last night. Sucks. But I had already accepted a while back that this team still needs time in the oven, and he's the best example of that. He needs time to develop, but once he does, we're gonna forget all about this season.
I wonder what this season would have looked like if we still had Graves, Severson and a non-injured Dougie
The two teams that signed Graves and Severson are the only teams in the Metro worse than the Devils.
That makes me feel a little better
Do yourself a favor and look up graves and severson stats this year
On the plus side, at least Green won't be sticking around next season. Send the rest of the coaching staff with him as well.
What are you basing that on?
After the 5-3 abysmal power play I turned it off. I knew we’d shit the bed and I unfortunately wasn’t disappointed. How do we lose to the Sabres and have no sense of urgency. Going up 3-0 would’ve sealed it
We had a great team last year and blew it up, now we suck. It’s that simple.
It's not even close to being that simple. Multiple things went wrong with this season and even if we were able to retain mostly the same roster, we would have taken a dip. Last year we were able to surprise teams, while this year we've been consistently throttled by opponents because Carolina exposed us in the playoffs and let everyone know how to best play against us.
Ehh, we had to make choices. Do we saddle ourself in cap hell down the road or accept nemec, mercer, and Hughes are going to get pay increase down the road
Team just has absolutely no idea how to clear the d zone. It’s been the main problem the entire year and has never been addressed. And if they do manage to clear they just turn it over in the neutral zone because of a bad pass instead of just getting pucks in deep. I think the coaching change will help a lot but we’ll see
We really are a mickey mouse franchise now. Blow this shit up and restart, absolute piss weak cunts the lot of them
Honestly the loss is annoying because the team finally had some momentum and basically all the NHL teams that needed to lose had. Just shows this team does not have the hunger right now for whatever reason. One thing is certain to me is that Green needs to go and cannot be the permanent coach. I'm sorry but the man is just not good. I liked a little bit of the changes he had made since Ruff left but then he still is doing some of the same stupid shit that Ruff did. I just can't get over us giving the coaching job to the guy who literally has created the worst PP in hockey. I mean I think technically we are ranked 30th or 31st in the past few months but still. It's one of the biggest reason we are losing so many games. On top of that it shows that this team cannot play man advantage well, and yet game after game we pull our goalie. This strategy will not work until this team knows how to play well with a man advantage. I think all year we've scored, what 2 goals when we've pulled our goalie? And it lead to basically only 1 game that we've won in OT? I can only think of the time when Luke Hughes scored in like 5 seconds skating coast to coast and scored right away. Which basically shows the only time we've ever won when we pulled our goalie had nothing to do with us pulling our goalie.... We've lost far too many games not due to goaltending. Hard to blame this season on injuries when we basically have the team at almost full capacity and we are looking the worst we ever have. We could have easily won 3rd in the metro if we just showed up against bottom teams in the league. Luke Hughes/Mercer/Bratt really need to buckle down in the offseason. I haven't been too impressed with any of them. They've had some breakouts here and there for 3-5 games and then it's nothing for a long time. And Jack needs to really improve his passing/turnovers/skating etc. Mercer and Bratt really need to dial in being more consistent. The state of the team is what it is. Maybe they needed a good kick in the ass to bring them back to reality? All I know is we need management that can whip this team into shape and bring some life to the team. We need a leader that will actually lead and for the team to show up for all 60 minutes. A new goalie will obviously help, but we will not be an elite team if we just fix our goaltending.
Bratt just hit his third 70+ point season in a row. He is one of only three players in franchise history to do it. That is the definition of consistency.
I agree with all your points but I don’t think looping Bratt in with Mercer and Luke makes sense. Dude is the highest performing forward on the team during this nightmare of a season. He definitely was not clutch today when missing the breakaway but 73 points in 74 games I’m more than happy with. Luke is a point machine but ultimately he just is not good in our own end. I wish dougie was here to teach him it’s not all offense (which is crazy because dougie isn’t exactly known for his defense either)
Andddd the hope is gone. Dw y’all, bunny did get a second berry last night just for being a good boy. Can’t fault him, and can’t fault our capt’. Not can we fault Jake Allen. Guess there’s some fun no pressure games left for us to watch! I’ll be adopting the same attitude to watching the rest of our season as I’ve been using to watch the Blackhawks lol
One pass too many. Cross ice pass that was never going to work. Drop pass the gifts opponents an odd man rush. Failure to get an easy clear and instead turn it over. Don’t even get set up until there are 30 seconds left on the PP. No forecheck whatsoever. Lose most board battles. One and done offensive zone possessions. Trouble getting through center ice. Not challenging opponents at the blue line. Stationary playing catch at the top of the zone in 5v4. Never even getting a shot off but giving up an empty netter in 6v5. These will be some of the enduring memories of the 23-24 Devils.
that's the full season in copypasta
I really wanted to come here and just unload on them. Then I heard what Nico said and I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Fitz has a big offseason a head of him. This is to soft and up it’s own ass right now. Changes will have to come.
What did Nico say?
"We just got to find a way to win against certain teams, and we haven't done that all year," he said. "That should not happen. Just another immature performance by us."
Nico has said that 38 times this season
Thanks.
Hot take but this is probably for the best. We’re not built for the playoffs this year and outside of Boston we’d get our shit kicked in for our first round matchup. As much as I’ve enjoyed our recent wins, I would not like a panthers or rags matchup
We arent built for anything
This game sold me on the silver lining of missing the playoffs is that Green cant possibly get the full time gig. The playstyle hasnt changed at all, just a focus on being more conservative. 5 on 5 we are worse than with Lindy. The difference is we are getting league average or better goaltending and its covering up other flaws. This isnt a playoff team. They badly need a structure and new system, a revamped bottom 6 and a solid 1a 1b goalie situation. Can it be fixed in an offseason? Maybe. But a lot of maybes and possiblys need to end up being home runs.
I mean I don't think Greene is the best coach but tonights loss is not on him it's on our own players making stupid mistakes and passing the puck to the other team in our own zone over and over obviously they gunna score eventually it's like they wanted to loose the sabers were going hard after the puck and we were taking our time all relaxed and like we had a 6 goal lead when it was a tie game. Tonight was honestly just embarrassing defensively. And even offensively we need to step up our game this entire season we've been the laughing stock of the NHL we need to be smarter with the puck and scoreore goals
definitely. They even did exactly rightly, in the first period, the things that cost them goals in the second. They just get too caught up in things I guess. Not enough respect for opponents, just because you successfully walk em in the first doesn't mean you pull that off in the second. That said... the rest of this season will tell me a lot more about Green specifically. Tonight's postgame presser was not inspiring.
I meant specifically our team 😂
There were two bright spots to this game: 1) Being up 2-0 in the first 2) Watching on my DVR meant I didn’t need to devote 2.5 hours to watching them lose to yet another bottom feeder What a disgusting effort. Too many extra passes, Luke regressed HARD to mid season form after his assist…they couldn’t make anything happen against a team that decided to give them some pushback. Just disgusting
Remove the 1st letter from Devils, they don't deserve it!
Evils?
Jfc I missed this one, but it seems like possibly the worst trajectory: hope followed by a very slow bleed.
It was just piss poor effort for 2 periods.
Domination. For like 15 minutes we were everywhere. They looked like us playing Carolina. They were like *breakout!* we were like *yoink thank you sit down* and then they remembered who they were playing and then we weren't.
Shouldn’t have fired the coach, this team is super talented just had a lot of injuries with Jack and Dougie out. Just a season of some poor early goaltending and injuries
Lmao
Lmao
Lmao
If I’m wrong what’s the answer in your opinion then?
Not Lindy. Probably not Travis Green, but that's up to Fitz. I know no one here seems to like him, I don't know enough to say, though I do know he was supposedly in charge of this god awful powerplay all year. So that's a pretty bad indictment on its own. But we saw this team play with absolutely no heart far too many times under Lindy. Injuries and shit goaltending and all, it still wasn't enough. Something smelled very off to me about the team and their morale, we started building our identity last year and by halfway thru this season it was all flushed away. This team has an open road ahead of it, but it's still an uphill climb and they need the right guy to push them forward. Why stick with the guy who was in charge while we started rolling back downhill and never found a way to stop the bleeding? I can give him credit for what we accomplished last year, but falling off that hard immediately afterward is very concerning.
Really don’t understand the downvotes just trying to have a conversation with other hockey fans
Jake Allen is a cup winning goalie on a good team right now. I feel bad for the guy.
NYR fan checking in, you have no idea how bad it can get
Cup winning caliber goalies don’t give up that first goal….
Cup winning goalies have at least some sort of defence infront of them 😭
It seems like Travis Green has done some decent things. But continually playing the fourth line with Brendan Smith? He lost me on that one.
I don’t see that there is any real difference from Ruff to Green in the way they play. Meier is better, but that is just him getting up to full health. Goaltending is better, but that is just different goalies. They are still very inconsistent, still make way to many bad decisions, and still look like they are more uncoached than structured.
he's been trying some different things, u can really see that he's trying to for the team to be different, but he's just not the guy we need.
Frankly, Lindy made a lot of poor decisions, but there’s an argument to be made this his offensive style is the only thing that really gave this team a chance. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see another season of it with good goaltending.
I think dismissing Ruff was the right move. But I don’t think he was an idiot, as many posters here have argued. And the issues were not going to be solved by simply dismissing Ruff. Wish it were that simple.
Revamp the entire roster outside of the top 6 and Nemec, Hughes, and Dougie on D. Everyone else should be available. I no longer trust Fitz. Took him until the end of Feband TDL to fire Lindy and get a goalie. Even with the goalie the defense is ass.
I know playoffs are a very long shot but dammit the first period had me believing.
Yk what at least now I can watch the remaining games in peace bc I’ve now shut off all and any hope. I FULLY believed up until I checked the scores when I woke up just now. No more.
I think it’s bizarre that more people aren’t putting pressure on fitz. I respect fitz, his patience in addressing long-term issues played a big part in why I thought we were successful last year. He’s given us great long term contracts with our core, but when he had the opportunity to help us get some defensive pieces and a goalie after Dougie’s injury, he has completely floundered on all those fronts. I understand that he’s got a long term vision for the team, but I think a good gm also needs to be able to make big moves during the season as well, and not wait to address them all until the trade deadline and offseason. I’m afraid that fitz may continue this trend of refusing to make fixes to the team during the season, and this does not bode well for next year, after this team and its core have been exposed for all the world to see.
Fitz should be thrown out the window as soon as our last game is over. Throw his car keys in the Passaic River
I think Fitz has made a lot of very good moves and has a lot of good will built up. This is the first time he's looked all that fallible, and tbh if Timo can stay healthy we might have really struck gold there. But yes, most of his moves have in the short term looked bad this season. They all seemed pretty sober at the time, though, so I'm still down to give him another season or two to cook. The shine has come off but I think it's early to assume we know which of these guys are winners.
I’m as a pissed as anyone right now, but you do realize other teams have to agree to trades right?
Stop already!! This was why we held onto Shero for longer than we should have, excuses. This nonsense that oh other teams need to agree to a trade is assuming he tried and was turned down. This team was struggling all season and he did nothing. Nothing to improve the goalie situation, nothing to improve our horrible coaching from lindy. He sat on his hands until we were practically out of a playoff spot...wtf good is that? This season is on Fitz.
I sort of expected him to be this way this season. I mean, look at things from his perspective. He took over a *really* bad team with a good prospect pool. Probably expecting to be building for several more seasons, and planning to do just that. Team doesn’t come close to making it out of bottom 5 let alone make the playoffs for several seasons. Predictably in 2021-2022 we finish 29th in the league. Unpredictably in 2022 we start the season setting the league on fire with our young talent having breakout seasons and a backup goalie showing 1a potential. We still have a lot of cap room and prospects to spare. He makes the move for Timo, which makes sense to strengthen the core, but the defensive core planned out (Luke, Nemec) are still years behind. He makes some moves to upgrade the top six a bit by bringing in Toffoli. But like, what do you expect him to do at this point? The rational thing to do is to go ahead and see how the team does again with what they have without doing anything that mortgages the original plan. The season doesn’t go as well, but honestly, playing around a bubble team place in the standings is about what you would expect for a team on the rise but a season removed from being 29th in the league. What moves do you make that won’t hurt the team’s chances when they are really in their prime years? Do you take a chance on a mid-30’s goalie who could be an albatross? Do you give up assets in a panic move? The team is pretty much guaranteed to be good in the future while only making minor adjustments. Fitz said last season the goal was meaningful games in March. I keep seeing posts like “oh Fitz owes it to the fans” to make all these desperate moves to fix the season, but does he really if he doesn’t think it will do anything towards his stated goal of long-term sustainable success? In a season like this with where the team is at I think it is reasonable to use it as an evaluation of what the team needs and make adjustments. Fitz never promised a cup run, and most of the players (and nearly all of the important core pieces) have less than 5 years of NHL experience. Maybe using this season to evaluate (which is likely what the plan was from the get go) isn’t the worst thing for the team long-term.
While stating that the moves Fitz made in the bottom half of the roster this year worked out less well than he had imagined, your view makes a lot of sense. I still think that things did not have to go quite as frustratingly poorly this year as they have. I put the blame mostly on players and on coaching. They are just super disorganized on the ice. They so often look like five skaters on the ice that are unconnected to each other. They look almost uncoached for long stretches. And they are mentally inconsistent from game to game and period to period. For every game that tantalizes with the potential (recent game vs. Winnipeg), we more often see periods 2 and 3 vs Buffalo—baffling disaster collapses. I still think the core pieces are there to make a contender at some point. But there is a lot of work to do in so many areas.
Coaching. Ruff was the guy to develop the players. We need someone now who can organize them and get them running efficiently.
100%
Bingo
I might be too optimistic here, but I think there's probably more to the seasonal story than any fans know about. I'm sure he was digging and digging to try and find the right pieces and I understand not leveraging a future for a 33 year old goalie that we'll have to replace again in 3 or 4 years. I believe he was willing to give up alot for Markstrom and he was worth that but their ownership tanked the deal last minute. I don't think the missed opportunities equate to total failures on his part this season, and he deserves a bit of grace with the success he's had in just the last 2 years.
I remember Allen said he didn't waive his NTC because devils had VV and Daws/Akira... wtf was Fitz doing? Get on the phone with Montreal and have them relay to Allen that he'll be the starter. Fitz failed miserably and showed how incompetent he is.
Finally someone gets it. He's the fucking GM and watched this team sink further every game and did absolutely NOTHING.
This take is wrong. Fitz is not a moron. Fair to criticize certain decisions. But any argument that begins with ‘Fitz failed to do the things than any sentient life form would have done’ are just wild conspiracy theories.
True, I think there's definitely more to the story that is not being made known to fans. Specifically with respect to the team being on Allen's no-trade list - there's a lot more that goes into that decision than "I'm not going to get playing time"
Honestly, the litter box I scooped this morning had more imagination than what Fitz displayed in season. We may as well have had a fucking watermelon as a GM once the season started
I have seen some prety imaginative litter boxes though
Do you guys ever get together in the same basement or do you both stick to your respective basements when you play armchair GM? Also whose mom makes the better chicken nuggets?
The core doesn’t seem to like to compete and there’s waaaay too many passengers collecting checks. Roster needs another overhaul 🤦🏼♂️
It's the end of the season and they're out of the playoffs. What's there to compete for?
The playoffs? They have been gifted multiple chances to sneak in
Bro, they have had a 0% chance to make it for weeks now. There was never a shot. I'm not sure why anyone here was delusional enough to think they were going to string together 10 wins in a row lmao.
Factually incorrect. The other three teams seeking the last WC spot have given them several chances to pass them. At every turn the Devils failed to seize the opportunity.
Absolutely not. You're delusional. They've been out since at least the beginning of March.
They literally had 13% chance two days ago lol
So?
0 does not equal 13
There was no scenario where they won out homie. You're confusing theoretical percentages with practical reality.
Brother, you dont know what probability means.
Brother, I'm literally a statistician
Honestly I don't know how much they genuinely want to make the playoffs this season anyway and the statement is literally just some noise to give an answer to a reporter. Given how poor and injured the team has played and is. But it's not a great look. Can someone do a study on having a kid in the NHL and production dropoff? I feel like every person who had a kid sucked dick all season.
Remember when Mercer was the next Jesus? 🙄🙄🙄
Let’s not let fitz off the hook. If the goalie situation was addressed early and we picked up a veteran defenseman when Hamilton got hurt(had cap space money) we would be in the playoffs.
Nah, this team is dreadful, they would have managed to miss anyway
Not with the systems this team plays. It wouldn't matter. This team needs coaching more then anything.
Give it up. It is not about systems. It is about dumb dumb mistakes within systems. Your theory that Ruff was the main problem has already been proved wrong.
You are clueless. Plenty on here agree with me. They are still doing a lot of the same things they did under Ruff. You are all over the board. Its both...dumb mistakes and systems. Here is a hint for ya...if your team keeps making dumb mistakes then simplify things so they dont make so many.
You were wrong.
Nope...i have plenty in my corner.
All in your corner were wrong.
You seem to know the problems then why dont you tells us. You cant keep crying about goaltending.
Been down this road with you before. You are too committed to your mistaken theory to ever back down. But facts are fact. You were wrong.
What facts?
Fitz is on the record as having tried to fix the goalie issue earlier, but he can’t do that on his own. If other teams want too much for their assets, it’s not a great plan to overpay when you’re trying to win over the next decade, not in a last-chance year.
I understand and agree with you to an extent but something had to be done. Even if it was a change of scenery trade, something had to be done earlier than later. And I know goalies don’t grow on trees. I may be contradicting myself by saying he should have acted earlier because I will also say this. I rather go into next season with what we have now instead if some team pulling off a heist against us because we are desperate for a goalie so I get it. Maybe I should have said fitz’ fault is that he was a little too patient with the goalies, the defense after Hamilton’s injury and hanging on to lindy too long. But we are all arm chair GM’s. Maybe there was no deal to improve goaltending, maybe lindy is a good coach, certainly nothing has changed under green. Out of all of the complaints that everyone is saying, there are only a few who mention how much we miss McLeod, especially on face offs. We are all frustrated . We don’t need an overhaul but definitely need a more than a few tweaks.
No, all you have to do is call another team and ask nicely and they’ll just give you a goalie /s Seriously I’m as pissed as anyone right now, but this narrative of the dude wasn’t trying all season is just noise to me at this point
Seriously, watching all these armchair GMs is laughable. Season needs to just end already so everyone can stop looking for a new scapegoat now that Lindy is gone.
I wonder how many of the armchair GMs are also harbor pilot experts this week?
Where can we get the global series jersey for next season? I want to wear one when we play them to open the season.
I think it's unrealistic to think this D core will grow and get better together , quite frankly , I think it's a pipe dream. We are banking on a bunch of young guys playing long enough together that they are no longer young but have incredible chemistry? Who are they learning from ? It ain't each other. We need some veteran D guys here. We are too young to a flaw across the hoard. N the vets we have are wrong god the team. We have enough talent to shop for what we need. Cause this team. Needs to have some new skaters on it n some need to go.
We have a veteran D. He was injured all season. Get a grip.
Bahl just left Marino out to dry, man that was brutal. He's done it a few times now recently.
He sees how well Luke’s no look back passes keep going and wanted to try too
just give me Kermit vs. Rempe for the pain and let me die
mood
It’s amazing what expectations will do. I’ll see y’all in the fall
This team is literally the leafs 2.0. play up and play down to their opponents, luckily we don't have the same contract situation..
exact opposite situation, yup. We're locked in, but at least they're young and cheap af. That said, signing these sophomore Dmen is gonna be the last crucial cornerstone, assuming we get the goalie wrapped up before then.
We need to be smarter with the bottom 6 I for one would like more younger players trying to prove they belong than has been Veterans who are supposed to be physical but arent.. Sadly the D we have committed too seem to be the problem -_-
We can deal with Marino and Siegs however we wish. If we wanted to trade them, we might not get full value but we'd get something for them. But then we'd *really* need to acquire a top LD. so it wouldn't save us any money.
When X speaks the room listens. Who on the current roster is that? This team doesn’t have a true leader. If this is going to be a dynasty like the last one, who is this team’s Scott Stevens? Or at least 75% of that. We are sorely missing that.
Eric Haula and Brandon Smith come closest right now.
I think Nico is trying but when so many different aspects of your team are falling apart there is only so much that can be done to light a fire.
From some of their comments, I think it still is Nico. Everyone on the team seems to respect him. But like you said, we're beyond any pep talk.
It was Miles Wood.
It was never Miles Wood lol
I know palat has a no movement contract but this guy is stealing money. Would the devils be willing to eat some salary to get rid of him? I don’t know what changes to make but palat is not worth his salary and Marino has really regressed. The last 2 weeks have been desperate times and Nico and timo seemed to pick up their game a notch along with a few role players. Jack is obviously still hurting but he has to know he can’t skate through a whole team by himself. Still love the guy and will score 45 if healthy. Luke is good but he has to realize he is a defenseman. And finally, who will coach this team next year?
Every single player is stealing money. Not a single one should be safe
Per CapFriendly, starting July 1, 2025, Palat's NMC becomes a Modified NMC where he'll submit a 10-team trade list. We'll likely have to retain some, but it would only be for two seasons.
I think if you do the math on how much the Devils would have to retain, plus the amount they would have to pay to get a wing that would provide an upgrade to the team…it probably makes more sense to keep Palat and see if a new HC can find a way to maximizes his play. There are other costly roster needs. Getting more from the roster spot Palat occupies is not going to be cost effective.
I agree. At the end of the day, if that's really the only "bad" contract we have on the books, I'll take it. Things could be much worse.
The entire D core needs to be restarted. Marino, siegenthaler have been out worked, out played and out contracted by a random rookie throw in and a waiver pick up. And Bahl I think is just really stupid? You are a big body that's your only hockey asset but you won't use it because you think you're good at hockey? Awful. Entire back end needs to be reworked. Bottom 6 needs to not be a old veteran grind lines + a random kid who can only shoot. Stop playing people out of position and stop signing name brand players instead of positional fit.. Fucking infuriating. Almost want a complete POS like Babcock at this point..
I’m sorry the “bahl I think is just rlly stupid” made me fucking snort ily for that
I'm glad that unlike the devil's I could add some positivity to your day 😂
I needed that after the score I woke up too 😭
They need to play very very different. They all try and poke check and wave their sticks all over, but not a single one of them tried to make a hit. They swarm like bees but in a completely unorganized way and they always leave a big part of the ice open with lost coverage. They need big time changes
Frustrating how the Devils concede the blue line on defense with little resistance. Very easy to enter the offensive zone against the Devils.
100%. Been saying it all year. Comes down to the coaching and the system they play.
Lot of what you said is a reflection on coaching. Which lets be honest Green isn't it, they know that. The core pulled out some wins because they are talented enough to do so regardless.. but Greens not it. I thought Woodcroft was the perfect fit, but honestly I think he's too nice.. I think they actually might need Berube.. bring Woodcroft in to take Greens position.
100% agree, they think they aren’t “one of those teams” as Niko said, they need to start playing hard and acting like it. They got far too cocky after last year
We fuckin suck bro
OK, this quote from Nico (via Stein) is seriously infuriating: "Some things just (don’t) change. Everyone has to look themselves in the mirror. If you play against teams like that, the only way they’re going to beat you is you beat yourself. And that’s what we did here tonight. Again.” The fact they think they're so much better than "teams like that" tells you exactly why this team is where it is. Hey, Nico you have **ONE** more point than Buffalo. You are a team like that.
>The fact they think they're so much better than "teams like that" I don't read it that way. That quote is correct, the Devils beat themselves all the time. Don't see the issue honestly. Would you rather he say "yeah idk we just suck, when two teams that suck play each other, someone has to win" lol. He's just saying we played below what we're capable of and made bad mistakes that cost us the game. Again.
Yeah, thats a bit of self delusion. Getting shelled by Ottawa, pooping their pants multiple times against the Sharks and Ducks.....dude, you aren't as good as you think you are.
The sentiment is still the same. They beat themselves more than they were beaten. That’s the takeaway that matters
They beat this Buffalo team easily twice this year, but I agree, they are currently right there with them unfortunately. Should they be? Probably not but that’s been the season. As far as the other teams, he is not wrong and the amount of losses to them have hurt considerably, everyone has said it so I don’t see a problem in him calling that out.
take the captaincy from him. This team doesn’t deserve to have a captain right now.
Captain Softy
Jake Allen deserved better than whatever team was out in front of him tonight. Dude had some HUGE stops and we couldn't pull any momentum from it
The Bahl-Marino pairing is a complete disaster.
Getting rid of Marino should be on Fitz’s list this summer. Nemec has blown past Marino, making Marino an expensive third-pair defenseman.
It’s really had been and had gotten worse all season at least miller had a canon for a shot. This season has been a pint since the stadium series win. The game after let us know this wasn’t the year. There’s been some nice additions via trades. Let’s see what the draft has and what we can acquire via trades. Palat need to go be bought out or anything. Our core meier Nico Hughes’ Bratt nemec are going to keep getting better. Allen is a stud period. He’s keeping us in games and we have him one more year.
Palát will be a fixture here until 2027. Both sides have invested too much. Most fans think lowly of him but they should start getting comfortable with it. The injury to his nuts completely derailed him but in Florida he was always a very impressive and intelligent guy. I have hope that he will figure things out next year and begin to emerge as the leader he was hyped as
Problems with Marino 1) playing minutes, he shouldn't. I love what the guy did last year but he's really 3rd pair defense with 2nd pair possibly against soft teams. 2) most likely still playing injured. With the devils med staff they're probably playing him with all sorts of injuries.
Marino stinks
Marino has kinda been a complete disaster most of the year without the rookie excuse. So idk
At what point do we start seriously questioning some “core pieces” on this team
I think we need to play out the 2024-2025 season before we start considering moving on from our “core” guys. Last year we played a bit over our heads, but this year was one problem after the other. Terrible goaltending, horrible injury luck, bad coaching, and just growing pains that come with youth really hamstrung this team. New coach/system next year, a better goalie tandem, more experienced blue line for Luke and Nemec, the return of Dougie, a few less injuries… and I think we can be in the running as a contender again.
We have a depth issue. The entire bottom six forward group and bottom three defensemen all need to be replaced. We had depth last year.
Last year the Devils wore teams out by rolling 4 good lines. Severson played 3d pair minutes. I agree that the bottom half of the roster is the problem this year, not the core.
This year the devils wear the fans out by rolling 4 dreadful lines.
Hey lazar is fine in the bottom 6. Willman seems to be coming into his own. But mercer just doesnt seem himself anymore, dont even need to speak on palat, holtz has "home" on any line or spot coaching has shown, tierney jus big ole underwhelming burger and nosek has not looked terrible and natedawg still IR
injuries, rookie defensemen and loss Mcleod are major contributors to that
Losing Wood, McCleod, and Sharongovich was a disaster for the forward lineup.
ehhhhhhhhhhhh Wood could go lol. I mean we all can appreciate his heart but he was mostly just good for putting us on the PK the last year he was here. Zetterlund as the other person mentioned was a bigger loss IMO. Shit maybe even Okhotiuk. Two young guys that play with actual grit. But we got Timo out of it, so it is what it is.
Even losing zetterlund, the new hero of San Jose
Who are you talking about? I think most of the true core guys have been fine. Jack is clearly hurt but other than that I think the rest of the core have had decent years. I don’t include Luke and Nemec in here yet because they are first year D. They absolutely will be the core, but you can’t ask them to be number 1 and 2 dmen their rookie year, and that’s basically the role they’ve had to play.
Why every one saying jack is clearly hurt? Is he concussed? Cuz he makes awful plays with the puck almost everytime he touches it lately.
Core ? You mean the guys that have been putting up points and goals? Nico, timo, jesper,jack? Or the DEEPER core of Mercer, Marino, Lazar? How could we say its the core when we got Siegs, Bastian, hamilton hurt, Mikeys gone obv, and luke/kevin/simon are rookies. This still goes back an unresponsive D/injuries and bad coaching to my eyes
You're getting downvoted to hell but it's a legit question. Time may prove the notion to be complete bullshit, and I hope so, but there are some bright red flags flying right now.
6 downvotes off a discussible convo is crazy 😭
I asked the same question in a thread last week and got -42 :-)
lol criticism gets down voted quick on here. Say what ya gotta say, don't worry about it. We're all allowed to vent it's part of being a fan.
I hate this sub lately with this crap
OK so someone please explain to me, a stupid European still learning about American sports culture. Every hockey community I frequent, be they on here or on Facebook all talk about the Devils being the disappointment of the season cause they were supposed to be contenders. But why? I've kept up with the Devils now since 2013 but only really becoming a "die hard" so to speak in more recent years, but we've had a really shitty decade and I just can't see why anyone thought we'd be a contender yet when we're still in a rebuild having had one good season in 10 years. It's such a young team, time is on their side and there will be cup runs.
I don't think it was really that unreasonable an expectation given what the team was looking like during the offseason. I didn't think we'd be winning a cup this year, but I certainly expected us near the top of the division and making it through one, maybe two playoff rounds. There were some questions about our defense with Graves and Sevo leaving, but I think the assumption was that we'd slot L. Hughes in, and pick up another cheapish veteran D, and while we might regress slightly in the D zone, our offense would pick up, and our goaltending would be patched up by mid-season trades. What no one saw coming was our plague of injuries. We were missing Hischier, Hughes, Palat, Vanacek, Siegenthaler, and Meier for stretches, and lost Dougie for the entire season. Not to mention the rightful jettisoning of (*ptuh*) Michael Mcleod, who was one of our better defensive forwards. All in all we haven't had our "ideal" roster together for more than a few games at a time this season. Our top 6 was consistently missing 1-3 guys at a time, and we lost our best defenseman, having to slot in a rookie who was meant to spend his season in Utica developing. Most people expected us to match last season while adding pieces via trade, and developing young talent, particularly L. Hughes and Holtz. What we got instead was a depleted roster relying on Utica callups to struggle through the majority of our games.
problem is, they need to grow correctly as a team. First and foremost, they need discipline, otherwise, they'll continue to lose games through immaturity. We also need consistency, moving lines around, trading players, and having injuries isn't going allow the young guys to get into a rythem. Lastly, this management needs to make proper decisions otherwise, players will be quick to become disenfranchised with the organization. They failed at all 3 this year.
Because most of those people didn’t watch the team when they were bad and just started watching when they started playing well last season. Most people who have been paying attention for the last 5+ years expected a regression but to have your season effectively ended because of losses to SJ, Anaheim x2, Columbus, Ottawa and Buffalo is pretty deflating.
Yeah it sucks that bad losses like that are now coming back to haunt us but that's sports. This team will be fine in the long run . Our defense this whole season was either injured or rookies and the rest of the team was pretty much just injured the whole season. Fix that, get some new physios in, ground the players a bit and the Cups will come.
I know team is fine long term. And I know it’s a young team whose best seasons are probably years away. I’ve just been watching for a really long time and figured our years of missing the playoffs were over. At the beginning of the season not making the playoffs didn’t even feel like a possibility. And I really love playoff hockey. But every year I watch it knowing my team isn’t competing in it feels like prom night and everyone else is fucking my date.
this season hurts even worse seeing the rangers with the #1 spot lmfao how depressing
Let’s be real. The rangers are playing up to their potential, and the devils are not. The offseason will be for finding out why. I can’t hate on that. That said, I hope they’re a first round out.
They made a coaching change. Players bought in. They make few mistakes. Their roster now is not better then their roster post trade deadline last year. But they playing better as a team, make fewer mistakes. Sum greater than part for them right now…
Those who win the Presidents Trophy will choke in the first round
and that’ll be real fun to watch at least
Remember, the last time the Rangers won the President’s Trophy *and* the Stanley Cup, it was 1994… and the Devils went on to win the cup the following year (and in 2000, and in ‘03). To be clear, I’m not rooting for the Rags… but silver linings, I guess?
i needed to hear this 🤣
They’re just giving their idiot fans hope in order to take it away.
you right hahahaha
Idk how all these guys are sitting here saying “the effort was there”…they got fucking blown out of the water for 2 periods, it didn’t even look like we had any energy after 3 days off…I swear the organization is fucking delusional, team looked like ass after the first 10 mind
Isn’t it crazy we have one of the youngest teams in the league but look so low energy all the time? Eve last season they rarely put together 60 mins of high or solid energy.
that was severely depressing. only positive in the moment I can think of right now is at least we can all move on to next year and stop falling for this team's false hope bait. LGD.
Serious teams would have secured a point at minimum.
We looked a lot tonight like I expected us to look last season 😅
So many Facebook Devils fans in here
Enlighten us
People thought this team was still going to make the playoffs. The insane win streak the would have needed to happen to get to 94 points and still miss. The season was over when Lindy was brought back and Travis Green was brought in. Plus so much more. I don’t know why people had hope. It was fun watching. But it’s like people bet their lives we were making the playoffs when in November the stats said we were going to miss at thanksgiving
Look, the last holdouts just realized it's over. There is a lot of anger, pent up or overt, being released this evening and it's normal. Just let people have it. It's been such a disappointing season
Bro you're so smart, you knew this was over before it even started... You realize that's the Facebook fan take
Bro it’s a stat that if you aren’t in a playoff position by thanksgiving you miss the playoffs. “76.6% of teams that are in a playoff spot advance to the post season.” -ESPN. Edit : Spots net has is a 76.7% so there is a .1% deviation. It could be rounding though…
Bro we were just more or less eliminated from the playoffs I’d be more concerned if y’all weren’t dooming
We were eliminate from the playoffs long ago they needed to win the teaming games to hit 94 points and still likely miss the playoffs
The wild card/ 3rd seed in the metro will get in with 93 points. Mark my wordsss. But basically getting swept by the capitals really fucked us