Jay Greenberg: Devils Not Wishing On a Star

Jay,

I greatly enjoy your work but Elias was a point per game player in 99-00 and the team scored the 2nd most goals in the NHL. It was a pretty darn good offense with Gomez, Arnott, Sykora, Lemeiux, Molginy, Holik and company. Sure it got overshadowed by the crazy D but that year 6 clubs allowed fewer goals.

I'm bemoaning the point because our memories of what happened are different then what really happened; but the past is the past.

My 9 year old son got called up as an emergency goalie last year to play with kids up to 13 years old in a playoff game. He only played goal twice on his team. He lost 13 to 12 and lost his poop in the dressing room. So that day he learned that in Hockey things almost always end badly. Even for the great Devil's teams after years of dominating hockey everything went bad. Even Lou Lams time had run out which seemed inconceivable.

The excitement of seeing the beginning of a new era of Devil's hockey is amazingly exciting. Yes, it's only two game but frankly it's been cathartic. It almost feels like a rebirth.

I think Shero has done an absolutely fantastic job with the Devils so far. And I'm not saying this based on a 2-0 start, I still fully expect the Devils to miss the playoffs and will be very happy if they can just stay in the hunt for a majority of the season this year.

When Lou left the team looked legitimately hopeless. Not only where they bad, they were old, the worst combination in hockey. It's one thing to be bad but have a solid collection of promising young players and prospects, but in 2015 the Devils had no direction. They were bad in the present and didn't seem to have much of a future.

Since then Shero has acquired Hall, Palmieri, and Johansson for Larsson and a handful on mid-round picks (yes Hall had a disappointing season last year but there is no doubt in my mind that trade was a steal). The team actually has a collection of promising young forwards in Hischier, Zacha, Bratt, McLeod, and a few others. Even the blue-line looks much more promising with the signing of Butcher and (in my opinion underrated) trade for Mirco Mueller.

For the Devils to truly surprise this year, they need a lot of things to go right for them, including Zacha and Hischier running with top 6 center roles, the defense being solid, and Schneider having a huge bounce back. Even if those things don't all happen, and I don't expect them to for the full year, this is the first time in awhile the Devils seem to have a legitimate direction and it's not absurd to imagine them contending in a handful of years. Hats off to Shero for pulling this franchise out of the mess Lou left it in.

Devils didn't spend a dime to get Johannson, they traded for him...

Devils didn't spend a dime to get Johannson, they traded for him...
- pjdevil

In the process, they added Johansson's $4.85 M cap hit while shedding no salary (two 2018 draft picks) in the exchange. Since he's sure not playing for free, Jay's point is correct.

If Hischier turns out to be an 80 point player the Devils will have hit a grand slam. That would put him 9th in the league last season.


We have to start remembering that this is not the 80's any more.

If Hischier turns out to be an 80 point player the Devils will have hit a grand slam. That would put him 9th in the league last season.


We have to start remembering that this is not the 80's any more.
- MBFlyerfan

Have you seen the scores in the first week of this season?

In the process, they added Johansson's $4.85 M cap hit while shedding no salary (two 2018 draft picks) in the exchange. Since he's sure not playing for free, Jay's point is correct.
- bmeltzer

Our cap hit didn't even go up $4.85M. If you want to interpret the sentence that it means MoJo's salary came with him that's fine, but normally when you say you spent on a player it's because they're a free agent and the cost was money.

We're fourth from the cellar in payroll with Ryan Clowe getting almost $5M. Are we suppose to be impressed by the spending?

good lord

devils looking good. making good moves. would be great to see them back in the playoffs.

as long as they lose to the leafs on wednesday (going to the game for my bday :lol

Jay is obviously still bitter about Hextall's whiff on Claude Lemieux's blue line slapper that helped send Eric and co. packing in the ECF 22 years ago

Our cap hit didn't even go up $4.85M. If you want to interpret the sentence that it means MoJo's salary came with him that's fine, but normally when you say you spent on a player it's because they're a free agent and the cost was money.

We're fourth from the cellar in payroll with Ryan Clowe getting almost $5M. Are we suppose to be impressed by the spending?
- Queenie_5_hole

That was exactly my point, it's not like Shero went directly to MoJo and said we're going to throw all this money at you now sign with NJ. Shero used the leverage of both NJ's extra picks and Washington's cap issues to obtain a player on the rise for cheap. If anything you should say Shero was able to take advantage of a team who mismanaged it's cap situation.