New Jersey Devils: 5 Stupid Narratives You Will Hear This Offseason
The New Jersey Devils are offseason bound, and that usually comes with some hilariously hot takes. Some of them will come from this very website. The internet is a take machine, and some have some validity and trust behind them, while others are mostly emotional takes about a team that’s been a massive disappointment. Bleacher Report literally made up trade offers for the likes of Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Donald, and T.J. Watt, who aren’t going anywhere. Sometimes these takes make no sense and the narrative is just a straight overreaction.
The Devils will be surrounded by these narratives all season long. The only player who is probably safe from them is Yegor Sharangovich. It seems like just about everyone is on the young Belarusian forward’s side in every argument. Besides him, if there is a possible Devils take, it is out there somewhere. Between Twitter hashtags, Facebook groups, Youtube videos, and the many hockey blogs out there, there will be some interesting takes.
Takes such as:
Mackenzie Blackwood Isn’t Good Enough
Mackenzie Blackwood wasn’t great this season, but he literally got COVID-19 in the middle of the season, and he said it took a while to get over the symptoms. He literally told everyone why he struggled for most of the season. Still, people are just going to look at his stats and say he isn’t the answer.
This is going to be a prevailing storyline for most of the offseason. While the Islanders’ Ilya Sorokin and the Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin were fine in rookie seasons, Tristan Jarry, Blackwood, and Carter Hart only brought doubt for clubs in the Metropolitan Division (at least what the division will be next season). So, when people do season previews for teams in this division, Blackwood’s issues will come up again.
No matter which stats you look at, Blackwood didn’t do too well. He had to work to get his save percentage over .900, finishing with a .902. He had a .921 save percentage in the last four games just to get this. He still finished the season 39th among goalies in save percentage. When it comes to advanced stats, it’s even worse. He ranked 82nd in goals saved above average when comparing every goalie who played a game. When limiting it to goalies who played 500 minutes, he was 52nd.
The numbers look bad, but there are too many excuses to actually take this season seriously. There were no answers about Blackwood’s future we learned this season. It stinks, but we just have to go into next season with hope without overreacting to his numbers. However, many in the national media will look at Blackwood and think the Devils need something better.
Nico Hischier Was A Bad Choice For Captain
This dumb narrative is already getting some traction across social media. Nico Hischier missed the first few weeks of the season with a major leg injury. As soon as he was about to come back, he got COVID. Then, just five games into his season, he was hit in the face with a deflected shot. He ended up playing just 21 games this season, and 16 of those games came with a very distracting cage on his face.
Despite all the setbacks, Hischier still scored six goals in 21 games. He was on pace for 24 goals in an 82-game season. It would have been awesome if he actually did that, but the pace is actually not bad. His assist numbers were brutal, but it had a lot to do with issues finding the right linemates until Pavel Zacha and Jesper Bratt settled in as his wingers.
The Devils didn’t name a captain at the top of the season because they were waiting for Hischier to come back. He was always going to be the captain. The other two options were Travis Zajac or Kyle Palmieri. They both got traded at once to the New York Islanders before the trade deadline. That would be a bad look.
However, some people think that Jack Hughes would be a better choice for captain. He’s the star, and the Devils started giving him more of a leadership role. He was on the ice for bigger moments, and the team seemed to rely on him.
Hischier was and is the right choice for captain. He may be young, but he has a leadership quality that doesn’t seem to come from anyone else. Let Hughes focus on becoming a superstar. Hischier can lead this team into its next generation.
Pavel Zacha, Anything Pavel Zacha
There have been so many opinions on Pavel Zacha already, and the offseason just started. Some say his season wasn’t as good as the numbers say it was, while others say he finally turned around his entire career and the team should treat him like a building block. Some say he’s an easy protection candidate in the Seattle Kraken expansion draft. The opposite of that says there’s nothing worth losing him for. Speaking of which, there are legit opinions saying he should be traded since his value is at his highest. Others think he isn’t even worth a 3rd-round pick.
Zacha might be the most volatile player on the roster. Everyone has an opinion about him, and none of them are normal. There are no “Zacha is a fine player who could be pretty good” opinions out there. There’s either pain and anguish about the fact that he’s not Mat Barzal or elation that the Devils finally got great production from the former sixth-overall pick.
Zacha opinions are only going to get crazier as the offseason goes on. There is a lot of things to speculate about in May or June. Then in July, everything happens. There’s the NHL Draft, free agency, and all of the major trades are usually done by the middle of July. It’s a famous notion that NHL GMs take August for their vacations, which is why there are no transactions during the month. So, since nothing is going on, the takes get wild. Expect to see some weird Zacha takes during this time of the year.
Lindy Ruff Isn’t The Answer At Head Coach
This one hasn’t come up yet, but the fanbase is going to run out of people to blame, and the finger-pointing will eventually go to the head coach. This will especially be the case if we go into the summer with exactly the same assistant coaching staff. Obviously, the special teams were terrible for the Devils. Ruff has a hand in that, but let’s calm down for just a bit.
Ruff’s system is known to ask a lot of the defensemen, and the Devils don’t have the best defensemen. Will Butcher barely got into the lineup because of his fit in the system. On the other hand, P.K. Subban seemed to fit much better in this system than the John Hynes system.
Now remember, Ruff only had a few weeks to completely changed how everyone played hockey after they literally didn’t play competitive hockey for nine months. The training camp situation wasn’t great, and right when things started to click, a COVID outbreak took the season off the rails.
The Devils will have a lot more time to work with the players. None of the players that are still on the team have injuries that will keep them from working out in the offseason. Everyone can focus on hockey and getting better at this system. So, worrying about Ruff is not the right move. Give him one normal season before we worry about what he’s going to be like long-term as the Devils head coach.
Devils Should Weaponize Cap Space
We’ve heard this probably a thousand times already. The Devils have $37 million in cap space to spend this offseason. They have to spend $16.4 million just to get to the cap floor. There are some interesting restricted free agents (Yegor Sharangovich, Janne Kuokkanen, and Michael McLeod most interesting), but they aren’t going to get all the way to that $16.4 million number. The Devils have to do something with that money, so they will obviously be weaponizing it.
First of all, let’s calm down on that notion. The Devils going in saying they want to weaponize this space usually means being that extra third team in a three-team trade that nets them an extra 3rd-round pick. It’s fine, but the Devils can only do that once and this draft probably isn’t the place to make it happen.
dark. Next. Cost To Get Connor McDavid
Most fans hope “weaponize cap space” means “get disgruntled or expensive veterans”, and that’s probably not what Tom Fitzgerald is going to do this offseason. He’s going to use his cap space in a smart way. This will be looking ahead more than it is looking at the present. Most fans won’t like that, and most blogs (including this one) will dream of ways to weaponize that cap space. However, it’s more than likely the Devils are going to build around what they already have with moves similar to the ones they made last season.