Analyzing the Devils offense

I agree that they could have a lot of 20 plus guys but I also think rolstons goals will drop to between 15-20 if Elias and Arnott do stay healthy. Clarksons goals should rise.
You are one of the only people that thinks this could be a special season.

Good comparison. I think ZZ pops will not produce 96 like the A line but they will produce about between 85-90. I also think that Kovy, Elias and Arnott will get more then 77. They will come close to the A line. Kovy and Parise wil match Moginly and Elias. After that I don’t think the third line of rolston, clarkson and one of the rookies will produce 61 goals. 50-55 is about what they will produce which is still good. The fourth line with only get about 10 maximum. The defense also cannot around the 01 defense. They can count on Greene for 9-12 goals and about 38-45 points. Tallinder will score between only 3-5 and they think one of the rookies is ready to produce offensively and defensively. If one of the rookies can develop in too the second offensive defensma
they will only be a little behind the 24 of Stevens, rafalski and Neidermayer.
Bottom line- this offense won’t quit match the 01 team because the depth is a little behind but still strong and the defense is not quite as strong. They will be close and finish at least top 7-8 if not top 5 only if Kovalchuk comes back.

Please, please learn how to use the reply button instead of starting a fresh comment thread when responding to someone else’s points. There’s a button labeled “reply” at the end of someone’s comments, and clicking on it opens up a fresh comment box labeled “Post a Reply” as opposed to “Post a New Comment” — this will put your response to someone else’s point underneath their point and indent it so it is obvious to whom you are replying.

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Your projections are optimistic, and also include the caveat that everyone remains healthy for the full season. The odds of having the entire Top 6, plus Rolston and Clarkson stay healthy, and getting 12-15 goals out of whomever happens to be the #3 center I place at slightly higher than my winning the lottery — and I have never bought a lottery ticket in my life. Jason Arnott has played more than 68 games just once in his four years with Nashville. Patrick Elias hasn’t played more than 77 games since the lockout, and has missed significant time twice in five seasons with injuries. Jamie Langenbrunner and Brian Rolston are both getting old. David Clarkson missed half of last season. If he sticks around, Dainius Zubrus also missed a lot of time last season. Someone is going to get hurt somewhere along the line, and I don’t know that the Devils will have the quality depth to step in and replace a player without missing a beat (especially is said injury is at center).

Your projections are optimistic, and I wonder what basis you make for them. Sometimes, I believe you just throw a range of numbers out there and say “so-and-so will produce in here” without much in the way of a foundation. A player’s production is going to change for many reasons — their ice time, their linemates, how much PP time they get, how they are used, etc.

Kovalchuk-Arnott-Elias is not going to be the “A-Line Part II”. All three players (Elias, Arnott, Sykora) were in their mid-20s when they were the best line in hockey, and that is an age where a player is near their peak (most statistical studies put an athlete’s prime years in the 27-31 range). Kovy is young enough that he is there, but Arnott and Elias are in their mid-30s, and to expect them to be the same players they were when Elias was an all-NHL First Team player, and Arnott was a Stanley Cup hero is asking for a lot. I don’t see how you expect all of them to exceed their goal output from the previous season — someone there has to pass the puck, unless there’s this newfangled rule I don’t know about where they’re allowed to have three pucks on the ice at the same time. Looking at that line, I think Patrick Elias is going to be the facilitator and playmaker, even if Kovalchuk will dominate the puck at times — Patty is the franchise’s best set-up man at this point and Kovy likes to carry the puck a lot. The three combined for 78 goals last season, but a lot of that was when two of them were the focal point and go-to-guy for teams not named “New Jersey”.

We know what ZZ Pops is at this point, after they’ve spent much of the last few seasons together. I could reasonably see them produce at a goal-a-game pace, perhaps even a little bit more (like 90-95), but that on its own does not make the Devils’ offense substantially better than it has been. They gave you 82 goals last season, and while 10 goals would be a nice improvement, Top 5 (based solely on last season’s numbers) is 35 goals away, and Top 10 was still 15 goals beyond what the Devils produced.

If one of the rookies plays well and produces between 30-35 points and 5-8 goals they can have solid offense on the bluelines.

This is something you cannot count on, and I’ll back it up with more raw data:

2009-2010: Two rookie “D” produced at this level — Tyler Myers (11-37-48) and Mike Del Zotto (9-28-37).
2008-2009: The top two rookie defensemen in terms of scoring were Matt Hunwick and Drew Doughty (each put up 6-21-27).
2007-2008: The top three rookie defensemen in terms of scoring were Tobias Enstrom (5-33-38), Tom Gilbert (13-20-33) and Erik Johnson (5-28-33).
2006-2007: Matt Carle exploded onto the scene with 11-31-42. No other rookie defenseman had more than 26 points.
2005-2006: Seven rookie defensemen had 32 or more points, led by Dion Phaneuf (20-29-49) and Andrej Meszaros 10-29-39). Keep in mind this was the first post-lockout season when a lot of scoring numbers went bonkers — Gionta had 48 goals that year (and has barely made it half as far since), while Jonathan Cheechoo led the league with 52 (and is pretty much out of hockey now).

Given the lack of high-scoring rookie defensemen, plus the Devils’ system that tends to depress those numbers further to some degree, I don’t see how any reasonable assumption can be made that Andy Greene will repeat his numbers from last season and someone we haven’t heard from will also give the same numbers.

These projections are realistic and a little optomistic and has a good shot of happening

Wishing does not make it so. Why do they have a good shot of happening? In addition, what happens to all these numbers and projections when some adversity sets in (an injury, a slump, a lack of chemistry on your designed lines)?

Lots of players would be great for the Devils. Reality says that most of your scenarios are not going to happen…. and too many more outlandish ideas (let’s get Ilya Kovalchuk and Kevin Bieksa and make an over-the-cap Vancouver take back one of our bad contracts!) will have me searching for an appropriate picture to paste into a reply.

The Devils are pretty much done for the summer. If Ilya Kovalchuk signs elsewhere, I imagine the biggest thing left to do is find a veteran center or two to invite to camp, so that there’s an alternative if Josefson and Henrique are not ready. If Kovy comes back, Lou will have to move salaries to make it work. Otherwise, there isn’t much to do at this stage.

There will be no further major trades where the Devils import high-priced talent.

So which one do you want, brodeur30? Do you want veterans like Randy Jones (or Petr Sykora, who you offered up in a previous FanPost) to fill out the roster? Or do you want the rookies to be given an opportunity? You change your mind on this subject all the time.