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Forums :: Blog World :: Todd Cordell: On Zacha, Zajac, and defensive shot contributions
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Todd Cordell
New Jersey Devils
Location: Toronto, ON
Joined: 09.05.2011

Nov 8 @ 12:52 PM ET
Todd Cordell: On Zacha, Zajac, and defensive shot contributions
K-dizzle
New Jersey Devils
Joined: 07.28.2011

Nov 8 @ 1:08 PM ET
Nice write up Todd. Seney has looked linvisable from when I was watching, really makes you miss Rico but Vatman is a stud.
devilspep
Joined: 07.12.2009

Nov 8 @ 1:27 PM ET
Right now Schneider's contract is the worst on the team. Basically a backup right now with no confidence.
devilspep
Joined: 07.12.2009

Nov 8 @ 1:28 PM ET
And Zajac is putting up numbers we all hoped to see from Zacha.
Pomegrant
New Jersey Devils
Location: NJ
Joined: 01.18.2010

Nov 8 @ 2:02 PM ET
Right now Schneider's contract is the worst on the team. Basically a backup right now with no confidence.
- devilspep

What are you talking about? He's played two games and the team put up stinkers in front of him. You expect a guy who didn't get training camp and was injured all of last season to just come back and be a stud. Completely reasonable.
Pomegrant
New Jersey Devils
Location: NJ
Joined: 01.18.2010

Nov 8 @ 2:15 PM ET
@amandacstein
#NJDevils Jesper Bratt says he expects to play tomorrow against the Leafs.

Some good news.
rmdevil313
Edmonton Oilers
Location: Your a (frank)ing fag and I hope you get crippled- Cranny, MN
Joined: 01.05.2009

Nov 8 @ 2:17 PM ET
Do you think the Zacha vs Seney numbers could be related to team performance and quality of teammates? Zacha seemed to get a decent amount of time with Johansson while Seney has mostly been stuck with 3rd liners at best.
K-dizzle
New Jersey Devils
Joined: 07.28.2011

Nov 8 @ 2:19 PM ET
What are you talking about? He's played two games and the team put up stinkers in front of him. You expect a guy who didn't get training camp and was injured all of last season to just come back and be a stud. Completely reasonable.
- Pomegrant


But it’s always the goalies fault. They don’t remember Schneider carried us until he got hurt last year.
Pomegrant
New Jersey Devils
Location: NJ
Joined: 01.18.2010

Nov 8 @ 2:20 PM ET
But it’s always the goalies fault. They don’t remember Schneider carried us until he got hurt last year.
- K-dizzle

Schneider was so good those years he kept us out of lottery picks. The rat bastard.
K-dizzle
New Jersey Devils
Joined: 07.28.2011

Nov 8 @ 2:25 PM ET
Do you think the Zacha vs Seney numbers could be related to team performance and quality of teammates? Zacha seemed to get a decent amount of time with Johansson while Seney has mostly been stuck with 3rd liners at best.
- rmdevil313


He might not play well with Mojo. He played decent last year with Wood, not sure why they haven’t tried that this year. But the team as a group stinks. Maybe when Bratt comes back they bring him up and put him with Bratt and mojo/wood they played pretty well in preseason.

On another note This team also has way too many left handed forwards.

K-dizzle
New Jersey Devils
Joined: 07.28.2011

Nov 8 @ 2:27 PM ET
Schneider was so good those years he kept us out of lottery picks. The rat bastard.
- Pomegrant

Yeah his first line back then was ruttu-zajac and jagr
Pomegrant
New Jersey Devils
Location: NJ
Joined: 01.18.2010

Nov 8 @ 2:44 PM ET
Yeah his first line back then was ruttu-zajac and jagr
- K-dizzle

For me it's weird that people are so harsh on Zacha when for years after Parise and Kovalchuk left Zajac just had no offensive production. It's okay to have a defensively responsible center and Zacha is doing that at just 21 with a lot of time to be able to develop more of an offensive game. Now, I don't disagree that there are points in which he probably should have spent time in the AHL to get experience but the criticism of him is so harsh for reasons that aren't his fault (bad drafting, bad development by team).

I just don't see how anybody can be happy that guys like Stafford are in the line up. And as Todd pointed out, perception that a player is doing well plays a lot into opinion. Seney hasn't played well, but you see other guys like JSD who hasn't been great outside of a few good games.
Crushers68
New Jersey Devils
Location: Hilton Head Island, SC
Joined: 02.17.2009

Nov 8 @ 3:24 PM ET
He might not play well with Mojo. He played decent last year with Wood, not sure why they haven’t tried that this year. But the team as a group stinks. Maybe when Bratt comes back they bring him up and put him with Bratt and mojo/wood they played pretty well in preseason.

On another note This team also has way too many left handed forwards.

- K-dizzle


Only 10% of people in the world are left handed. Are they all on our roster?
Cmor11794
New Jersey Devils
Location: Short Hills, NJ
Joined: 01.07.2014

Nov 8 @ 3:43 PM ET
The team is definitely worse without Zacha, but the comments from Hynes about his demotion show he is either not listening or does not have the skillset to provide what they need out of him. Every single time he gets put in the press box (or in this case sent down) the comments from the coaches are some variation of saying that he has all the skills but needs to be using his size to do more down low and in the dirty areas (and is failing to do so).

That disconnect is killing the team because its clearly not how he can/wants to play, so he's useless offensively, and his trade value falls through the floor because he's not producing/playing. He's still young but its year 3 and these demotions are now a trend and not one off events. Something has to give soon because they cannot afford to be icing one legitimate scoring center (Nico) and hope for any sort of positive results long term.
K-dizzle
New Jersey Devils
Joined: 07.28.2011

Nov 8 @ 3:56 PM ET
Only 10% of people in the world are left handed. Are they all on our roster?
- Crushers68


Left- Hall, nico, mojo, wood, Coleman, Boyle, Bratt, (Zacha, Q, Seney, Rooney)

Right - Palm, zajac, Dea, Noesen, stafford (Anderson)

I feel like that’s a lot. Zajac and palmieri are the only useful right forwards
Senor_Elias
New Jersey Devils
Location: NJ
Joined: 07.17.2013

Nov 8 @ 4:03 PM ET
I wonder if their reasoning of not sending him down at any point earlier was thinking that if he was going to improve where he needed to (being more physical/getting in the dirty, higher scoring areas), that there was a better chance he'd be forced do it in NHL than AHL.

Then when they realized 10 games into year 3 that he still wasn't doing it any where near consistent enough that they had to do something drastic
RussH1964
New Jersey Devils
Location: Manville, NJ
Joined: 02.28.2017

Nov 8 @ 4:10 PM ET
I think with Corey's confidence issue we need to acquire a proven veteran Goalie that we can at least possibly fall back on this year. I love what Kinkaid brings to the team but not sure he can be depended on for entire season. I know it wont be easy because we would have a terrible time getting rid of Schneiders contract unless we could find a team with another bloated contract and maybe a change of scnery would help both players involved!
archromat
Location: Moncton, NB
Joined: 01.16.2012

Nov 8 @ 4:57 PM ET
Next move for the team is to play Seney a couple of more games. It's Quenneville that should be here and grinding 3C while Zajac and Hischier can slot 1 and 2. I'm open to Zajac on line 1 just to see if Hischier can facilitate any offence from Mojo. Hall will always facilitate offence with or without Hischier.

If Q was a mainstay at 3C, then he'd be exactly what the Devils had in mind when they drafted him. He should be getting that shot this year and he should get that long 70 game look.
Leniwm1
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Joined: 02.24.2015

Nov 8 @ 5:19 PM ET
I know you guys talk about Prov over Zacha, but I didnt realize all the top end talent that came after Zacha. Its like, you couldnt make a bad pick the whole first round and so far looks like the Devils made that one bad pick.

Im still a Zacha supporter though.

shvingter88
New Jersey Devils
Location: Puljujarvi makes draisitil and mcdavid better, CT
Joined: 10.12.2009

Nov 8 @ 6:06 PM ET
Yeah his first line back then was ruttu-zajac and jagr
- K-dizzle

Lol
AkA
New Jersey Devils
Joined: 10.01.2008

Nov 8 @ 8:19 PM ET
Schneider was so good those years he kept us out of lottery picks. The rat bastard.
- Pomegrant


YES! THANK YOU!
bikeguy99
New Jersey Devils
Joined: 09.05.2017

Nov 9 @ 1:36 AM ET
Schneids is coming off a fairly major surgery, and will continue to have growing pains. Lets not forget all the seasons where he was a top 5 goalie, and at 6M will be a bargain if he can regain his former level. He is not our problem. KK has been good and we should continue to rotate the goalies. Real question is do we target Panarin or Stone come UFA season. Panarin has expressed interest in leaving, and Stone should likely want out of that tire-fire of a team. Both Right shooting wingers which we desperately need, not to mention can afford unlike most teams. After Palms, we have a MAJOR talent gap on the RW and this would be a huge addition.
bikeguy99
New Jersey Devils
Joined: 09.05.2017

Nov 9 @ 1:38 AM ET
I know you guys talk about Prov over Zacha, but I didnt realize all the top end talent that came after Zacha. Its like, you couldnt make a bad pick the whole first round and so far looks like the Devils made that one bad pick.

Im still a Zacha supporter though.

- Leniwm1


It is true, even 17th and 18th turned out to be great players. Zacha was the lowest ppg player out of the OHL, including Defense, and we took him at 6th........
MartysBetter88
New Jersey Devils
Location: 94Nevermore, NJ
Joined: 07.01.2010

Nov 9 @ 2:06 AM ET
bleh.