An honest, heartfelt request to #MakeNewJerseyGreatAgain

[Lee]

Hello,

I would request that the following be put fourth for consideration to the CC.

Way back when I first started, I took over a team that was not very good. Over the years, I feel as if I've given 110% towards the rebuilding of the Philadelphia Flyers. I'm proud to look at my team and see what it has become over the years. I've prided myself on my book keeping, accuracy, thoroughness, desire and drive to make my team better. All of these things I promise to put forward if given the chance to right the New Jersey Devils ship.

To give a glance of my resume and why I think I would be the best person to rebuild the New Jersey Devils, let's take a look at the team I took over:

Scott Parse (900k) - Jochen Hecht (3.525) - Dan Sexton (750k)
Alex Kotalik (3) - Kris Draper (1.58333) - Mark Recchi (1.95)
Victor Oreskovich (575k)- John Mitchell (725k) - David Moss (1.3)
Richard Clune (5225k) - Zach Stortini ( 700k) - Adam Mair (UFA) -

ex Darcy Tucker (UFA)

Brian Campbell (7.142875) - Jeff Schultz (2.75)
Bryan McCabe (5.75) - Craig Rivet (3.5)
Wade Redden (6.5) - Jeff Finger (3.5)

Hannu Toivonen (550k)
Martin Gerber (500k)

ex Vesa Toskala (UFA), Wade Dubielewicz (UFA)

LTIR:
Josh Harding (1.2)
Kurt Sauer (1.75)

Philadelphia Flyers - Waiver ELIGIBLE Players:


Philadelphia Flyers - Waiver EXEMPT Players:
Ryan Potulny
Dana Tyrell
Stephane Chaput
David Desharnais
Felix Lefrancois
Sam Carrick
Ryan Bourque
Andrew Crescenzi
Kaspars Daugavins
Stefan Della Rovere
Jeremy Morin
Corey Cowick
Brad Ross
Brendan Ranford
Craig Cunningham
Stefan Legein
Jerry D'Amigo
Francois Bouchard
Kyle Palmieri
Michael Stone
Simon Danis-Pepin
Vladimir Mihalik
Sean Sullivan
Tyler Eckford
Dylan Reese
Mathieu Brodeur
Mark Alt
Austin Levi
Ryan Button
Danny Richmond
Tyson Sexsmith
Ben Scrivens
Cedrick Desjardins
Mac Carruth
Jussi Rynnas

Yeesh.

Over the years, through many trades, waivers claims, drafting and free agent signings, I've built my team into this:

Jonathan Huberdeau-Matt Duchene-Nino Niederreiter
Mikkel Boedker-Mikael Granlund-Milan Lucic
Brandon Pirri-Travis Zajac-Alex Killorn
Alex Burrows-Conor Sheary-Erik Gustafsson

Hampus Lindholm-Torey Krug
Matt Dumba-Tyler Myers
Damon Severson-Justin Schultz

Carey Price
Mike Condon

Anthony Peluso-Eric Gelinas-Sam Gagner

.. A bunch of prospects that can be found on my spreadsheet ...

All in all, A young, exciting team that just missed the playoffs without its star, Carey Price.


With that said, I feel as if I'm ready to move on to my next challenge, the New Jersey Devils. Restoring this once proud franchise would be an honor. The history books of the BBKL show 2 championship teams when this league first started, lead by the now former GM Scott Smith. The years that follow have not been great. This franchise has fallen into disarray and it's a disservice to what it once was. Neglect has left this franchise with a bare bones roster, with 20 players in its ranks that, quite honestly, have no business still being involved with our league (more to come on this later).

As a show of the level of effort I am willing to put forward, I've gone ahead and created a spreadsheet for the team. It can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 0w/pubhtml

As mentioned above, this team needs a lot of help. A quick overview shows a team with not enough centers to ice a full roster. No bench players and one, maybe 2 NHL, level goaltenders. As mentioned above, 20 players would be released if I were to take over the team. This would leave the team with 5 total centers, 14 wingers, 11 D, and 7 goaltenders, for a total of 37 total roster assets, not counting draft picks.

One of the benefits of me taking over the New Jersey Devils would be the amount of effort I put into scouting for the draft, our waiver draft and free agents. I maintain a vast, and I do mean VAST, list of players available in the draft and our waiver draft and free agency. I probably even know about some Euros that Mik doesn't even know about.

During our entry draft while lacking a first rounder, I selected Gabriel Gagner, Jeremy Lauzon, Brendan Guhle, and Andrew Nielsen. All of whom were drafted higher than where I got them and out performed their draft expectations. Guhle was a candidate to make the Sabres our of camp.. as an 18 year old dman.

In the waiver draft, I've recently selected NHLer Conor Sheary.. In the second round of our waiver draft. Nabbed Frank Vatrano and Jakub Nakladal in free agency, both of which have contributed in the NHL this year. My first round pick in the waiver draft was highly sought after college free agent Ahti Oskanen. I also grabbed AHL rookie scorer Austin Czarnik, who slots into the NHL as soon as next year according to a large number of Bruins fans. To be taken with a grain of salt, obviously. After the waiver draft, I also quickly snapped up AHL rookie scoring leader, Frankie Vatrano in free agency.

With all of this said, I've also made my fair share of mistakes. I've traded high picks for magic beans, traded away future stars for.. magic beans and aging vetrans.

I think those experiences have made me stronger in knowing what to look for.

To lay out my plan for rebuilding the Devils going into next year.

-Release the 20 players mentioned above, viewable in my spreadsheet.
-Going into the draft, use the NJD 1st round pick to select a player for my roster a couple of years down the road. Use the remaining picks to trade down and acquire more picks to build up my based of players.
-Acquire another goalie as I feel Khudobin will be leaving for overseas.
-acquire a serviceable but cheap center to help fill out the roster
-Go into the waiver draft and pull out more gems.
-Head into the free agency with guns blazing. I do not intend to enter the season with 46 roster assets. Pull more gems out here in the form of youth and supplement my roster via free agent and maybe some waiver wire claims.

Going into the season, before roster moves, the team looks like:

Jaden Schwartz-Brandon Sutter-JT Miller
Rick Nash-Paul Gaustad-Colin Wilson
Jannik Hansen-To be acquired Center-Joel Ward
Michael Grabner-Jesper Fast-Derek Dorsett

Ryan Murray-Ryan Suter
Marc Staal-Brian Dumoulin
Jonathan Ericsson-Joe Morrow

Jimmy Howard 5,291,666
To be acquired goalie

Garrett Wilson-Sven Baertschi-To be acquired bench player

----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- -----------

Moving forward, I offer my services as trade advisor to the new GM of the Flyers. He will have access to my spreadsheet, history etc. If not chosen to be the new GM of the Devils, the new GM can freely use my spreadsheet and I still offer my services to be his trade buddy to help guide him through rebuilding the Devils.

This is not to take away from Devin, should he return and resume his duties as Devils GM. We've seen people come and go quite often after showing initial interest.

To conclude, I hope you give this some real consideration. It would be great to see another good, competitive team rebuilt from the ashes and returned to glory.

TLDR; I am the best choice for GM of the Devils, I have too much time on my hands and I like to make spreadsheets: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 0w/pubhtml

[Tony]

Seconded


#GeneralLee

[Lee]

Thanks Tony, really do appreciate your support.

[Fraser]

Your ok. Get over yourself.

[Fraser]

Also why do you quit at making a team competitive? Making a championship contending roster is a whole other hurdle you havent crossed yet.

[Lee]

I consider myself a team builder. Not interested in a championship.

[The BBKL Insider]

Njd isnt even that bad.

What happened to the open letter to a bottom 5 team. Id be more interested in watching a team with nothing grow.

Aka Carolina.

[thom54]

oh god ... that's a challenge right there

[KapG]

Make the playoffs first

That should be your goal

[Shoalzie]

I think this is a more reasonable request than swapping rosters with another owner. Technically, Lee would be swapping rosters but he's leaving the Flyers vacant and giving a new GM a better roster to take over. We still need to replace Shep and someone is going to get to take over a pretty good Blues team.

[Sensfanjosh]

I don't personally get the impression Lee is bailing on the Flyers because he's hit a wall or anything, nor do I disagree that with Price he'd have missed the playoffs. At the same time I can see the argument that allowing people to swap teams as they wished being bad for the league. It might make sense to open up the idea for a short period with the understanding this cannot be allowed to regularly occur?

[KapG]

PS. It really doesn't bother me either way. I was just jumping on the "make the playoffs" bandwagon.

[Fraser]

Yea also not really bothered, its a better end situation having a better team available . Just find it really arrogant to treat it like the job is done with philly

[Shoalzie]

I'd say the Flyers have become a good BBKL team which is a large improvement from where they started when he took over. I don't think anyone here questions Lee's ability to rebuild. I think many of us would like to see him take his Flyer team to the next level. He's a very aggressive and creative GM, I don't see why he couldn't make his team a contender.

I think his strength is finding diamonds in the rough and doing his research. He took to the challenge of building up the Flyers from nothing to respectability. He wants another opportunity to build up another team...granted, the Devils aren't in as bad shape as the Flyers were. I respect his desire to take on another challenge but I think he's capable of doing more with the team he's got.

I brought up the topic with the CC...we'll talk about it at the very least.

[Shep]

We still need to replace Shep and someone is going to get to take over a pretty good Blues team.

It actually needs a lot of work. I don't have the time to make the Blues a competitor again, and wanted to give the new GM a draft and entire offseason to right the ship while there are still some OK assets there.

[Shoalzie]

Your team needs another center or two...that's your weak spot for sure. You've always had strong wingers. Your defense is solid with mostly a younger group and you've got Crawford in goal. I think it's still a playoff caliber team. It's a good team to take over with quality assets to build around. I can't believe Kucherov is only 22.

[Matthew]

I'm against this. I dislike when leagues start to go wishy washy like this and everyone starts jumping teams like musical chairs. May as well be in a league with a bunch of 12 year olds. If you want to rebuild, then trade your players for prospects.

[The BBKL Insider]

Just make a few bad deals to weaken your team and strengthen a bottom team.

Boom - rebuild #3 underway!

[CasperX22]

Your team needs another center or two...that's your weak spot for sure. You've always had strong wingers. Your defense is solid with mostly a younger group and you've got Crawford in goal. I think it's still a playoff caliber team. It's a good team to take over with quality assets to build around. I can't believe Kucherov is only 22.

It's a teardown project.

[KapG]

What Matthew and Steve said