Cardiff Devils Confirmed Signings & Departures 2019/20

Ocko

Well-Known Member
62 points uninterested, can we have a few more uninterested players please.
Coasting on the coattails of Linglet and Martin my grandmother could muster up at least 50 points. He wasn’t good enough for what was expected. Which I’m pretty sure is the reason he isn’t coming back, with the leagues he’s played in he was probably one of our top earners.

He should’ve torn this league up. The quote from Steve King at the time read ‘we have a great team but this guy will be something else’. He wasn’t. He should’ve been in the category of Martin, Linglet and Fournier.
 

rocketbob

Well-Known Member
I think you've hit the nail on the head. I'm sure Lordo was hoping for more than 20 league goals from Mike but you can possibly ignore that if he brought more to the table. I think he had it in his game to be a lot feistier and throw more hits. Yes he isn't the biggest guy but he's stocky
I thought that Hedden was quite heavily penalized last season (often to my eyes on reputation alone) and that seemed to take away from some of the hitting that he was putting in, thereby diminishing his game. I would loved to have seen him back but wish him all the best with the Allen Americans.
 

jenks33

Well-Known Member
I thought that Hedden was quite heavily penalized last season (often to my eyes on reputation alone) and that seemed to take away from some of the hitting that he was putting in, thereby diminishing his game. I would loved to have seen him back but wish him all the best with the Allen Americans.
20 PIM's in 59 games
 

jenks33

Well-Known Member
Now thank god Dixon has come back, but he only scored 1 more goal, and 16 less points than Hedden, so am just a little confused.
Not sure if this is a serious reply or not?

They are different players for a start. Dixon was obviously recruited to hit like a train/bring some graft/score dirty goals/Lead by example. Probably amassed the amount of points that Lordo was expecting (Between 40 and 50 points)

In his last 7 seasons Hedden scored 55 goals in 3 seasons in the AHL and 46 goals in 3 seasons in the DEL. Without a doubt Lordo expected Hedden to get us 30+ goals and 70+ points.
 

Devils86

Well-Known Member
Would have been interesting to see how Hedden did with a year under his belt here.

And maybe I’m wrong but it seemed to me that Heddens best games were away from home, which means the majority of the fan base didn’t see his best work.

Agreed that his reputation proceeded him and ultimately last season his production, whilst very decent, didn’t match expectations.
 

ASHIPP

Well-Known Member
A little confused. No mention on here previously how disappointed people were with Hedden and many seemed quite happy to have him back.
Bit of unfair criticism of him now tbh. Yes, maybe there was high expectation regarding his points production, but the guy was clearly playing on the wrong line for first part of season - just couldn't get really going until he was partnered with Joey and Benti, his old school friends who he had been practising with at home in the off season. Would have been the obvious line combination to start with IMO but I am not the coach.

As for lazy and disinterested - an unfair observation of Hedden. Frustrating for him early in the season to be on a line where he could not connect chemistry. Tbh , what was more telling to me was that he never appeared to be a happy person. The player rarely smiled. That suggests that things were not right for him....maybe life at Devils/living in UK etc did not live up to his expectations? Players can be disappointed too and feel they have made the wrong decision

Wish him the best at Allen Americans. Re-joining the Dallas Stars' organisation - thankyou Mike and wishing you success back in NA.
 

jenks33

Well-Known Member
A little confused. No mention on here previously how disappointed people were with Hedden and many seemed quite happy to have him back.
Bit of unfair criticism of him now tbh. Yes, maybe there was high expectation regarding his points production, but the guy was clearly playing on the wrong line for first part of season - just couldn't get really going until he was partnered with Joey and Benti, his old school friends who he had been practising with at home in the off season. Would have been the obvious line combination to start with IMO but I am not the coach.

As for lazy and disinterested - an unfair observation of Hedden. Frustrating for him early in the season to be on a line where he could not connect chemistry. Tbh , what was more telling to me was that he never appeared to be a happy person. The player rarely smiled. That suggests that things were not right for him....maybe life at Devils/living in UK etc did not live up to his expectations? Players can be disappointed too and feel they have made the wrong decision

Wish him the best at Allen Americans. Re-joining the Dallas Stars' organisation - thankyou Mike and wishing you success back in NA.
I think it speaks volumes though that nobody has really spoken about Hedden in the off-season. A player with his CV there should have been a huge clamour for him to come back but I've rarely seen his name crop up. I think the general consensus was that fans didn't mind if he came back as he scored 62 points but it wouldn't be the end of the world if he moved on.
 

jenks33

Well-Known Member
Bit of both in my opinion. I think Hedden wanted to go back to North America but I’m not convinced Lordo wanted him back. Thats just a hunch though
 

Finny

Well-Known Member
A little confused. No mention on here previously how disappointed people were with Hedden and many seemed quite happy to have him back.
Bit of unfair criticism of him now tbh. Yes, maybe there was high expectation regarding his points production, but the guy was clearly playing on the wrong line for first part of season - just couldn't get really going until he was partnered with Joey and Benti, his old school friends who he had been practising with at home in the off season. Would have been the obvious line combination to start with IMO but I am not the coach.

As for lazy and disinterested - an unfair observation of Hedden. Frustrating for him early in the season to be on a line where he could not connect chemistry. Tbh , what was more telling to me was that he never appeared to be a happy person. The player rarely smiled. That suggests that things were not right for him....maybe life at Devils/living in UK etc did not live up to his expectations? Players can be disappointed too and feel they have made the wrong decision

Wish him the best at Allen Americans. Re-joining the Dallas Stars' organisation - thankyou Mike and wishing you success back in NA.
I agree that I was a bit surprised that we didn't try Hedden with Benti and Martin sooner. But then we did end the previous season with Bent-Martin-Pope on fire so it would have been a bigger surprise had they been split up.
Plus, as he said in his interview Linglet said he likes a guy good along the boards and another who is a scorer on his line. Dixon and Hedden should have been ideal linemates for him.

Perhaps the fact it took Linglet a while to get used to EIHL hockey (which he admits) affected Hedden too. I took his lack of smiling as a sign of being frustrated with his lack of goals, but perhaps as you say he simply didn't settle.

I'm not sure I've seen particular unfair criticism of him. With regards not mentioning it previously - I'm not sure how criticising players on a public forum like this helps. As with the whole Pope incident, some people seem to relish criticising players but I'm not sure what they hope to gain from it. Do they think they know more than the coach or his teammates? Or do they think the player is ignoring such criticism from them and then thinks "Oh wait, Joe Bloggs has just called me a ******** on the internet I better get my act together!" ?

As Jenks33 said, I think the reason why there hasn't been much talk until now about Hedden either way is that people weren't that bothered either way as to whether he stayed or went. If he stayed then we still have a 20 goal scorer who could do even better.

As it is it looks like we've signed Marjamaki as his replacement. Similar levels of experience and who I think will get us 20 goals but will be more physical and have a more rounded game.
 

Temme

Well-Known Member
20 PIM's in 59 games
Barring Duggan and Myers (limited ice time) he had the lowest amongst all forwards.

Agree with all what has been said above really, 62 points is a good return, but he did not look the player we thought we were getting.

A guy that's just come off a 31 point DEL season comes with a very high expectation.

For a very loose comparison (these are totally different players, i know...)

Dane Byers
16-17 DEL - 56 Games, 12 points
17/18 EIHL - 57 games, 72 points.

Mike Hedden
16-17 DEL - 53 Games, 44 Points
17-18 DEL - 52 Games, 31 points
18-19 EIHL - 63 Games, 66 Points.

There's many other players that have dabbled in both leagues, that you can compare Hedden's numbers to;

Andrew Hotham
Jason Williams
Jeffrey Szwez
Charles Linglet (briefly...)
Stephen Dixon

Hedden did not have a bad year with us, however I did think he would be our top point scorer.
 

Slartibartfast

Well-Known Member
Hedden was a decent player and scored some nice goals but I would not put him in the 'must keep at all costs' category like Fournier, Martin and Linglet. Although Dixon had similar points to Hedden I think its Dixon charachter and crash bang style of play that made a lot of people want him back. Sometimes its about entertainment value as much as points. I wish Hedden well in his new team.
 
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