The Devils most disappointing season since 1996 has finally come to an end. What the hell went wrong and how can it be fixed?
The Devils missed the playoffs and finished the season under .500 despite coming into the season being viewed by many as Stanley Cup contenders. A whole lot went horribly wrong for New Jersey and there are some glaring issues to address between now and October 4th when the Devils open next season in Prague.
Surprise, surprise, the Devils had bad goaltending this year. What else is new? For what feels like forever now, the Devils have been plagued with well below average, and far too often down right horrible, goaltending. Tom Fitzgerald tried to address the goalie situation this year, although he did so far too late in the year. Acquiring Jake Allen gave the Devils a better chance to win than sicking with Vanecek, Schmid, or Daws did, there is no question about that, but Allen didn’t get to the Garden State until March. However, Allen isn’t much more than a nice backup. Allen is capable of keeping the team in the game most nights, and can occasionally steal a game or two. However, even keeping Allen into next year, the Devils still desperately need a legit number one goalie, yet again. If the Devils are dragged down by the goalies again next year, Tom Fitzgerald’s job should be in serious jeopardy. How many more chances can he get? There are multiple options out there this off-season that I’ll address in it’s own blog soon, but you cant keep a GM that continually proves incapable of fixing arguably the most important position on the ice, especially not when you have such a young talented team of skaters.
Slow starts. From October all the way through April, the way the Devils started games was beyond infuriating on most nights. Part of it was the goaltending being bad and giving up early goals but probably a bigger part of it was the rest of the team just being outworked early in games and putting themselves in a hole. I can say with confidence they were being outworked because they also led the league in come from behind wins, so clearly they were good enough to play with anyone in the league on any given night. If they had a better start in just half of those games where they fell behind, this team would have made the playoffs easily. I’m not even saying they would have won all 29 of the games, but the Devils only needed about seven more wins to be a top three team in the division, five more wins to be a wildcard team. The team had the talent to reach the playoffs but their play, especially in the first period, certainly didn’t earn it. Maybe a new head coach will be able to fix this slow start problem…
(Just as a comparison, the 2017 Avalanche finished with 22 wins and 48 points. This Devils team finished with 38 wins and 81 points despite falling behind so often.)
The Devils fired head coach Lindy Ruff late in the season and replaced him with Travis Green. The firing only made things worse on the ice as the Devils went 8-12-1 with Green at the helm. Tom Fitzgerald says he will interview Green for the head coaching vacancy this summer but added he will be looking outside the organization as well. I have to imagine, for the sake of my own sanity, that the interview is just a professional courtesy because Green had a quarter of a season behind the bench and nothing good came of it. So, with the job open and Green not a serious candidate, I think there are two people who should be overwhelming favorites for the job. Craig Berube and Gerad Gallant are both experienced NHL head coaches with a track record of success. Berube won the Stanley Cup as the head coach of the Blues in 2019 and Gallant has been to the finals as the Vegas head coach in 2018 and the conference finals with the Rangers in 2022. I think a distant third candidate would be Kevin Dineen, head coach of the Devils AHL affiliate in Utica for the last three years, who has won the Stanley Cup as an assistant with the Chicago Blackhawks.
Injuries. Dougie Hamilton missed 62 games due to injury, Nico Hischier missed 11 games, Jack Hughes missed 20 games, Timo Meier missed 13 games, Jonas Siegenthaler missed 25 games.
Dougie Hamilton being out for just about the entire season was a real killer for this team. Not only is Dougie Hamilton a force on the power play but he is a game changer in all situations. Missing Hamilton and having to rely so much on rookies like Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec really hurt the team this year. It may end up paying dividends down the road because both rookies ended up getting way more experience than most defensemen their age do. Both Luke and Nemec looked great at times, showing why they were picked so high, but they also struggled mightily at times too. If Hamilton had been healthy, Luke and Nemec would not have been exposed in their own end so often.
A ton went wrong for the Devils this year. Goaltending, slow starts, coaching, injuires. But despite all that, the team is not looking at a full rebuild. Get the right coach, get a starting goalie, pray to whatever deity you choose that the key players can stay healthy for a full season, and just like that the Devils can be one of the best teams in the league again. I refuse to believe that the 2023 season was a fluke. It was the first of many playoff appearances for this core. This season was the fluke where everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
The Morning Skate 