The New Jersey Devils have a big to-do list heading into this off-season. One of the most important things GM Lou Lamoriello needs to do is to find the team’s next head coach. While there are certainly two good options in Scott Stevens and Adam Oates, there are also a few big name coaches rumored to be available this summer. One coach who surprisingly just became available is former San Jose Sharks head coach Todd McLellan.
New Jersey Devils
Todd McLellan became available on Monday after agreeing with the Sharks to, “mutually part ways” and will most certainly be highly sought after this off-season. He leaves a San Jose organization that made the playoffs 6 out of the 7 years he was behind the Sharks bench. Perhaps the ultimate reason for the mutual split between Todd McLellan and the Sharks is due to the team’s lack of playoff success during his tenure.
When taking a closer look at McLellan’s postseason record as head coach of the Sharks you will see that he made the Western Conference Finals twice, but never reached the Stanley Cup Finals. Our friends at Blades of Teal gave us more info on Todd McLellan to help us evaluate if he’d potentially fit as the next Devils head coach. The following is what Blades of Teal said about McLellan:
"“He (McLellan) always emphasized playing hard, focused on getting his players to play to their strengths, but also trying to keep it simple at the same time…. (When asked about the inability to reach the Stanley Cup Finals) … I don’t believe it was his fault, they had plenty of talent but the players failed to perform.”"
Todd McLellan’s credentials are certainly very appealing (311-163 in 7 seasons coaching Sharks). However, since he’ll be one of the most sought after coaches available; would he want to come to New Jersey? It may be too early to predict, but San Jose Sharks insider Kevin Kurz from CSN Bay-Area tweeted this out on Monday.
If this tweet from Kurz is true, then this almost certainly rules out New Jersey as a potential landing spot for Todd McLellan. These things do tend to change however, as money can sometimes easily persuade a coach to take one job over the other. Nick Cotsonika of Yahoo! Sports made a great point about McLellan’s situation in this tweet yesterday.
@67sound If you're McLellan, why not wait? Once Babs decides, you're top guy with multiple teams after you. And they'll be more desperate.
— Nick Cotsonika (@cotsonika) April 20, 2015
Cotsonika is spot on in his tweet and I could definitely see this happening. This sort of thing tends to happen in free agency also at times when players hold back on signing due to a weak market in order to demand a higher salary. There’s also the question on if Todd McLellan would be willing/able to coach in the same system that Lou Lamoriello and the Devils have typically operated under. It would be a pretty big change for McLellan and I’m not sure he would ever get comfortable coaching in the Devils system.
In my opinion, Todd McLellan is a great coach and some team is going to be very lucky to bring him in as their next head coach. With that being said, I don’t believe he is the kind of coach Lou Lamoriello and the Devils are currently searching for. He will undoubtedly cost a lot and would have to move across the country for the job which we already get the feeling he may not be entirely open to doing.