New Jersey Devils: Lost Assistants Provides Better Opportunity
By Nick Villano
The New Jersey Devils lost two assistants to John Hynes’ staff this offseason. While it’s never good to lose coaches on a good team, this may be a blessing in disguise.
It was announced today that Ryane Clowe will be taking over as head coach of the Newfoundland Growlers. The team is an expansion for the ECHL, and play near Clowe’s hometown. It’s a great opportunity to bring some star power to the team by taking one of the New Jersey Devils assistant coaches.
Clowe’s player contract ended at the end of this season. That’s probably hard to believe, since he hasn’t played a game since November of 2014. Doctors refused to clear him the next season, and his career was over. He’s basically been a part of the coaching staff ever since. With his contract finally expiring, he was able to seek other opportunities outside the Devils.
This comes just weeks after the Devils lost Geoff Ward to the Calgary Flames. Ward was in charge of the Devils power play and penalty kill, which ranked 10th and 8th in the NHL this season. However, it seems like they did this in spite of some of Ward’s decisions.
Clowe was supposedly going to take over the special teams duties, but now the Devils have to start from scratch.
It could be a blessing in disguise that the Devils can do a reset on their special teams, because there were times where Ward made some questionable decisions.
For one, it seemed like the power play could use some changes. The Devils seemed to ignore the streaks of it’s players, and stuck with the same power play unit all season long. Brian Boyle made some great plays on the PP early in the season, but didn’t do much after the start of the year. Boyle surprisingly had five power play goals, but didn’t score one after January 4th. It was clear that the magic of his power play prowess was gone.
More from Pucks and Pitchforks
- Should New Jersey Devils Try Load Management With Vitek Vanecek?
- New Jersey Devils Will Prove That Last Year Wasn’t A Fluke
- New Jersey Devils: Luke Hughes’ Playmaking Will Outshine His Mistakes
- New Jersey Devils: Chase Stillman’s Performance Causes Concern
- Can Devils Fans Separate Zach Parise Heartbreak From Achievements?
Beyond that, it really took away from Nico Hischier. The number-one overall pick was trying to make the second unit successful by himself at times. He would be paired with a variety of Boyle, a slumping Jesper Bratt, a barely there Drew Stafford, a better-from-afar Miles Wood, even Jimmy Hayes got some power play time. The result was Hischier getting just one power play goal on the season.
As far as the penalty kill is concerned, the Devils have some of the best in the league in terms of players and depth. The Devils have Andy Greene, Ben Lovejoy and Sami Vatanen as defensemen and then Travis Zajac, Bratt, Blake Coleman, Pavel Zacha, and possibly a re-signed Brian Gibbons. That’s not even including players like Steve Santini that could join the team next season.
I think a new voice in the locker room will only help the Devils in the long run. This will especially work for special teams. It may look bad on paper to lose assistant coaches, but trust me, it will work out in the end.