Almost Nothing Will Cause New Jersey Devils To Fire John Hynes

The New Jersey Devils have been up and down all season, and some of the fan base has called for the head coach to be fired. Well, there is nothing short of a major scandal that will cause the team to fire John Hynes.

It’s more than likely the New Jersey Devils already hit their low point of the season. This team is too talented to have another stretch where they lose six of seven games, with five by three or more goals. This was a situation where everything went wrong on a two week road trip.

During that road trip, there were some fans looking for the Devils to fire head coach John Hynes. It seemed excessive for one bad road trip. Those calls got louder when the NHL started firing coaches left and right.

It all started with John Stevens in Los Angeles. The Kings fired their head coach after they got off to the worst start in the league. It ended when the St. Louis Blues canned Mike Yeo. In the middle, the Chicago Blackhawks decided to move on from Joel Quenneville. That move put the Devils fan base in a frenzy. Many hoping that Coach Q would come to the Devils. Some pointed to the fact that his nephew John is close to being a regular in the NHL, others hoping all the money the team saved can be used on bringing in the Stanley Cup winning coach.

Well, there are a myriad of issues with that line of thinking. Let’s look at the biggest issue with firing Hynes, the Devils literally just gave him an extension. Co-owner Josh Harris didn’t announce it until February, but he said it happened even earlier than that. We don’t know how long the extension is, but it’s safe to say they didn’t re-sign Hynes thinking there was a chance to fire him in a few months.

Beyond that, it would cost an arm and a leg to bring Quenneville to New Jersey. Even with his nephew playing for the Devils, he will have every team outside of the Blackhawks asking about his services. That means the Devils would have to pay out Hynes’ contract, and give Quenneville upwards of $8 million. That is never happening.

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The Devils had their best season in a long time last year. Nobody thought they would do anything, and they ended up going to the playoffs. Hynes did a masterful job with this roster last season. Do you think Ray Shero, after doing nothing but sign Egor Yakovlev and Eric Gryba, would fire his coach after a slow start? The Devils made the playoffs by one point last season. That means one mishap would mean watching the playoffs from home.

There’s no way that Shero was going to overreact to a slow start. In fact, he probably expected it. This Devils team is missing multiple pieces from last year’s team. They are attempting to build from within. It’s usually the best way to build a long-time contender. It just takes a little time.

If anything, the Devils would make changes to the assistant coaches, and leave Hynes intact. Either way, it’s too early for any of that. The Blues made a deal to bring Ryan O’Reilly in this offseason. They have been in win-now mode for a while. They missed the playoffs entirely last season. The Kings gave Ilya Kovalchuk big money this offseason thinking he was their missing piece. The Blackhawks are paying two players more than $10 million. The Devils highest paid player is making $6 million.

Hynes is the Devils coach for the rest of this season and beyond. For better or worse, they are together for the foreseeable future. The only thing that would cause the Devils to make a change at head coach is a major controversy. This is something that would transcend the hockey world. Everything we’ve seen from Hynes so far shows he won’t do something like that.