The New Jersey Devils will announce a multi-year extension for head coach John Hynes later today. This means that the front office thought that a down season was always in the cards.
We hear about the process quite often when it comes to the New Jersey Devils this season. The term comes from the Philadelphia 76ers, who share Josh Harris as owner with the Devils. They bottomed out for years to get better draft picks and build the roster through the draft. It seems that’s what the Devils are doing now, but the process is taking longer than some fans would like.
The Devils will announce later today that they are extending head coach John Hynes contract for multiple years. How many years has not been leaked, but I would expect it to be around three.
David Blitzer talked about giving Hynes a contract extension last season, but he must have mistaken the word extension with option, because reports say Hynes contract was set to expire after the season. That seems like a weird disconnect between ownership, but that’s neither here nor there.
Hynes helped lead a Devils team that might not have been worth a darn last season all the way to the postseason. They were never out of any game, except for one or two during the season. It’s amazing what he ended up getting out of a team that had a shell of a defense and Keith Kinkaid as his starting goalie.
Hynes doesn’t always make the right decisions, but which coaches do? One thing you have to like about Hynes is he’s willing to test things out. He won’t shy away from throwing the lineup in a blender or starting a rookie because of their experience level.
He is known to lean too much on veterans in must-score situations. That is frustrating when we see Drew Stafford on the ice during empty-net situations.
However, it seems like over the full season, Hynes knows how to push his players buttons. It was the right decision to send Pavel Zacha down to the AHL earlier this season to find his game again. He sat Miles Wood in the first game of last season, which motivated him to have an awesome season.
The Devils have been terrible this season. They are 15-17-7 on the season, good for second to last in the Metropolitan Division. Six teams have less points than the Devils this season. Four of them have fired their head coach.
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?
Yet, here the Devils are giving Hynes extra years to see this through. Does that make sense? Well, if this was always part of the plan, then yes it does. Hynes gets dragged in the mud by this fanbase, as all coaches do around the league, but most of it has to do with the impending signing of Joel Quenneville on another team. Honestly, there’s zero chance that Quenneville was coming to the Devils. For one, this isn’t the type of team he’s looking for. Also, I think the fact that his nephew John is on this team is a deterrent, because he’d never want to look biased.
Look at the teams that have fired their coach this season. The only one who’s in a better position is the Edmonton Oilers, but they are falling back down out of the playoffs. Firing a coach rarely turns a season around.
The Devils clearly made plans to lose this season. This year’s NHL Draft has a lot of talent towards the top. This team is hoping to cash in on some of this talent. A run to the playoffs may not be in the cards, but if Ray Shero puts the chips to the center of the table next year and the year after, this could look like a really good extension for Hynes.
The issue is I don’t think a team would jump on Hynes if he was let go. The Devils could have gone to the end of the season, see what the final results were, then bring an extension to the table. However, maybe they saw a team reacting to having a lame-duck coach and wanted to see how they’d react to a different result.
Hynes is here to stay, and hopefully he’s the right man to finish “the process.”