New Jersey Devils: Ray Shero Entering His Most Important Offseason

The New Jersey Devils are in another lost season after showing so much progress in 2017-18. He needs to have a big offseason to avoid further persecution.

Last year’s offseason was about as off putting as possible for New Jersey Devils fans. During a time when almost every team is excited for their roster, the Devils downgraded. They put their chips in the basket of players like John Quenneville, Steve Santini and Brett Seney to replace the production of the likes of Patrick Maroon, John Moore, Brian Gibbons and Michael Grabner. That did not work.

Here’s the thing, however, there wasn’t anyone worthy of the Devils time on the market this season. The Ottawa Senators were waiting until the trade deadline before sending off Matt Duchene and Mark Stone (mostly because they really wanted to re-sign them both). James van Riemsdyk chose to return to Philadelphia. John Tavares was never even going to speak with the Devils. The market was dry this season, and that’s when teams stupidly spend.

Yet, we look at how this season’s gone, and many of us wonder what could have been done to avoid it. Should the Devils have tried to do something about their goaltending position before the season? Keith Kinkaid played well for the second half of last season, but it had the makings of falling off. Cory Schneider was coming off major hip surgery, which obviously made him a huge question mark. Their play put the Devils in a major hole.

It didn’t help the defense also got worse from last season. Will Butcher dealt with a sophomore slump. Injuries to Sami Vatanen and Mirco Mueller hurt their plans. At times, the team was stuck with top-line Andy Greene, which we’ve gone over before that it should never happen.

Up front, the worst thing that happened was losing Taylor Hall for all of the second half. They were already far away from playoff contention, but losing your star player makes it near impossible to come back. Also, we saw Miles Wood, Stefan Noesen and Quenneville take major steps back. However, we saw Nico Hischier, Travis Zajac and Blake Coleman take steps forward, so that counteracts the issues. Missing Hall, among others over the past few weeks, really put a nail in the coffin.

This offseason, none of this is acceptable. Head coach John Hynes was given a short-term extension. We don’t know how long Shero’s contract runs, but if the Devils go through yet another losing season where the arena is half full, the owners cannot be happy.

That’s what makes this Shero’s most important offseason. There’s an interest crop of free agents out there, there players rumored to be on the trade market, and the Devils are going to have a very high pick again. He needs to win big this offseason, and put together a competitive team for 2019-20. On top of all that, this is the offseason that Taylor Hall is eligible to re-sign.

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If Shero can’t re-sign Hall, and the Devils miss the playoffs again, all these masterful trades we talk about will be for nothing. Marcus Johansson is already gone, although he brought the Devils a second-round pick. Sami Vatanen could also leave next season. If Hall leaves, then Kyle Palmieri is the only major trade he made that stuck around. If those other players leave, it might re-start the rebuilding process.

It all comes down to this offseason for Shero. Since he took over as GM, he’s done a really good job changing the philosophy of this team. However, if he can’t turn that philosophy into wins and full arenas, then his seat is going to get hot. Not saying he would get fired if the Devils don’t make it, but things would start to get uncomfortable.

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