New Jersey Devils GM Ray Shero went on former MSG host Deb Placey’s podcast to talk about the state of the team. He mentioned he doesn’t see this season as a disappointment, which caught all of our ears.
Listening to Ray Shero on Deb Placey’s podcast ‘Executive Suite’ we heard a lot of interesting nuggets about the New Jersey Devils. He spoke about his plans to re-sign Taylor Hall in the offseason, a special dinner he had with Hall to get him going, asking Cory Schneider and Andy Greene if they wanted to be traded, and what’s coming next. However, the most eye-opening statement he made during the podcast was what he said first.
The first thing him and Placey spoke on was how he felt about this season. She asked him straight up whether Shero felt this season was a disappointment, and he immediately said no. That’s right, falling all the way to the bottom of the standings, spending most of the year with the worst goaltending in the league, watching just about everyone of substance getting injured, was not a season of disappointment.
Honestly, he’s right and he’s wrong. Obviously, coming off of last season where they shocked the hockey world by making the playoffs, this team’s record is a disappointment. Shero admits that. He knows this team should be doing better in the standings, but that’s not all he’s looking at as a GM.
There were some very important tasks accomplished this season. The biggest one is fixing Cory Schneider. It took a lot longer than we thought, and with Schneider playing as well as he did in the playoffs we knew it was possible, but for 13+ months Scheider was the worst player in the league. Honestly, he was worse than any skater or goalie. He was a liability in the largest sense. This liability is signed for three more seasons at $6 million per season. They needed to get something out of him.
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Two players jumped out of their skates in their development this season. One we expected to make a jump is Nico Hischier, and one we didn’t necessarily expect was Blake Coleman. Hischier was still a teenager at the start of the season, and he’s a first-overall pick in the NHL Draft. Obviously, he’s going to end this season with less points, but he played most of the season without the reigning league MVP and will miss a total of 20 games. It’s clear, despite scoring less points, that he grew overall as a player.
Coleman is worlds better this season. He scored 21 goals this season after lighting the lamp 13 times last season. He’s become an extremely clutch scorer, and an elite penalty killer in this league. He’s just as dangerous a scorer with a man down as he is 5v5.
Also huge to see this year is the emergence of Mackenzie Blackwood. Nathan Bastian is another 2nd-round pick who looked like he was going in the wrong direction, but is now a future integral part of this franchise.
However, there are major issues with what happened this season. They were forced to trade away Keith Kinkaid, Marcus Johansson, Ben Lovejoy and Brian Boyle. It’s possible at least two of them could re-sign if the Devils had another playoff-worthy season. John Quenneville and Stefan Noesen took such huge steps back, they might not be on the roster next season. Pavel Zacha and Mike McLeod look less and less like 1st-round picks. There are issues here.
Overall, I can’t see not calling this season a disappointment. Sure, it’s not as bad as 2016-17 when Hall first arrived and he fell flat on his face. Then, the Devils looked like they were never getting out of the dumpster. Now, at least the future is clear. Another top-three NHL Draft pick could be the key to changing the Devils fortunes forever, but calling this season not a disappointment is just incorrect.