Four Moves the New Jersey Devils Need to Make Before New Year’s Day
The 2019-20 season started off terribly for the New Jersey Devils. After an 0-4-2 start, Assistant General Manager Tom Fitzgerald moved behind the bench to help diagnose the Devils issues. Now over a month later, this New Jersey Devils team still has the 2nd worst goal differential in the NHL at -25, the 4th worst 5v5 score and venue adjust Corsi For %, and they were just embarrassed on home ice by their Hudson River rivals, the dreaded New York Rangers.
While they aren’t 100% out of playoff contention, MoneyPuck.com currently has them at a 17% chance to make the playoffs this year. That’s absolutely terrible. In fact, it’s so bad that the Devils have a worse chance to make the playoffs than the Ottawa Senators and Los Angeles Kings. The only team with worse odds are the Detroit Red Wings. That’s a major letdown for a team that acquired P.K. Subban and Nikita Gusev, drafted Jack Hughes, and signed Wayne Simmonds over the offseason.
We all saw the St. Louis Blues go from last place last year after firing their coach on November 19th to eventual Stanley Cup Champions, but unfortunately for the Devils that’s an insanely rare occurrence.
Step 1:
Fire John Hynes
Anyone who follows me on Twitter (@DocKelley41 for those who don’t) knows I’ve been conducting this train for a while now. I thought John Hynes did a decent enough job the last few years with a team that was seriously lacking talent, but after being the offseason champions the Devils are all but eliminated right at American Thanksgiving.
This visualization shows just how bad the Devils offense has been this season.
Let's all marvel at the New Jersey 5v5 offence this season. pic.twitter.com/ahu22N9hHo
— Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) November 30, 2019
A team with Taylor Hall, Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes, Kyle Palmieri, and Nikita Gusev shouldn’t be anywhere near this bad offensively. That comes down to coaching first and foremost.
Combine an atrocious 5v5 offense with the 4th worst GF/60 on the powerplay in the NHL and you’re in for trouble. They likely won’t find his long term replacement this year but at some point the kids on this team need to learn how to win, and it’s clear a systemic change is needed both at 5v5 and on special teams.
Trade Taylor Hall
We officially know the Devils are listening to teams offers for former Hart Trophy winner Taylor Hall and they need to pull the trigger sooner rather than later. According to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, the Devils are looking for either two 1st round picks or a high-end prospect and a pick.
Hearing that the Devils have started to listen from teams on Taylor Hall. Doesn't mean they will for sure trade him but given their place in the standings and the magnitude of a potential deal, GM Ray Shero is now in listening mode...
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) November 30, 2019
Rumors have swirled about the currently involved teams. The Colorado Avalanche seem like the most likely destination if you look at all the facts right now. The odds of the Devils being able to pry away Bowen Byram seem pretty low, but the Devils should be shooting for the stars, pun intended.
Montreal Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin may be getting a little desperate in Quebec, which could be something Ray Shero can take advantage of. The Canadiens have a decent prospect pool, headlined by Jack Hughes’ former teammate Cole Caufield.
Trade Sami Vatanen
I wrote about this last year, it wasn’t popular then and I don’t think it will be very popular now either. On the surface Vatanen is having a good year. He’s the lone defenseman on the Devils 1st Power play unit and has nine points in 20 games played.
However, his RelTM numbers from Evolving-Hockey don’t reflect as kindly and neither do his isolates from HockeyViz.com Despite his point production Vatanen’s on-ice play hasn’t improved drastically over what we’ve seen since he came to New Jersey and while he won’t bring as large of a haul as Taylor Hall the skilled RHD will likely bring back a decent return. The Devils could use as many assets as they can get during this season.
Call up the Kids
This isn’t a meant to be a sleight towards Kevin Rooney or John Hayden, I think either could be a perfectly fine 4th liner, but the Devils need to look towards the future. After trading Hall they’ll have room in their top six to fit Pavel Zacha and the Jesper’s Bratt and Boqvist.
The next step is seeing what they have in Michael McLeod. He hasn’t had a good year in Binghamton, but the Devils haven’t had much (any) success developing young players in Binghamton since Shero took over. Calling up McLeod and giving him some consistent time at the NHL level will give the team a better idea of where he fits going forward and if they have an actual NHL player or not.
No plan is perfect but its time for some major organizational changes. Those changes start by showing John Hynes the door.