New Jersey Devils: Three Reasons Ray Shero Firing Was Strange
The New Jersey Devils made it public that they have fired general manager Ray Shero about an hour before puck drop which makes it a strange move.
The New Jersey Devils are having a terrible season. They are in the last place in the Metropolitan Division as of Saturday night. They are also in a three-way tie for the second-worst record in the entire league. This all comes after a tremendous offseason that set expectations clearly too high to handle. They believed that they would be a team that competed for the playoffs, but instead they are potentially going to be in the lottery for the third time in four seasons.
Whenever a season is a massive failure like that, there are some casualties. There already have been some major changes to the organization though. They have traded the face of their franchise, Taylor Hall, to the Arizona Coyotes for some picks and prospects. They traded him because he was on an expiring contract and was likely going to free agency. A few weeks prior to that, they fired head coach John Hynes. There is no doubt that this has been a season of a shock for those fans who believed it would be a strong season.
There is no doubt that this season has been bad but the timing of the Ray Shero firing is strange. Most fans didn’t believe that he was the problem like they did the coach. It was something that wasn’t talked about often by anybody who paid attention closely. They are using Tom Fitzgerald as the acting GM right now. When it was announced on Twitter on Sunday night, it came across as a strange move for three major reasons:
1. Taylor Hall trade
The New Jersey Devils let Ray Shero trade Taylor Hall. He went to the Arizona Coyotes for three prospects and two draft picks. There were mixed reactions to the trade from both Devils fans and Coyotes fans, but the fact remains that him being on an expiring contract made things difficult. Chances are, Ray Shero got a fair deal for a struggling star that has injury history along with an expiring contract.
What makes connects the firing of Shero and the Hall trade is the fact that he was allowed to make the trade. Normally, if you fire a GM you let him go before he trades a former Hart Trophy winner. It is weird because letting him go before seeing how the trade works out is not a norm in professional sports. If they were going to fire him they should have done it before the Hall trade. It would have been better to have someone who is going to be there for a while making the trade for the Devils.
Ray Shero was reportedly super interested in Kevin Bahl. He was the main prospect that came back to the Devils for Taylor Hall. He was doing what he could to make sure that Bahl was a part of the package and he got it done. With that said, he won’t be there when/if Bahl ever makes it to the NHL roster. It just makes no sense to have him make a trade of that magnitude and then fire him a month later.
2. Ahead of the trade deadline
The New Jersey Devils are not going to the playoffs. Due to that fact, they are likely not going to keep many, if any, of their expiring contracts. They would be smart to trade those for picks and prospects that will help them in the future. There are a couple of candidates that contending teams would really want. It is definitely going to be an interesting part of the season for the Devils as they look to take more steps towards playoff contention.
There are going to have Tom Fitzgerald running the show for the 2020 trade deadline. They fired Ray Shero a little before that day comes which is strange. He was allowed to handle the Hall trade but he isn’t allowed to trade any of the other expiring contracts. You would think that it would be the other way around depending on how the team felt he was doing as GM. It is just really odd timing to fire him.
There are guys like Wayne Simmonds and Sami Vatanen that have apparently been on the trade block. There have also been trading rumors surrounding a guy like Kyle Palmieri who is not on expiring contract. It makes you wonder if ownership hated the Hall trade and does not want Shero trading anyone else. This is without a question a weird aspect of the trade.
3. Team has been playing well
The New Jersey Devils were in the middle of a good stretch of play ahead of the Ray Shero firing. They were 5-3-2 in their last ten games going into it. They dropped the puck against the Tampa Bay Lightning who is one of the league’s best teams an hour after the firing. The night before, they defeated the Washington Capitals by a final score of 5-1. Washington is also one of the best teams in the league so the Devils defeating them looked really good.
They have been a solid team since the Taylor Hall trade and the John Hynes firing. Nico Hischier has taken over the team in the meantime. Hischier was a Shero move during the 2017 NHL Draft. It was between him or Nolan Patrick at the number one overall pick and Hischier has been a significantly better player than Patrick. It hasn’t been all good as far as building the team for Shero but some of his recent moves were starting to pan out just as he was fired.
Normally, a team is in a major slump or in the season is over when they fire the GM. In this case, they fired him in the middle of a stretch in which the team is playing well. Obviously, it is important for this team to keep playing well despite all of the distractions the management group has created. They are not going to make the playoffs but they can go into 2020-21 feeling good about themselves.
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It was a strange move all around when the Devils fired Shero. Not many people saw it coming but it is the result now. The only thing fans can hope for now is that whoever comes in full time will get this team where it needs to be. Shero has left behind the start of a nice young core but it is up to whoever comes in to supplement it.