New Jersey Devils: 5 Players Impacted By Ray Shero Firing

The New Jersey Devils fired their general manager in a move absolutely nobody saw coming. Some players are now in different standing after the man who brought them here is now gone.

Hope. That was everything in what’s now the completed Ray Shero era with the New Jersey Devils. The New Jersey Devils would always make moves that gave us hope for the future, but still reluctant to ever believe we were all the way there. We as Devils fans were always waiting for what’s next.

Now, what’s next is a new regime entirely. We already had an interim head coach in Alain Nasreddine. Now, we have interim general manager Tom Fitzgerald. That’s what we as fans have to live with, another thing that makes us sort of a laughing stock. That situation is why the Devils are now looking to change every major position on the team.

When a head coach leaves, it usually severely changes the day-to-day operations. Simple things like practice times and media availability changes. When a GM gets fired, it usually takes a long time to see those changes. Here, we may not have to wait as long.

The New Jersey Devils want to change the culture of losing immediately. The owners basically said as much. This team has better talent, even without Taylor Hall, than their record suggests. After beating the Tampa Bay Lightning to end their 10-game win streak, they still find themselves last in the Metropolitan Division.

With Shero gone, some Devils players may be wondering their standing with the organization. They absolutely should be wondering what’s going to be next for them. There are some players who this might be good news for their futures in New Jersey (looking at you Sami and Kyle), however many have to wonder what their future is now that the man who committed to them is no longer committed to the organization.

These five players have to really be questioning their future with the New Jersey Devils.

Jesper Bratt

This one is probably the least likely to have any issues, since Jesper Bratt is quite good, but there’s no doubt he was the proof for Shero’s draft acumen. Having a 6th-round pick play his way on the top line of any NHL team makes the GM look like a million bucks. It shows he knows how to scout talent and draft for value.

Bratt has been a little up and down throughout his young career. He’s seen himself play really well, but whether it’s because of rookie walls or injury bugs, in three years he only has 83 career points. A first-line player needs to be scoring at least 60 points per season, even with injuries. He’s way far off.

He’s still just 21 years old, so we will cut the kid some slack, but we’re saying that he hasn’t made himself untradeable. Let’s say a team comes to the Devils looking to make a swap, and they offer a defenseman. They will likely at least ask about Jesper Bratt. Under Ray Shero, he would probably want to keep that asset he took a major chance on, one that worked out as well as we could have guessed. Now, since the next GM has no real connection to Bratt, he’d be more willing to trade him.

Don’t get us wrong. We aren’t calling for Bratt to get traded. We think he’s going to be a good member of this organization for a long time. However, his untouchable status went down a notch.

Miles Wood

Miles Wood has been incredibly frustrating this year. We aren’t on the boat that he brings nothing to the lineup, but it is questionable to see players like Pavel Zacha, Nikita Gusev and Jesper Bratt forced to sit for their on-ice play, but Wood is in the lineup every night. He takes way too many penalties, he still needs to fix some of his intangibles, and he makes a bonehead play every so often.

These are all plays that get other players in major trouble. Not Wood. He gets to play nightly even if he takes a double minor the night before.

That kind of inconsistency makes little to no sense. Again, we love Wood. We think he should be in the lineup almost every night, but if we was forced to sit one time because he took six minutes in penalty minutes in one game we’d be fine with it.

There were rumors Wood was on the chopping block come trade deadline time, and teams are reportedly very interested. He’s a very good bottom six player on the right team. He just needs to find someone that will help him stop taking penalties. Maybe now that Shero is gone, he could be on the way out as well. Or, maybe he just has to face more consequences for his on-ice actions.

Mirco Mueller

The Mirco Mueller trade was the worst move Ray Shero made during his tenure here. Say what you will about the Michael Grabner trade, at least that made sense in the moment, and showed the Devils were really going for it. However, the Mueller trade was one that looked terrible when it happened, continued to get worse, and the Devils just seem to tie themselves to this defenseman despite his issues on the ice.

Mueller has not been good for the Devils. He’s had flashes of being alright, but never really showed the skill that made him a 1st-round pick. It makes it worse that the 2nd-round pick the San Jose Sharks got for him turned into Mario Ferraro, who’s become a full-time NHLer this season at 21 years old.

Mueller was protected in the Vegas expansion draft, he was re-signed this season to more than $1 million, and he’s been able to play 30 games this season despite scoring just one goal and no assists. He couldn’t get one play where he accidentally touched a puck 30 seconds ago and someone scored with it.

Mueller was clearly a pet project for Shero, and it never worked. Now, Mueller is likely in his last season with the Devils. Now that Shero is gone, his worst move is likely a few months behind.

Pavel Zacha

Was Pavel Zacha a Lou Lamoriello pick or a Ray Shero pick? Should we hold Shero accountable for a sixth-overall pick that was taken just weeks into his tenure?

You know what, it doesn’t matter now. Both Lou and Shero are gone for good, and the Devils don’t have to worry about debating what happened in a weird transition time because the Devils will move clear on to the next GM.

Either way, Shero paid this guy to stick around for three more season. His contract isn’t crazy, paying him $2.25 million each year. Shero likely wanted Zacha, who was taken in front of such names in the 2015 NHL Draft as (say it with me, you all know at this point), Matthew Barzal, Zach Werenski, Ivan Provorov, Thomas Chabot and Mikko Rantanen. It’s clear Shero would at least want to make him something of value after leaving all that elite-level talent on the board, no matter what his role of that draft was.

Zacha could get traded as early as this season. Zacha is not playing well. He’s still doing his normal penalty kill dominance, but his offensive numbers are non-existent. The Devils could likely convince a team Zacha just needs a change of scenery, and he’s only 22 years old.

Zacha was a player that had some protections from Shero because of perception. We did learn that there’s a limit to those perceptions when rumors said there was threats he could play in the KHL, but there’s still that soft spot for his technical first draft pick after joining the Devils.