New Jersey Devils: 5 Moves In 2019 That Could Have Changed Everything

Fire John Hynes After Two Weeks

The New Jersey Devils started the season with six-straight losses. It went about as terribly as it possibly could. The sixth loss was probably the worst. They were up on the Florida Panthers on a Monday afternoon matinee. Will Butcher and Pavel Zacha scored in the first 68 seconds of the first period. That put the Devils up 4-1. It looked like the Devils were going to be past their issues for one day. It wasn’t meant to be.

The team not only lost; they were embarrassed. The Panthers scored five-straight times and the Devils lost. They lost, again. This was 11 days of disappointment.

The Devils should have fired John Hynes seconds after that game ended. Seconds. The team was not responding to him, and we don’t want to get into tropes like “he lost the locker room”, but it was clear whatever he was selling wasn’t landing.

There were a ton of changes that he didn’t seem to deal with well. He had a team with a lot of new faces that needed time to develop. Instead of giving them time, he changed lines constantly. In the preseason, he kept the team separated the same amount of time in normal seasons when he probably should have just let them build chemistry. He never found the right partner for P.K. Subban (we’ll get to that).

Hynes was more status quo than Lou Lamoriello ever was. Except the status quo was continuously changing things. Hynes eventually got fired, but Ray Shero waited until December to do it. It was insanely too long.

It’s not like the Devils bounced back. After starting the season 0-4-2, they went 9-10-2 before Hynes was fired. At 9-14-4 and already 10 points out of a playoff spot. We may not remember that, but the Devils were basically out of it quite quickly. The only thing that could have helped them was a drastic measure. They didn’t make that drastic measure, and they let Hynes coach this team into the ground.