New Jersey Devils: 5 Moves In 2019 That Could Have Changed Everything
A few changes would have made the New Jersey Devils season much better.
Hindsight is always 2020. The New Jersey Devils should have never signed Michael Cammalleri to a five-year deal. Ryane Clowe’s concussion history should have concerned us more. Ilya Kovalchuk’s behavior during the 2012-13 lockout should have let us know what was going to happen that offseason. Hindsight would be great for the Devils, especially recently.
2019 was a year where we wish our hindsight was more foresight. The Devils made so many moves that we thought were going to put them into playoff contention. Instead, they were one of the worst teams from the beginning.
As bad as the Devils season went, a few different moves could have literally changed things insanely. Some would have made things better, others would have just made things different. Either way, it couldn’t have been worse than what we saw. The season led to a coach being fired, stars being traded, GM fired just weeks before the trade deadline, a captain traded, another four players were sent out before the traded deadline, and the Devils were once again terrible.
Take a breath. That was a lot to relive.
Okay, welcome back. Now that we see how things went with the moves the Devils made, we look at the small and big decisions that led us there, and how certain adjustments would have led to things going a lot better. Whether it’s adding this, deleting that, or just doing it in a different way, those changes could have made fans a lot happier.
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.
Start Mackenzie Blackwood On Night One
This one is completely revisionist history. It made perfect sense to start Cory Schneider at the time of opening night. He was scorching hot and was the $6 million man in net. Going with Mackenzie Blackwood on opening night would put the coach in question. However, looking back at it, nobody could say it wouldn’t have been a decision that changed everything.
We know what happened on opening night. Schneider looked great for the first period and a half and the Devils were up big. The Winnipeg Jets scored a goal that forced Schneider to go side to side, and Schneider didn’t get up too fast. He eventually left the game, and we couldn’t find a specific picture of it but the look on Blackwood’s face showed a player that wasn’t ready to go. He jumped in, and the Devils lost the rest of a four-goal lead.
Blackwood and Schneider were both never the same, as the season unraveled before our very eyes. He came back the next night and allowed seven goals to the Buffalo Sabres. Blackwood struggled with inconsistency for the next two months and losing his confidence on the first two nights of the season couldn’t have helped.
Schneider was awful for most of the year, but again losing confidence in his ability to make saves while staying healthy made Schneider almost worthless in net. If the Devils just let him ease into the position. If they did a proper split from the beginning starting with Blackwood, the Devils season would be wildly different.
Acquire A Defenseman To Pair With P.K. Subban
Going into the season, there was one position that was an obvious weakness. The right side of the defense was stacked on paper, but the left side left a ton to be desired. It looked like it was going to be Andy Greene, Will Butcher, and Connor Carrick.
Head coach John Hynes made the decision we all knew he would but all knew he shouldn’t and paired Greene with Subban on opening night. Greene definitely had a role to play on this team, but pairing him with a special talent who was trying to acclimate to a new role was not that. Greene is a step too slow to make up for the style of play that Subban brings to the table.
On one hand, it’s hard to ask the Devils to do more this offseason. The Devils already added five new names to the lineup. However, they just needed to make one more to find someone to fit with Subban. Over the season, Subban was paired with Damon Severson, Sami Vatanen, Will Butcher, Mirco Mueller, and more. It was never going to work this way.
The Devils had Jake Gardiner there to give him a shot. He didn’t do so hot with the Carolina Hurricanes, but maybe he would have been better in a genuine role on a top line next to Subban. Anton Stralman was a player we really liked going into free agency. He ended up signing with the Panthers at the beginning of free agency. Maybe there was a trade to make happen, but they were running out of assets especially with the upcoming Nikita Gusev trade. Either way, going into the season with Andy Greene as a top-line defenseman was not the right move.
Or, maybe they could have just…
Keep Ty Smith On The Roster
The New Jersey Devils made the surprising decision to send Ty Smith back to Spokane for another season in juniors. He was the reigning CHL Defenseman of the Year, and it seemed like he was a lock to make the roster. Then, he played about as terribly as you could in the preseason. Obviously, that hurt his chances of making an NHL roster.
Here’s the problem with that thinking. Smith was stupendous in the preseason before, and the Devils sent him to juniors to season for one more year. They knew he would be able to play for a dominant Canada team at the World Junior Classic. He was able to be dominant in the WHL, and won Defenseman of the Year there, although he lost the award for the CHL to Noel Hoefenmayer of the Ottawa 67s.
Smith playing for the NHL roster could have been a great move for the team, or it could have backfired spectacularly. Either way, it would have been different.
Imagine pairing Smith with Subban right off the bat? Letting the veteran Subban have a very specific task in bringing up Smith on the top line and being his mentor could have made things easier when it comes to acclimating to this Devils team. Sure, adding youth to a team with a lot of it might not help in some cases, but adding talent to a team that desperately needs some is always the way to win.
Trade Taylor Hall Before Season
This one has a lot to unpack. Taylor Hall was never going to commit to any team before free agency. He just wanted to see what was out there, or at least his agent Darren Ferris wanted to see what was out there. We didn’t know this publically, and Ray Shero made multiple attempts to negotiate a deal with Hall, but it never worked out. He eventually traded Hall to the Arizona Coyotes in December for a less-than-exciting return.
The question is now, would the Devils have been better off selling him before the season?
The Devils look like they might get a top-ten pick in this year’s draft thanks to the Hall trade, and they also got intriguing prospects in Kevin Bahl and Nick Merkley. However, they could have a guaranteed asset right now if they sent Hall to another team before the season started. Could they have talked the Pittsburgh Penguins into sending John Marino before the season? Maybe. It’s moves like that which could have ended better than now.
Or, it could have been worse. Well, at least as bad. Hall was mediocre before the season, but trading Hall before the season forces the players to lose confidence in the whole process. Making “win-now” moves then trading your star player isn’t exactly smart.
Still, sometimes management has to make moves teams aren’t entirely fans of. If they made the move before the preseason, there would be plenty of time to heal, and if the other moves were made the Devils could still be contenders. Hall’s contributions to the Devils didn’t do a lot to make them better in his two-plus months with the team.
Still, this is a huge commitment, and since the Devils were committed to getting a 1st-round pick, which one would actually go better? Montreal and Chicago are the only teams that would have likely been worse than Arizona’s pick. Literally every other pick from a team that made any sense to trade for Hall would be worse. The push would be for a better prospect that’s more NHL ready.
Next. 5 Devils Players We've Lost Confidence In. dark
Either way, the Devils season of disappointment hit a fever point when they traded Hall. If they made that move before the season so it was over and dealt with. Then, the team could just focus on being as good on the ice as possible instead of constant Taylor Hall rumors.