New Jersey Devils: If Lindy Ruff Does Get Fired, Who Are Replacement Options?
The New Jersey Devils fanbase is incensed right now. They want the entire coaching staff fired after the team’s performance on Tuesday. Personally, I’m not sure where I am at with that. I wrote last week that the Devils shouldn’t fire Lindy Ruff. If Ruff makes certain moves with his staff, I still think it could work, however, the Devils might actually make the move on from their coach.
The game on Tuesday night was pathetic. Against the Philadelphia Flyers, the only team they could seem to beat, the Devils just got stomped like a mudhole. They lost 6-1, and there was no effort in their play. They couldn’t do anything on the power play (again), the offense struggled to make any plays, and the defense was terrible. Mackenzie Blackwood was the worst of them.
However, the team was all sick, so that’s definitely an excuse built-in for Ruff. He says that Blackwood was the sickest one “of them all”, yet he was in net and just didn’t play his best game. Now, the Devils have to at least seriously consider what to do at the head coaching position. The Devils wanted to be competitive late in the season. As of right now, that’s not going to happen.
So, the Devils have to do something. If they do decide that “something” is firing Lindy Ruff, what are their options right now to replace him? There aren’t a lot after the Vancouver Canucks hired Bruce Boudreau, but there are some. Here’s what they can do right now.
Alain Nasreddine
The New Jersey Devils have been here before. Back in 2019, they were in a position where they had to fire John Hynes. Not everyone agreed with it then, and they are using this situation to point fingers and say “told you so”, but Hynes needed to go. He might be a good coach, and he’s in a better position in Nashville. However, when Alain Nasreddine took over for the rest of that season, the Devils played better.
The Devils were 19-16-8 that season. That includes a time when the Devils traded everyone they possibly could, including Taylor Hall, Blake Coleman, Wayne Simmonds, Sami Vatanen, and Andy Greene. Things did eventually fall by the wayside, but he did a good enough job to be considered for the full-time role. The Devils went with a veteran coach in Lindy Ruff, but the Devils made it a point to keep Nas on the roster.
There are a lot of people who aren’t happy with Nas but give credit where credit is due. He’s changed his philosophy when it was absolutely necessary. His penalty kill unit is crushing it this season. It might be the one good thing about this season. After struggling at the start of the year, the PK has turned around completely thanks to some good performances by Michael McLeod and Jimmy Vesey.
He’s the most sensible option right now. The Devils don’t want to go with someone like Boudreau because it limits their long-term options. They went for big fish in 2020 and struck out. It happens. Peter Laviolette wanted too much money and Gerard Gallant wanted too much power (if he wanted the job at all). Lindy Ruff made sense to the team at the time, but if he doesn’t make sense for the team anymore, Nas is a good option to give the Devils time to make the next decision.
Kevin Dineen
Unlike in 2019, the New Jersey Devils AHL team is dominating the league. Kevin Dineen is in his first year as head coach, and he’s pushed them to one of the biggest turnarounds in the sport. The Binghamton Devils were the worst team in the league last season. This season, Dineen has the Utica Comets (the Devils new affiliates) in first place with a 17-1-2 record. That’s right, the Comets have one regulation loss all season.
The Comets are getting close to untouchable in the standings. They are 10 points up on the Rochester Americans, the second-place team in the division. They are even tied with the Chicago Wolves for the best record in the league, and the Wolves have played three more games than the Comets.
Dineen is clearly a good coach. He has this team going in the right direction. The only real issue here is disrupting the flow of everything by making Dineen the head coach of the New Jersey Devils. He has to take his system away from Utica and take it to New Jersey. This then hurts the development of some of the most important Devils prospects, players they hope will produce for them for a long time. They have to find a replacement AHL coach in the middle of the season, and then they have to hope the guys respond to them.
On top of that, are the current assistant coaches just going to listen to a guy who inserts himself into the head coaching position that easily? They probably have to find new assistant coaches, which honestly might be something they have to do anyway.
John Tortorella
This one is controversial because of who John Tortorella is as a head coach. He’s hard nosed, doesn’t want skill to come over the process, and he only likes a certain kind of player to excel. However, he gets results. He’s been a head coach for 20 seasons. Outside of a disastrous stint with the Vancouver Canucks, he made it more than five years with each of his stops between the Rangers, Blue Jackets, and Lightning.
However, Torts is more known lately for what he’s saying on ESPN than what he could do behind a bench. Complaining about the skill of Connor McDavid or the festivities of Trevor Zegras probably isn’t the best move for a team that’s supposed to be led by Jack Hughes.
This one just doesn’t feel like the right option, although it does deserve mentioning. The Devils have hired people out of nowhere before. Lindy Ruff didn’t seem like a candidate, but he’s here now. The Devils do need some structure, and Torts brings structure.
His comments probably did more to hurt his candidacy than anything. When we asked the fanbase on Twitter who they would want to be coach, most people made it a point to say “no thank you” to John Tortorella.
Jim Montgomery
This one would likely have to come with an explanation. As they say, time heals all wounds. Jim Montgomery was growing into one of the best coaches in the NHL when he was surprisingly fired by the Dallas Stars in December of 2019. He was fired for what the Stars called “unprofessional conduct”. We never learned what that “conduct” was, but it seems like he’s worked on himself for this entire time.
He’s now an assistant coach with the St. Louis Blues. He hasn’t taken a job as a head coach for whatever reason, but it’s clear he was a man who needed time for reflection. Since his name keeps popping up for other head coaching gigs, it’s probably okay to think what he did with the Stars is purely drinking related and not something that could be considered worse.
Montgomery on the surface would be a great head coach. There are some things to work out, and the Blues would have to allow the Devils to even talk to him. That is one hurdle. Another is whether the Devils want to hire a full-time coach now or whether they want to wait until the offseason.
Rick Tocchet
Rick Tocchet was a name that came up a lot for people in the offseason, but his name hasn’t come up as much as of late. Rocchet was the head coach of the Arizona Coyotes before he got fired this past offseason. He didn’t land at any of the open jobs despite his name widely being connected, and now he’s taking the year off. It’s possible he decided to wait for the right opportunity.
The Devils might be that opportunity. They are young and spry and they really just need adjustments to be contenders for the playoffs rather than wholesale changes. Obviously, there are some issues with players focusing, but the team as a whole just needs a coach who makes some changes to the power play and then a few small changes to the lineup.
Tocchet might be just that. Is he the best coach in the league? He wasn’t when he was with the Coyotes, but it’s extremely rare that a head coach dominates during their first stint in the NHL.
This would be another move to hire a guy for the long term. The Devils really need to figure out whether they want a head coach who is going to be the long-term option or they just want to survive this season and re-evaluate at the end. There are options out there, but there are likely to be more options when the season ends and teams allow assistants to talk or other teams decide they want a different coach at the helm.