The New Jersey Devils have completely revamped the coaching staff this offseason. That will end up saving Lindy Ruff’s place with the Devils.
The New Jersey Devils just announced that Sergei Brylin was going to join Lindy Ruff’s coaching staff this season. He spent the last 10 years with the AHL affiliate of the Devils. He followed them from Albany to Binghamton and to Utica last season. He has survived multiple different coaching staffs, and he made it a point to get the Devils young guns going. Brylin has been coaching so long that his original roster had Kelly Zajac, Adam Larsson, and Cam Janssen on it.
Earlier this offseason, the Devils signed Andrew Brunette. He was literally a finalist for the Jack Adams Award as the best head coach in the league. He helped lead the Florida Panthers to a President’s Trophy. Yet, he couldn’t find another head coaching job when the Panthers decided to hire Paul Maurice this offseason.
Lindy Ruff’s job could be saved by a new Devils coaching staff.
The Devils swooped in and gave him a prominent position on the coaching staff. He will come in and fix a power play that was the worst in the league. We don’t care what the numbers say, no team could have a power play worse than the Devils last season. With the amount of offensive talent on this team, there’s no way they should have been that bad when they literally had the advantage. Brunette will help that a lot better than Mark Recchi did. Honestly, it’s very hard to be worse.
The Devils also added Ryan McGill after the entire Vegas Golden Knights coaching staff was let go along with Pete DeBoer. He was with the Knights for all of their seasons, including their incredibly surprising run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2018. McGill has been coaching since the mid-90s.
The Devils replaced last year’s coaching staff, which had some serious holes, with one of the best set of assistant coaches we could think of. There is no way the Devils could have done better short of getting Barry Trotz to take the role.
It’s pretty clear that Lindy Ruff is on the hot seat. The Devils need to win this year. They spent a lot last offseason, and they spent a lot this offseason, as well. They need to win or it’s curtains for Ruff on this team. They gave him the coaching staff to succeed on top of a better roster.
This better coaching staff will help Ruff keep his job. They will get the best out of the Devils, and with a fully-healthy roster, this team could actually compete in a very strange Metropolitan Division.