Lindy Ruff Fails New Jersey Devils At Worst Possible Time

Watching Games 1 and 2 against the New York Rangers, New Jersey Devils head coach Lindy Ruff is looking closer to Coach Klein from the Waterboy, while the Rangers were coached by Red Beaulieu before the titular character arrives. For those who have never seen the movie, basically in PG terms, Beaulieu outclasses Klein in every single way possible. Through two games, Gerard Gallant is Red Beaulieu.

Ruff has completely failed his roster with the preparation, line combinations, and lack of proper adjustments to the Rangers style of play. The Devils lost both games by a final score of 5-1. Results have not happened like that since the beginning of the season, losing 5-2 to the Flyers and Red Wings respectively.

Gallant clearly watched a lot of film and studied all of the Devils strengths. In both games played in the first round, Gallant has deployed a system that completely shuts off all of their strengths. The speed is taken out of the Devils’ game. The stretch passes are completely gone. The special teams have become something that would not be shown as a method of torture to interrogate prisoners.

How has Lindy responded? He hasn’t.

Miles Wood has been horrendous for the better part of all season. For what seemed to be his thousandth time doing so, he took an offensive zone penalty, and the Rangers took advantage of it by scoring on the ensuing power play. What did Ruff do? Did he sit Wood for trade deadline acquisition Curtis Lazar? That would be logical. Instead, Wood got a promotion and did the same exact thing as he did in Game 1.

The penalty kill scheme seemed to have been: leave Chris Kreider wide open in front of the net. The result was Kreider scoring two power play goals in Game 1. How did Ruff respond? He healthy scratched arguably the Devils’ best penalty-killing defenseman in Jonas Siegenthaler for Brendan Smith. The penalty-prone Smith, who has been a healthy scratch for a good portion of the season, took a penalty. Luckily the Rangers did not score on his penalty, however how do you expect Smith to replace Siegenthaler when Smith is in the penalty box?

The Devils needed scoring. Smith was clearly put in the lineup for “toughness.” Coach Ruff admitted as such after the game. Now, he’s facing an embarrassment of an elimination in his first playoff appearance as a head coach since 2016.

Going back to the “leaving Kreider open on the power play” strategy, even with Smith in the lineup Kreider scored two more power play goals in Game 2. Kreider, who has four goals in two games, has outscored the entire Devils team. That is not a recipe for success.

It has yet to be seen if Ruff will adjust to the Rangers completely destroying the Devils’ style of play in game three and beyond. However, the line combinations that came out of the practice prior to Game 3, no one should hold their breath.

The Devils went to playing the Rangers style of play. Which is completely physical, wear you down, and capitalize when you make a mistake. The Devils just simply do not have those styles of players. Unless Mason Geertsen is a call up for the playoffs, that style should be left on the cutting room floor. The Devils need to get back to their style of play that ran teams out of buildings for the better part of the year.

Another huge issue the Devils have had all year and have not addressed is the amount of blocked shots other teams accumulate against them. The Rangers had as many blocked shots in Game 1 as the Devils had total shots. Is it the shot selection by players or is it the style of play from the coaches? The answer is both.

Now with all of these scathing words about Ruff, it is not lost that the players need to be better. Jesper Bratt, Nico Hischier, Dougie Hamilton, and Tomas Tatar are still looking for their first point in this series. That is not all on Ruff. However, when you are facing a goalie like Igor Shesterkin, you have to adjust your style so he seems more shots. The Devils averaged over 30 shots a game in the regular season. They have yet to hit that mark in the first two games against the Rangers.

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The Devils are on the cusp of being swept by their bitter rivals. If this is how the Devils are going to play and be coached, fans could have waited another year until they made it to the playoffs again. Ruff needs to use his 1800+ games of experience and get the Devils back to basics. Even when Bobby Boucher showed up, Coach Klein was able to become the great coach he once was.

With the way things are currently looking, the Devils are going to need more than Bobby Boucher. They’re going to need a miracle. Ruff needs to figure out where to find said miracle.