The New Jersey Devils have been looking for a few new faces to join Sheldon Keefe behind the bench. Less than two weeks ago, the team let go of assistant coaches Ryan McGill and Chris Taylor and Head Video Coach Jerry Dineen. Not retaining McGill was certainly a surprising move. After all, the team did finish with a top-five defense last season despite injuries galore. While his impact will be missed, the Devils have reportedly found his replacement.
Dave Pagonotta of The Fourth Period reported that New Jersey is hiring former Philadelphia Flyers associate coach Brad Shaw as an assistant on Sheldon Keefe's staff.
The Devils hired a great coach in Brad Shaw, who brings a great defensive structure to New Jersey.
Shaw, 61, takes the drive up the New Jersey Turnpike after being in the Flyers organization the past three seasons. During that time, he worked under former head coach John Tortorella. He was also the interim head coach after Tortorella was fired this past season. While it remains to be seen what impact Shaw will bring to the Garden State, his track record makes this a home run hire for the Devils' coaching staff.
The Cambridge, Canada, native is considered by many around the league to be one of the top-tier assistants in the National Hockey League. He's also very well respected amongst his peers and former players. Shaw not only worked under Tortorella in Philadelphia but with the Columbus Blue Jackets as well. He has a reputation for developing defensemen well and generating a lot of success on the back end as a whole. Shaw works well with guiding young defensemen to take the next step in their development. An example is Jamie Drysdale in Philadelphia, who got better and better as last season rolled on.
The biggest example of his impact is with Zach Werenski, who is currently up for the Norris Trophy as the league's best defenseman. Someone mentioned that Werenski was able to reach his potential and even go above it because of what Shaw was able to do with him when he was first coming up in the league. When looking at the Devils' defense, there's a major opportunity to do the same thing he did both with Drysdale and Werenski.
New Jersey currently has Luke Hughes, Simon Nemec, Seamus Casey, and Anton Silayev in the NHL or their system under the age of 22 years old. With Shaw coming in, all four young defensemen have a great opportunity to take their defensive games to higher levels. The same can be true for the veteran guys on the team like Dougie Hamilton, Jonas Siegenthaler, Brett Pesce, and Johnathan Kovacevic. Having Shaw along with Keefe, who's more of an offensive coach, will create a more balanced team that can beat opponents in many ways. There's much more work to do for the coaching staff as well as roster building, but this hire is a good start to a big offseason ahead.
While the overall defense was good last season, the expectation is to become one of, if not the best, defensive cores in the entire league. Hiring Shaw is the perfect guy to get them there.