The New Jersey Devils felt the need to fire Lindy Ruff in the middle of the 2023-24 season. After just signing him to a contract extension, the Devils watched as the season was swirling down the draft. Yes, just about everything went wrong (sound familiar?), but Ruff didn’t get this roster to progress, and the team needed a change.
Of course, it didn’t work, and the team moved on with Sheldon Keefe. There’s no regret with that, as they got themselves a really good coach (recent struggles notwithstanding), but we do wonder if Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald misses some aspects of Lindy Ruff.
Ruff has been known as an excellent talent developer. Jack Hughes turned into a superstar under him. Jesper Bratt found his game under Ruff. So many players had career-best seasons in 2022-23. Ruff brought out the best in some players. It just wasn’t the best system for sustained success, and that’s why the Devils moved in another direction.
Keefe isn’t going anywhere, but Ruff might be. The Buffalo Sabres just fired GM Kevyn Adams (a few years too late), and former Columbus Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen replaced him. Kekalainen didn’t hire Ruff a few weeks after he was fired by the Devils, so it’s very likely he wants to hire his own head coach.
Lindy Ruff is 65 years old, and he’ll turn 66 before the season is over. He’s likely not going to look for another one of these jobs when the Sabres run comes to an end. He will take a job in a front office, however. The demand of a person in the front office is not nearly what it is for a head coach. Especially if he isn’t the man in charge and he’s more focused on a player development role, Ruff could ease into the next phase of his hockey life.
Fitzgerald and Ruff were known to have a great relationship. Does that continue after one has to fire the other? Maybe not, but there’s a lot of respect there. We see Fitzgerald giving Ruff a soft landing spot to help him with player development needs. Since Ruff left, we haven’t seen much coming out of Utica. Could Ruff help the staff there do more with the prospects?
Heck, could Ruff be the head coach of the Comets? It sounds crazy that he would take that kind of a drop in pay and status after winning 914 NHL games, but it might be the perfect next step in his career.
To be clear, we don’t want Ruff back as the Devils' head coach. He gave the Devils all he could, and it wasn’t enough to get them to be consistent contenders. He got them through the final stages of the rebuild and into that first really good season. Now, he could get this team’s young guns on the right track.