On July 1, the Florida Panthers lost another high-ranking member to their front office, with Director of Player Personnel Bryan McCabe's contract expiring without renewal.
McCabe, the long-time NHLer with 1135 games under his belt, spent the last 14 years in some sort of development role with the Panthers. Initially hired as a Development Coach in 2012, McCabe was promoted just one year later to Director of Player Development, where he worked for four seasons before getting promoted again to his most recently held position.
While with the Panthers in a development capacity, he helped develop highly-touted draftees like Aleksander Barkov, Aaron Ekblad, Anton Lundell, Mike Matheson, and MacKenzie Weegar into excellent hockey players. He also aided in the development of youngsters Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett, who were not drafted by Florida but were acquired at a young, still-moldable age. The Panthers likely do not win back-to-back Stanley Cups without his assistance.
The Devils, meanwhile, have an opening in this role and already have two former Panthers executives in their front office: General Manager Sunny Mehta and Assistant General Manager Braden Birch. Together, those two have already transformed the outlook of the Devils (and their AHL affiliate) in just over three months, and are looking to turn the Devils' promising core into a perennial Cup contender.
Adding McCabe to the crew would help their development system tremendously. The Devils recently had AHL assistant coach Mark Voakes shift over to a Player Development Coach, but still need someone in charge of the whole department. With a core featuring Jack Hughes (25), Luke Hughes (22), Dawson Mercer (24), Arseny Gritsyuk (25), and a myriad of young talent in the system, prioritizing player development is a must.
This holds especially true when considering the lack of first-round talents to truly pan out in a Devils' uniform. In recent history, fans have watched Alexander Holtz and Ty Smith turn into first-round busts and recent draftees Seamus Casey and Anton Silayev stagnate in their respective development curves. It's time to break the wheel in this regard -- the Devils will be far better off for it.
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