5 New Jersey Devils rumors we're happy never came to fruition

4. Hiring Anyone Besides Sheldon Keefe (especially Travis Green)

We want to start with this: this isn’t fair to Travis Green. Maybe he’s a good coach, and that could be true since the Ottawa Senators sniped him to be their head coach before the Devils had even made a decision yet. However, there is way too much on the line with this Devils season, and Green did not show nearly enough during his “interim” role to warrant taking the top job full time.

Sheldon Keefe is a fantastic coach who was in one of the hardest positions in sports. Being the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs demands success, and Keefe did not bring that to Toronto. He did bring it every single stop before that, but what matters in the world’s biggest hockey market is success in blue and white.

Yet, Keefe is cleary a star behind the bench, and he’s still incredibly young. The Devils knocked it out of the park with this hire.

However, before Keefe was made available, there were a lot of rumored ties to the Devils bench boss. Craig Berube, Jay Woodcroft, Green, and Todd McLellan were the four names outside of Keefe that many felt were on the Devils short list. Berube was a wild card with this roster, Woodcroft saw his team go to the Stanley Cup Final after he was fired, and McLellan would have been a bad hire. The Devils made the right decision.