Firing a coach doesn’t always lead to a turnaround, and I don’t think letting Lindy Ruff go will solve New Jersey’s woes. The answer? Devils’ players need to step up.
The Devils had no choice but to fire Lindy Ruff as their head coach on Monday. The players had stopped playing for him long ago, and the Devils’ front office was forced to act. The final straw happened during the team’s recent West Coast swing when the Devils seemed uninspired and disinterested, including in a 5-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Sunday. To make matters worse, Ruff forgot to put an extra attacker in when he removed the goaltender with five minutes left in the game.
Keeping Ruff behind the bench would have tempted fans to boo him during this week’s three-game homestand. Still, it would have been nice if GM Tom Fitzgerald had spoken to the media about the change rather than issuing a press release to announce Ruff’s firing and Travis Green’s hiring.
With Ruff gone and Green in for at least the rest of the season, the only way I see things turning around is if the players decide that it’s time for them to take ownership and lead. That’s a tall order, though, because there’s so much stepping up to be done.
— ””Jack Hughes needs to play like the superstar he was last season, mainly how he played in the Devils’ playoff series against the Rangers when he scored three goals. Hughes was on pace for another 40-goal season until he missed 11 games after sustaining an upper-body injury against the Chicago Blackhawks. But since returning in early February, Hughes has scored only five goals.
Nico Hischier hasn’t been great, either, with a pedestrian 20-goal season. I don’t know if Hughes’ absence affected him, but even if it did, Hischier should still be better than he has shown. Then there’s Timo Meier, who isn’t providing the scoring punch required (13 goals). Dawson Mercer hasn’t taken the next step toward becoming the elite player that many predicted he would, and the role players have been average at best, including Ondrej Palat (9 goals), who’s a better player than he has shown. Jesper Bratt and Tyler Toffoli haven’t elevated the team, either.
In goal, Vitek Vanecek, Akira Schmid, and Nico Daws have been (in a word) awful. It’s baffling why Fitzgerald didn’t upgrade the goaltending this offseason when he had a chance to acquire Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck. Plus, the defense was hampered when Dougie Hamilton was lost to a torn pectoral muscle, and no one knows at this point if he will return this season.
The Devils managed to make the playoffs last season by scoring, and I believe they’ll need to do that again if they hope to execute a playoff repeat. The problem is that this team has no margin for error, and time is running out.
— ””Now that Ruff is gone, the message to the players is to lead by playing smart, solid hockey. The first step is winning at least two of the three home games on tap this week vs. the Panthers, Blues, and Hurricanes.
