The New Jersey Devils continue to have issues not only between the pipes with their goaltending but with their defense as well. Sound familiar. Those were the same issues that plagued the Edmonton Oilers, Ottawa Senators, Minnesota Wild, and the St. Louis Blues to an extent.
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Those teams had to make coaching changes. Now rumors are starting about Lindy Ruff‘s job in New Jersey. Not only are the Devils getting poor goaltending and playing poor defensively, the Devils have dealt with injuries.
First, Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier were out of the lineup. Now Dougie Hamilton is out of the lineup and there are no signs he is coming back this season. That hurts any coach’s ability to win games in the NHL.
And it has to be on the players to fix the situation themselves because the issues plaguing the New Jersey Devils go deeper than the head coaching position.
Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on the latest edition of the 32 Thoughts Podcast discuss this very topic and does it make sense for New Jersey to move from head coach Lindy Ruff.
** NHLRumors.com Transcription
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Elliotte Friedman: “They go to the second round. Ruff got a short extension, which, he had this year, I think he got one year and an option. I’m not 100% positive, but I believe that’s kind of what it is in that area. And Travis Green comes in as an assistant sort of like in some people’s eyes coach and waiting, right? That whenever it happens, you know he’s your guy. So there’s this kind of thing here that if the if you need a succession plan, you kind of have one.
The thing is like I don’t think people like Lindy Ruff, go from smart to dumb in six months. I think that New Jersey has flaws, some of it because of injury and some of it because of performance that they didn’t have last year that now all of a sudden they’re dealing with.
You look at Edmonton and you talk about all the coaching changes this year. I think Edmonton would be the one that everybody would say, Wow, that was fast. And they just felt you know what? We don’t like the way this is going. It’s not 100% fair, but we’re going to make the change. And the thing I worry about is when one team does it, does it embolden other people to do it? And, so when I look at Ruff, there’s enough smoke out there that you wonder, okay, what exactly are we dealing with here?
Like, I just don’t see how Lindy Ruff goes from a genius who got into the second round to a complete idiot six months later, I just don’t believe that happens. And I would think, everybody here believes that Dougie Hamilton if he’s coming back, he’s either coming back right before the playoffs or into the playoffs. They can use the cap space right, the LTR space. Here’s the thing, like you can’t even be guaranteed now that you’re going to have that.
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So if you want to save this season, you’ve got to strike. The way I look at it is are you really going to be able to change enough right now? If you just fire the coach like Edmonton? You knew McDavid was gonna get healthy and you knew Ekholm was gonna get healthy. They gave you a good chance to get yourself going again. Like, to me it with New Jersey, like every team you’ve got the injuries, like you said with Hamilton. But even when Hamilton was there, they were struggling. They were not themselves.
Like to me, I think if you’re gonna say we have to salvage this season, you have to make a move which is hard, I get it, as opposed to changing the coach now, does that mean that anyone’s going to listen to me? No. It could happen anyway, I guess. But I just like I look at that team and I say they need some help. And if that one’s just not on the coaching.
Jeff, like one of the things I’m watching is Ottawa. Yeah, a lot of these teams got the got the coach bounces. Edmonton got the coach bounce, Minnesota got the coach bounce. Now let’s see. St. Louis got the coach bounce, although they got pummeled pretty good by Tampa Bay, the other night, but Ottawa has now played two games Arizona and Colorado. Arizona, they had a lead and they lost the game. Colorado, they had the lead, and they lost the game. Now Colorado especially is a good team and Arizona is actually a really improved team.
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But Jacques Martin, who’s one of the best technical coaches I’ve ever seen. He can’t come right in and fix what ails the Senators. Like I said, if you’re like Edmonton and your guys get healthy, including the nuclear weapon of nuclear weapons, you’re gonna be better and you’re gonna beat a lot of teams. But if you don’t have the personnel to win, a new coach isn’t necessarily going to make the difference.
And when I look at Jersey and what they’ve got right now, I see some of the same concerns that Ottawa has, and if you fire Lindy Ruff are you really sure that that’s going to make the difference You need?
Maybe we’ll find out if they think so anyway, but watching Ottawa the last two nights has made me wonder about is New Jersey’s problem going to be the same as Ottawa’s that they’re just not built enough right now to handle what ails them.”
