If he is not fired, I will leave the New Jersey Devils head coach, as he has a misunderstanding with his player.
The 1–5 loss to Los Angeles served as the last straw for Lindy Ruff’s time as the New Jersey Devils’ head coach. He survived nearly three-quarters of his fourth season with the club. Travis Green, an associate coach now serving as temporary head coach, will take over tomorrow.
For the team’s 52-win regular season and its first playoff series victory since 2012—a comeback series victory over Our Hated Rivals, no less—Ruff was in fact the head coach. He was also guiding the squad for two seasons without a postseason appearance and headed toward a third in 2023–24. A 52-win season followed by probably missing the playoffs will cause a team to lose faith in their coaching staff since trust is difficult to gain and simple to lose. Said another way, this was a well-deserved firing. The Devils finished 281 games with a combined record of 128-125-28, or a point percentage of 50.5%, well below his previous two stints in Dallas and Buffalo.
Not that Green is very confident, given his past with Vancouver. His tenure in Vancouver spanned four and a half seasons, from 2017 to 2022. The scoreboard read 133-147-34. They did win 17 games during their lengthy return-to-play tournament playoff run. Under Green, that was also their only postseason appearance. While I am writing this, I must say that management was not exactly on top of things back then. The Devils will see what Green can do, if anything, during the following 20 games.
How much the problems lie with Ruff will also become clear over the course of the next 20 games. How much Ruff controlled his aides may be revealed by how much and how the methods were changed. Ruff had complete say over who and when played while he was not in the net. A more logical usage of goalies could reveal how much Ruff may have harmed his own cause in the crease.
Similar to this, lines and pairings started to make less and less sense given the performances. For example, it has long been joked that Alex Holtz might do something like score a goal and be benched since Ruff did just that (Montreal in January, rare PPG in 2024). Another example is when Kevin Bahl and John Marino were together again to get gashed in Los Angeles after getting gashed in Anaheim.
One other example is Brendan Smith, who in several games dragged Luke Hughes down and received more minutes than Colin Miller. An additional example would be not playing Timo Meier in the role and position that allowed him to score a ton in San Jose and prompted Tom Fitzgerald, his employer, to go grab him the previous season.
Much of this was acceptable when the Devils were dominating play and winning. But this season, the wins were positively nonexistent,, and the run of play was not as well managed (see my Months in Review for January and February, in particular). Not when the Devils improved in recent weeks or when game pressure increased. Not that Ruff manages that well, considering what he said to the media after Our Hated Rivals lost 1–5.
Still, there is pressure on the Devils. The group must prove they are not just another issue for Tom Fitzgerald to handle without Ruff. If the club is to have a realistic shot at the playoffs without Ruff, they have to get rolling pretty darn fast. Fitzgerald has to be careful that his superiors do not think he is like his mentor and predecessor,, Ray Shero, who hung onto his head coach (John Hynes) for much too long before being fired soon after.
If Tom Fitzgerald’s calm demeanor was intended to save the season, then he was at least one month (if not two) late. Less pressure exists if the goal of this firing is to evaluate the staff for the upcoming season and see what they can do.
I do, however, remind the People Who Matter that the Devils are a cap team with a plethora of gifted players in prime years who are committed to long contracts. The season is and was one of wins now. For the foreseeable future, at least, it will be a win-now team. Ruff showed he could not succeed even after winning 52 games the previous season and defeating Gerard Gallant in the postseason. Absolutely not. The guy is ruff. Fitzgerald has to track the person down. Or Josh Harris, David Blitzer, and their supporters might come to the conclusion that Fitzgerald is not the right guy either.
