Enough Is Enough With Ruff--And Other Suggestions For The Lost-Cause Devils
To paraphrase a joke from the amusing New Jersey-based film, “Beer League”, Yogi Berra just phoned from heaven. “It’s over,” he said to the 2023-24 Devils.
If you’re looking for a more descriptive phrase that encapsulates this lost season, you can go back to a way earlier quote that originated some 240 years ago: “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
This season was set up for New Jersey to take the next step in their growth following a record-setting 2022-23 campaign that produced their first playoff series victory since 2012. They poured money into talent and made trades to stamp this as a win-now team. Instead, the Devils (30-27-4) will be trekking home from their disappointing three-game California road trip below real .500 and sitting seven points behind Philadelphia, their closest competitor with a postseason seed.
Those seven points might as well be 27 points given how this team has been performing with everything on the line. After a promising 7-2 win in San Jose, they got out-goalie’d in a 4-3 loss at Anaheim and then dropped an uninspiring 5-1 decision to Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon despite scoring the first goal for just the 17th time all season 15 seconds in.
With so much stacked against them—the league’s third-toughest remaining schedule, the three-point games, nowhere else to go to find a goalie capable of getting hot—they’re practically toast. The Devils’ effort, or lack thereof, to get inside of the Kings’ packed defense once they fell behind, 2-1, in the second period on a rather soft goal surrendered by goalie Nico Daws suggested a growing realization of their fate.
It’s too late for Devils General Manager Tom Fitzgerald to make a go-for-it maneuver. He had all season to evaluate whether his goaltending and young defense could handle the higher expectations. He failed to address it when it became obvious to any hockey observer they couldn’t. Why chase good money after bad now?
Here’s what should be done as soon as the plane lands in New Jersey:
1) Fire Lindy Ruff
I’m not one of those “Fire The Head Coach” guys as soon as adversity strikes, though I’ll admit to lobbying on this forum for Ruff to go after the 2021-22 season like many Devils fans. Fitzgerald’s faith in Ruff proved everyone wrong then, but it’s different this season. This team may boast a pair of rookie defensemen in Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec carrying heavy roles, but it is generally a veteran club that should know better than to repeat the same mental and execution mistakes so often. It sure seems like they’ve tuned Ruff out. On top of that, there were the mishandlings of players, from moving Hughes around, overworking Daws, hamstringing young sniper Alexander Holtz with guys who can’t skate (thank goodness Ruff dressed newly acquired tough guy Kurtis MacDermid in L.A.—he skated four shifts totaling 2:06 until the last two minutes of garbage time), and his unholy obsession with defenseman Brendan Smith. Enough is enough with Ruff. Let Travis Green take over to run out the string and then conduct a new Head Coach search in the offseason.
2) Sell
Fitzgerald should forget about trading for Calgary’s Jacob Markstrom or any other top goalie allegedly on the market. Maybe it can be revisited in the summer. Instead, Fitzgerald should go back to what he knows best—and that’s accumulating assets in sales of his pending free agents this week through the March 8 NHL trade deadline. Wing Tyler Toffoli, New Jersey’s leading goal scorer, should be highly coveted, especially if the Devils retain his relatively modest $4.25 million salary cap hit. The Devils don’t have a second-round pick in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft thanks to last year’s Timo Meier blockbuster, so that should be the minimum bid for Toffoli. New Jersey’s other pending UFAs—Tomas Nosek, Chris Tierney, Colin Miller, Nick DeSimone, Smith, and MacDermid—probably won’t garner much interest, but you never know if a contending team wants to add a veteran depth piece for their playoff runs and doesn’t care about a late-round pick. At least ask.
3) Tank
To clarify, players and coaches always play to win. However, if, say someone like Jack Hughes or Meier has been battling through injuries so they can perform at a level below 100%, it’s pointless to allow them to continue. Get them healthy for a full offseason of workouts. Following any trades that open roster spots, give some of that ice time to younger players at AHL Utica. Most of the Comets’ games are on weekends, so if the Devils’ high command wants those players available for a push into the Calder Cup playoffs, they can still find isolated games during the week for guys like Graeme Clarke, Chase Stillman, and Santeri Hatakka without worrying about putting them through the waivers process. Maybe even give undrafted free agent goalie Isaac Poulter, 22, a start or two—he’s at least still stopping pucks, posting a .912 save percentage in 26 AHL games this season. It’s highly unlikely the Devils will lose enough to get decent odds on the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 lottery for a third time in eight years, but if they end up falling out of the top 10, they did this wrong, and it will be the final nail on the coffin of their failed of season.