If only there was a team with multiple mismanaged injuries this year who could use a competent medical professional, I’m racking my brain trying to think of one
I only know about these things because I tend to follow what teams replace their head athletic trainers and what not. The Rangers made news last year firing Jim Ramsay after almost 30 years. He got hired almost immediately by Montreal to the same position or maybe even one higher up. Some teams not have a head of sports medicine, much like how some teams have a president of hockey ops. And some teams don't. And some teams it's just the head athletic trainer, but he doesn't use that title. There's the Jeff Gorton connection in Montreal and Ramsay is probably the most active highly regarded Canadian hockey athletic therapist.
So I'm a little familiar with the Devils situation, but have no knowledge of how or why the movement. They report on these things in some organizations when they happen, just not with the Devils.
We just had a new head athletic trainer named last in the middle of last season. I think he was one of the assistants, but was promoted to head after the other guy left midseason to take a job with the Mets. From what I remember, the guy came from the Mets in the first place, probably in a lower ranking role. Then he got that big position with us and left, but I guess he left midseason last year, just in time to show up for Mets spring training.
Before that we had a guy here for a while, who left midseason to join John Hynes in Nashville during the middle of the covid season. I have no idea how this came about and usually teams don't pluck a member of support staff midseason. Maybe Poile wanted to hire him? I think the rules for something like this are that person can't show up for work for the remainder of the year for that organization. They have to wait until their season has ended and can start work immediately then. Don't quote me on that rule though.
So the Devils have had quite a bit turnover at the head athletic therapist position in the last decade. We had Rich Stinziano for a while, but he's a Buffalo native and Buffalo called up Shero and asked if they could interview with him while he still worked for us. He's been with Buffalo ever since probably the second year of Shero here. I think the guy in Nashville now replaced him after that. He was either an assistant with us or maybe the head guy for the AHL Devils before that. I don't remember, but he stayed about 5 years and we've had at least 2 guys in his spot since then.
We also had Bill Murray (not that Bill Murray lol) for about 10 years. I read an interview with him where he said the lockout left a bad taste in his mouth because the owners and players didn't care about hurting the smaller guys like him and people like the equipment guys, and he came back for the year after it and then left to go be a caretaker for one of his parents. After that he started working in hockey again at very lower levels.
It would be sweet if he worked for the Devils, but people would probably be asking me nonstop if I had any details on what happened to a player that left the game lol. I will also say this. I tried not to pry too much about injuries because I do believe in the doctor patient confidentiality and so does he, even though this is one protocol that isn't always honored in pro sports.
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