News Article: Devils fire GM Ray Shero

[New Jersey]

I feel nothing.

 

[Japam]

Fix that and watch how fast our other problems go away, fix it and watch how much better of a goalie Blackwood becomes, we won our cups and formed our dynasty around the strength of that six-man unit and to me Shero's biggest mistake was the neglect of that unit.

The forwards are there, here and down on the farm, its this unit that has been our downfall the past few years.

I'm wondering if Marty as assistant GM, a goalie and first hand witness to the importance of wonderful D, really stresses this with their acquisitions moving forward.

 

[Tretyak 20]

I don't see Shero saying that at all.

Have you paid absolutely no attention to the rumors he was shopping Palmieri, Vatanen, Zacha, Wood and God only knows who else? He didn't even bother to call Vatanen about an extension, and Vatanen literally played 30+ minutes in a game for us recently and is the only reliable D we currently have.

 

[Lou is God]

I have seen with my own eyes what is down on the farm...I make a point to go to games every year, years past had much better performing prospects. In fact we don't have a single prospect down there who has performed as well as Qluenneville as a 20 year old.

Well first the farm extends past the Bing, and second I don't use AHL stats as a strong indicator how prospects will pan out, I can think of at least four current Bing prospects I would put over Quenneville.

 

[GameSeven]

Strickland with an interestingly different take than many of the other insiders.

Shero headed to Blues in 3... 2... 1...

 

[OmNomNom]

yeah until we get the new GM, i won't feel anything in hindsight. the new GM could suck worse, or maybe he'll be better. fingers crossed on the latter

 

[Setec Astronomy]

Yeah Politi is a hack, but he doesn’t necessarily say anything incorrect there.

Maybe, maybe not, but it's not anything particularly insightful. Politi knows far less about the team and the sport than anyone who posts here.

 

[R8Devs]

Well people saying Shero wanting to trade Palmieri and the owners nixing it doesn’t seem to be the case now with Lebrun saying that Shero wasn’t taking calls on him. So now I wonder if it’s quite the opposite

 

[Lou is God]

Have you paid absolutely no attention to the rumors he was shopping Palmieri, Vatanen, Zacha, Wood and God only knows who else? He didn't even bother to call Vatanen about an extension, and Vatanen literally played 30+ minutes in a game for us recently and is the only reliable D we currently have.

Or maybe we ain't done with the first rebuild? Trading away players for prospects/picks doesn't mean its a new rebuild, its just part of the process of the current rebuild, which is why I was willing to give Shero 2020-2021.

 

[glenwo2]

Well people saying Shero wanting you trade Palmieri and the owners nixing it doesn’t seem to be the case now with Lebrun saying that Shero wasn’t taking calls on him. So now I wonder if it’s quite the opposite

Or maybe it's not about Palms at all,

Maybe it's about Vats?

Maybe the Owners wanted Vats to be kept while Ray wanted to trade him?

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Have you paid absolutely no attention to the rumors he was shopping Palmieri, Vatanen, Zacha, Wood and God only knows who else? He didn't even bother to call Vatanen about an extension, and Vatanen literally played 30+ minutes in a game for us recently and is the only reliable D we currently have.

Even if we accept this, that doesn't mean he wants to blow it up. It means he wants to get draft picks to trade for more players instead of sign/re-sign them because signing UFAs is for dum dums apparently.

 

[Better Call Sal]

Well people saying Shero wanting you trade Palmieri and the owners nixing it doesn’t seem to be the case now with Lebrun saying that Shero wasn’t taking calls on him. So now I wonder if it’s quite the opposite

You mean Shero holding steady on keeping guys like Palms and ownership going against it?

It wouldn't necessarily jive with their "We want to win as soon as possible" mantra in the presser, but I guess it could be relative to whatever Harris sees fit.

We're never going to have the full answers to this happening, I feel like.

 

[Setec Astronomy]

This is why so many sports organizations are so poorly-run is this logic right here. Not that Shero is an exemplar of a well-run organization or was ultra-competent, but the idea that you just work in total generalities, and 'if he's not winning, he's not part of the solution, time for him to go'. What's to stop this sort of process from repeating over and over, and what's the cost of switching to a new person every time?

Or again, it's possible that Shero said "sell and build through the draft" despite saying there was no "rebuild 2.0." That's not a particularly imaginative or inspiring strategy. Anyone with a cellphone to call other GMs and internet connection to look at prospect rankings can do that.

 

[johnny pierogi]

Harris and Blitzer about to make the next step towards turning the Devils into Philadelphia north and bring in Ron Hextall. They already got the Yuengling partnership and (215) area code for their ticket spam callers

 

[Lou is God]

I'm wondering if Marty as assistant GM, a goalie and first hand witness to the importance of wonderful D, really stresses this with their acquisitions moving forward.

Lets hope. After we made the playoffs in 2017, Shero stood pat with our defensive unit and that was a disaster, even something simple as replacing John Moore was neglected, he put too much faith in Mueller, Butcher and an aging Greene and it cost us, this past off season he traded for PK which was a good move, but he's not the type of defenseman we needed coming into this season, PK should have been one of multiple moves on the blue line, not just the only one.

 

[None Shall Pass]

The Burnside article was a whole lot of "Wahhh they didn't tell us anything about it" and not much else imo

 

[AfroThunder396]

We would have needed a lot more than that after Shero started trading guys off. How far off would we have been after trading Vat this season, replacing Greene who for all the **** he gets is still better than almost all of the other **** here, going through more of the same next year and trading FA’s to be Palm/Gusev/Coleman cause they ‘don’t fit the timeline’?

The owners probably agree with you more than Shero did.

So now we're moving into speculation. There's no evidence that Palms has ever been shopped, and trading Vatanen while I personally would have disagreed with makes sense given his age and injury history.

You're acting like Shero strip mined the organization and sold off every contributing player for picks. Was Brian Boyle a core player to build around? Was Lee Stempniak? Vernon Fiddler and PA Parenteau?

It's totally reasonable to not want to give a major monetary commitment to two guys with concussion history and to sell them while you have the chance. Lou bought a lemon in Ryane Clowe and was universally criticized for it at the time, and everyone who criticized it was proven correct.

For the record, I would have re-signed both Johansson and Vatanen, despite the risks, but like selling on two UFA's with injury histories is a totally reasonable decision even if you personally disagee. And it's hardly the basis for firing someone.

It's very weird to criticize Ray for being gun shy about adding anyone in free agency when he was an aggressive (borderline reckless) buyer at the deadline in 2018 and made major adds this past summer as well. Double especially when you look at all the UFA contracts that were signed the past 5 years and where they are now - guys that were championed on this board like Shattenkirk, de Haan, Gardiner, etc turned out to be horrendous signings.

 

[guitarguyvic]

in your analogy, we’re talking about the new CEO of toys r us being expected to take a company that was mismanaged and run into the ground and change it into an amazon competitor in 5 years. that’s ridiculously impractical.

For the unpteenth time, this analogy is an absolute straw man lie...expecting a new CEO to at minimum incrementally improve year over year sales in five years time is absolutely reasonable and THAT is the correct analogy to what should have been expected here. NO ONE IS SAYING THAT THIS TEAM SHOULD BE A CUP CONTENDER NOW SO PLEASE STOP REPEATING THIS LIE TO DEFEND RAY AND BASH THOSE OF US WHO WERE CRITICAL OF HIM.

 

[Spoiled Bratt]

That’s ironic coming from you considering you were one of the main proponents of trading a 1, Severson and the kitchen sink for PK.

I wanted Severson gone because we had Vatanen and with Subban, who had 3 years left on his deal and is light years better then Severson, would’ve made us a better team.

Last time I checked, PK Subban isn’t signed until age 36, 37, 38 or 39... so I don’t get your point?

That and the fact that we picked up Subban for loose change wasn’t an option at the time. If I would’ve proposed the actual deal that went down, you would’ve banned me for life.

 

[MichaelJ]

There is no next rebuild. The pieces are mostly in place. We need a coach, a middle pairing LHD, a 1b/backup goalie, and another goal scoring winger. At least two of those can be filled internally.

If this team wants to be a serious championship contender and for a number of years they need more than that. They need an entire left side of the defense. As good as Vatanen has been, he’s probably a 3 on a perennial contender, meaning they need a long term (read: not Subban) top RHD. They need at least one more reliable scorer. How do they fill all of these needs without shifting assets around in trades? Shero understood the need for a top RHD for years. He targeted and wanted Carlson but he never made it to FA. He targeted Trouba who then backed Winnipeg into forcing him to the Rags. He finally had to settle for Subban and he’s not the answer and is gone in two years or less.

It’s possible to address some of the needs of this team but I guarantee that if they truly want to build a consistent contender players are going to be moved out that people are going to be upset over. The fact that the Devils have beaten some good teams lately is great; it doesn’t mean they’re anywhere close to making the playoffs over an entire season and it certainly says nothing about their ability to hang with these teams over a 7-game series.

 

[217 Forever]

you’re asking me who it doesn’t make sense to? literally everybody in the hockey community? a better question would be who did this make sense to? i have yet to find one respectable, established hockey persona to say they understand it, they saw it coming, etc.

in your analogy, we’re talking about the new CEO of toys r us being expected to take a company that was mismanaged and run into the ground and change it into an amazon competitor in 5 years. that’s ridiculously impractical.

usually, in a rebuild, you have valuable assets to sell off to jumpstart it. what assets did shero have to sell off? who was lining up to buy ruutu? or ****ing bobby farnham?

That's not my analogy at all. The equivalent would be just to make Toys R Us a viable company again in five years.

As for the hockey community not liking this, I'm a rebel and contrarian by nature so that doesn't faze me at all. I'm the guy who waits for the public to bet Team A so I know to bet Team B.

Finally, put yourself in the owners shoes. They sit down with Ray for a 5 year business review. We've played two home playoff games during that whole time, otherwise we've generally been eliminated after a month or two of each season. The ticket base is not expanding. We just had to trade our best (at least offensive) player. We spent a boatload on a defenseman clearly not worth half of his $10M yearly contract. We also just had to fire his handpicked coach who also just recently got an extension. Ray's response essentially is going to be, well we got lucky with the draft lotteries so we have Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier to build around. Beyond that you'll just have to trust me. Is that really supposed to fly?

 

[Better Call Sal]

The Burnside article was a whole lot of "Wahhh they didn't tell us anything about it" and not much else imo

He's always been a dipshit with Devils related stuff. I don't think he's wrong about the timing being surprising and not being given any real answers, but at the same time, what did he expect?

 

[Mike27Devils]

If vatanen liked NJ it would be in the teams best interest to trade him at the deadline for a 1st rounder and then sign him in the offseason as a UFA if the team isn’t making the playoffs. I’m sure if a gm told vatanen that, then he would be on board with going to the playoffs with a contender then signing where he sees a fit long term in NJ. In this day in age it’s stupid to hold on to a ufa if you’re not making the playoffs so I’m not sure why this would be a discussion point for the possible firing of shero.

 

[Setec Astronomy]

Or maybe we ain't done with the first rebuild? Trading away players for prospects/picks doesn't mean its a new rebuild, its just part of the process of the current rebuild, which is why I was willing to give Shero 2020-2021.

Trading players on expiring contracts that don't fit in with what you want to do with the future is not a sign of a second rebuild. Trading Taylor Hall after last year saying "not on your f*cking life" when asked about it and reportedly being open to trading many more pieces than guys on expiring contracts does indicate that's what Shero had in mind.

 

[johnny pierogi]

I long for the days of the goal song arguments!