Post-Game Talk: Devils lose 6-1 to the Flyers; should it cost someone their job?

[NJDevs26]

It's almost eery how similar our record has been at this point the last two years.

Last year we started 6-4-2...then won 4 of our next 15 games.

This year we started 7-3-2...and have won 3 of our last 15 games.

It peaked at 6-3-2 last year…but yeah, one game difference with our high point of the season

 

[BurntToast]

The real question..does Ruff count against, Fitz?

What came first (chicken or egg)?

Typically you get two coaches as a GM..

I honestly think it’s team construction, plus injuries, plus Covid. Most of the team got Covid, the two most important players miss significant development time, at the end of the day the team needs some guff. Boyle>Mikey. Coleman> 4th Line. Wood Rip..

Ruff is OK, the only thing the Org can do is ride the wave and make changes in the offseason. He just completed 1 season, if you added the days from last year. At this point, it’s development or bust: (Every practice should be skills training.)


Edit: Man, Coleman/Saad > Tatar

 

[ninetyeight]

Ruff is only the 3rd head coach since the 2011-12 season, Pete DeBoer / John Hynes / Lindy Ruff. Stevens and Oates were interims after Pete and Nas interim after Hynes. Hynes stuck around for almost 4.5 seasons which was ridiculous.

That's still two firings and bunch of different staff with the same results. It looks like a quick fix when you look at Vancouver, but different teams have different issues. Our players like Ruff and I'm sure want to play for him. And like said above, sacking a coach usually leads to a short term boost, but eventually the wheels will come off. The Vancouver and Flyers winning streaks will come to an end eventually so we'll see what happens then.

That said I wouldn't be mad if they did fire the entire staff, I just don't think it would make difference at this point.

 

[FooteBahl]

That's still two firings and bunch of different staff with the same results. It looks like a quick fix when you look at Vancouver, but different teams have different issues. Our players like Ruff and I'm sure want to play for him. And like said above, sacking a coach usually leads to a short term boost, but eventually the wheels will come off. The Vancouver and Flyers winning streaks will come to an end eventually so we'll see what happens then.

That said I wouldn't be mad if they did fire the entire staff, I just don't think it would make difference at this point.

Jettison the whole staff and bring up Dineen, his staff and someone like Foote or Clarke to use their shots on our horrific PP. Sit Kuok in favor of one of them. It may not make a difference at this point like you said, but something needs to be done.

 

[GameSeven]

After having a night to further reflect on this one...

 

[Wierzbowski426]

Welp, that was gross.

At least we are heading for another top 10 pick

 

[Bleedred]

Blackwood looked VERY under the weather last night.

That was the worst game he's played this year and one of the worst of his career as far as the types of goals.

Goal 3 almost looked as bad as goal 1. It was so bad, I couldn't believe it went in clean. I really wanted to believe that went off Hamilton, but no, it didn't. It was just BAD.

He was partially screened by Hamilton on it, but it wasn't a good goal.

 

[Jersey Fan 12]

Jonathan? Huh?

Not sure what else ownership is supposed to really do, other than let the GM do his job and invest in the team, facilities, etc. Getting rid of the coaching staff is no cure, but maybe will help things start to turn around.

The Blitzer/Harris team is great at producing profits and marketing merchandise and other promotional gimmicks.

Sadly, much like the Sixers, they are adept at ensuring profit, regardless of wins or losses.

Unfortunately, that's not all that related to success in terms of developing a competitive team.

 

[MadDevil]

Obviously they should have signed DeAngelo instead of Hamilton.

 

[Bleedred]

It's almost eery how similar our record has been at this point the last two years.

Last year we started 6-4-2...then won 4 of our next 15 games.

This year we started 7-3-2...and have won 3 of our last 15 games.

It peaked at 6-3-2 last year…but yeah, one game difference with our high point of the season

I don't even get the least bit excited by these ''Hot starts'' anymore. It seems like we have these ''Hot starts'' in 7 or 8 of the last 10 years. The only years we started out shitty in the last 10 years was our TERRIBLE start to 13-14, where I think we might have only had one win in the first 10 games. Ironically, that was our second best finish points wise in the last 10 seasons. Second to only the 17-18 year, our only playoff berth since then. We also had a pretty poor start in Hynes and Shero's first year here, but wound up staying afloat all season and were even in a playoff spot on Valentine's Day of 2016 and I think we even led the league in fewest goals against that that point.

The last Hynes year was also a BAD start too, where we had a long winless drought to start the season. And those were the only weak starts. The 13-14, 15-16 and 19-20 seasons. The others we either 3 or 4-0-0 starts or at least had a good record into November. And only one of them was a playoff year.

The first year we had Taylor Hall we started out with a pretty good record too through Thanksgiving. We imploded right before Thanksgiving.

And who can forget the 4-0-0 start to 18-19? With 2 Kinkaid shutouts in those 4 games to start the year lol.

How about our 3-0-0 start in 14-15 and weren't we also 3-0-0 at the start of the lockout season in 2013? We surely had a pretty good record the first weeks or maybe even the first month of that season before Marty got injured.

The only year we had a really good start (and it was our best one in the last possibly 15 years after the first 10-12 games? Maybe the 09-10 year when Lemaire first came back had a better first 10-12 game record or maybe even the 08-09 team did before Marty got injured) to the season and actually made the playoffs was 17-18 in the Taylor Hall MVP year.

 

[Oneiro]

The team seems to respect Nico as a leader, which means a lot more than what people on message board think when they pretend they can judge his worthiness for this sort of thing.

Why so testy over the C thing?

Most captains in the league have been the best player on their team for a sustained period of time or they’re on the older side with many battles under their belt. It’s not weird or controversial to balance locker room respect with performance in giving it out.

It’s done and likely won’t be changed but show me a successful team that handed it out early to a player with less accomplishment. Even Horvat in an absolute joke organization had a year as an alternate and then a breakout season before getting it.

It’s a young team and of course the cap hit is a cap management / age curve tactic. Fitz rightfully does not want to commit big money to a fading vet with so called credibility. But the whole growing into your Pop’s suit thing has to have some accountability attached to it. When is the right time to expect Nico and everyone else to be better? How much longer can you show good faith without results?

I don’t like Ruff or Hynes so maybe it’s a Goldilocks thing with the system, maybe even management as a whole, but at some point you need your best players to transcend circumstance.

 

[HyperX]

Its 12:20pm EST - when should I expect firings by? 3pm?

 

[Guttersniped]

Why so testy over the C thing?

Most captains in the league have been the best player on their team for a sustained period of time or they’re on the older side with many battles under their belt. It’s not weird or controversial to balance locker room respect with performance in giving it out.

It’s done and likely won’t be changed but show me a successful team that handed it out early to a player with less accomplishment. Even Horvat in an absolute joke organization had a year as an alternate and then a breakout season before getting it.

It’s a young team and of course the cap hit is a cap management / age curve tactic. Fitz rightfully does not want to commit big money to a fading vet with so called credibility. But the whole growing into your Pop’s suit thing has to have some accountability attached to it. When is the right time to expect Nico and everyone else to be better? How much longer can you show good faith without results?

I don’t like Ruff or Hynes so maybe it’s a Goldilocks thing with the system, maybe even management as a whole, but at some point you need your best players to transcend circumstance.

I’m testy over the idiotic “strip Nico of C” plan more than anything, particularly in response to game where his absence was a problem.

And I don’t see how his performance is sullying the C either. I don’t see the problem because “ohhh, don’t give the magic special letter to anyone until a very special person walks in” is super goofy and I literally don’t believe Nico doesn’t “deserve” it.

 

[MadDevil]

Its 12:20pm EST - when should I expect firings by? 3pm?

You're probably going to be disappointed.

 

[Cheddabombs]

Why so testy over the C thing?

Most captains in the league have been the best player on their team for a sustained period of time or they’re on the older side with many battles under their belt. It’s not weird or controversial to balance locker room respect with performance in giving it out.

It’s done and likely won’t be changed but show me a successful team that handed it out early to a player with less accomplishment. Even Horvat in an absolute joke organization had a year as an alternate and then a breakout season before getting it.

It’s a young team and of course the cap hit is a cap management / age curve tactic. Fitz rightfully does not want to commit big money to a fading vet with so called credibility. But the whole growing into your Pop’s suit thing has to have some accountability attached to it. When is the right time to expect Nico and everyone else to be better? How much longer can you show good faith without results?

I don’t like Ruff or Hynes so maybe it’s a Goldilocks thing with the system, maybe even management as a whole, but at some point you need your best players to transcend circumstance.

Landeskog was named captain after one year in the league. Brady Tkachuk was just named captain after 3. There are examples of others being named captain early on, even without the accolades.

Didn't seem to affect the Avs too much. They had awful seasons after he was named captain and they stuck with it. Now they're one of the better teams in the league. What did change was their talent.

The captain thing is such a non-issue I really don't get it at all. Stripping Nico of the captaincy isn't going to make him play better. It's not going to make Bratt, Hughes, Mercer, etc play better.

We need better players and better coaching. Doesn't matter who the captain is.

This is all especially weird to me because the captain thing is so subjective and based on stuff we have no idea about as fans. None of know how things are in that locker room. Who are we to say who are and aren't leaders on the team... I don't get it man.

 

[TheUnseenHand]

The real question..does Ruff count against, Fitz?

What came first (chicken or egg)?

Typically you get two coaches as a GM..

I honestly think it’s team construction, plus injuries, plus Covid. Most of the team got Covid, the two most important players miss significant development time, at the end of the day the team needs some guff. Boyle>Mikey. Coleman> 4th Line. Wood Rip..

Ruff is OK, the only thing the Org can do is ride the wave and make changes in the offseason. He just completed 1 season, if you added the days from last year. At this point, it’s development or bust: (Every practice should be skills training.)


Edit: Man, Coleman/Saad > Tatar

The team sucked with Coleman and Boyle and Wood as well.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Jettison the whole staff and bring up Dineen, his staff and someone like Foote or Clarke to use their shots on our horrific PP. Sit Kuok in favor of one of them. It may not make a difference at this point like you said, but something needs to be done.

It's either this or keep them all for another month min imo.

 

[MadDevil]

To be fair, it's mostly just a few of the usual loud Nico critics that are seriously discussing it. I think most of us realize it's not going to, nor should, happen.

 

[jkrdevil]

Its 12:20pm EST - when should I expect firings by? 3pm?

The Devils always release news at 5pm

 

[TheUnseenHand]

Ruff ain't getting fired.

 

[guitarguyvic]

The reality is that our prospects and players are not at the talent level that consensus had them. Some of us have been screaming for some time now about how the hype and pie charts and heat maps are not matching up to what is being displayed on the ice, but it’s been dismissed as “pessimism”. It seems more people are now finally starting to see the truth.

The other thing is that we seem to have a poor ownership and management culture.

It’s ugly. Stripping the C off a player or firing an assistant coach at this point is lipstick on a pig. They are the symptoms, not the disease.

 

[Guttersniped]

Its 12:20pm EST - when should I expect firings by? 3pm?

They aren’t firing guys over a loss when everyone is sick. I get that the tough talkers here don’t believe in “excuses” but actual context, otherwise known as fact, often called reality, supersedes the irrational emotional reactions on this board.

Now pro sports bread and butter is loyal fans’ irrational, emotional responses and I’m not a robot and I get it and have a loads of them too (or I wouldn’t spend time and money on this dumb team).

But with the illnesses and COVID protocols (and the NHL is imploding with them right now) and the goalie crisis (and that’s a full blown crisis if Bernier is broken) you aren’t giving any new coach a stable starting part.

There isn’t a AC I want as interim coach and I don’t want Dineen dragged up here this second because I’m frustrated. So interim coaches are a bad idea.

The coaches that got fired all had been there a lot longer, this would be a ridiculously quick hook. And the “it’s been 10 years!” doesn’t actually have anything to do with Fitz or this team, he can’t make panic moves because of that.

Assistants don’t get fired midseason because it’s hard to replace them midseason and the point wouldn’t be to punish Recchi, it would be to improve upon him. (I would like someone new there, and Fitz wants to throw a new guy into the mix that would be cool, but it typically doesn’t happen.)

This team had a hobbled goalie tandem that was together for 17 games. We had all three of our “too many centers!” for 7 1/2 games.

This is partly a depth issue and lots of people saw it coming, for instance, it wouldn’t have killed Fitz to get a very good veteran forward to solidify the bottom six when we had the cap space instead of just dumpsters diving with PTOs. Fitz isn’t blameless here.

But it can’t be fixed today and he’s not firing a sick coach who lost with a sick team. (And yes, we were losing before that but that’s what just happened in what people are arguing is “a must fire” game. It’s not that because of the context, it just sucks a ton.)

If the team improves this season AND Fitz takes that as a sign to stick with this whole staff I will lose my shit then because that’s honestly the worst case scenario.

 

[HyperX]

They aren’t firing guys over a loss when everyone is sick. I get that the tough talkers here don’t believe in “excuses” but actual context, otherwise known as fact, often called reality, supersedes the irrational emotional reactions on this board.

Now pro sports bread and butter is loyal fans’ irrational, emotional responses and I’m not a robot and I get it and have a loads of them too (or I wouldn’t spend time and money on this dumb team).

But with the illnesses and COVID protocols (and the NHL is imploding with them right now) and the goalie crisis (and that’s a full blown crisis if Bernier is broken) you aren’t giving any new coach a stable starting part.

There isn’t a AC I want as interim coach and I don’t want Dineen dragged up here this second because I’m frustrated. So interim coaches are a bad idea.

The coaches that got fired all had been there a lot longer, this would be a ridiculously quick hook. And the “it’s been 10 years!” doesn’t actually have anything to do with Fitz or this team, he can’t make panic moves because of that.

Assistants don’t get fired midseason because it’s hard to replace them midseason and the point wouldn’t be to punish Recchi, it would be to improve upon him. (I would like someone new there, and Fitz wants to throw a new guy into the mix that would be cool, but it typically doesn’t happen.)

This team had a hobbled goalie tandem that was together for 17 games. We had all three of our “too many centers!” for 7 1/2 games.

This is partly a depth issue and lots of people saw it coming, for instance, it wouldn’t have killed Fitz to get a very good veteran forward to solidify the bottom six when we had the cap space instead of just dumpsters diving with PTOs. Fitz isn’t blameless here.

But it can’t be fixed today and he’s not firing a sick coach who lost with a sick team. (And yes, we were losing before that but that’s what just happened in what people are arguing is “a must fire” game. It’s not that because of the context, it just sucks a ton.)

If the team improves this season AND Fitz takes that as a sign to stick with this whole staff I will lose my shit then because that’s honestly the worst case scenario.

I mean id disagree that some players being sick is an excuse to get out of a firing; so what, we lose the next two as well cause of guys being sick and then we have 3 wins in 17 games?

Recchi and probably even Ruff should have been fired after the Islander game. Last night only made it a must happen because we got embarrassed by the leagues worst team in the last 20 games, and being sick isnt an excuse to getting dominated by them

 

[captainscott]

To be fair, it's mostly just a few of the usual loud Nico critics that are seriously discussing it. I think most of us realize it's not going to, nor should, happen.

Nico is the least of this teams problems..

we are not phsycial or north south enough... its a soft team.. said in pre season and saying it again.. they are small, soft and young.. with ehhh goaltending and the worst special teams in the league.

the team makeup is bad and has been for 10 years... we went from old big and slow up and down the lineup to an over correction of soft , mildly skilled players.

honestly at this point Fitz has to find a trading partner. its gotta be a big trade 2 or 3 player swap.. we build around hughes/ hischier... but its time to cut bait with some of the other forwards and defensman. may have to be a zacha/smith and number 1 pick type of deal to bring in a true power winger and stay at home dman or something etc.... would hate to lose bratt but maybe you get something while he is on fire.... i don't know.. this team....it doesn't work i don't care what coach you have... its the team first and foremost.

 

[captainscott]

y

I mean id disagree that some players being sick is an excuse to get out of a firing; so what, we lose the next two as well cause of guys being sick and then we have 3 wins in 17 games?

Recchi and probably even Ruff should have been fired after the Islander game. Last night only made it a must happen because we got embarrassed by the leagues worst team in the last 20 games, and being sick isnt an excuse to getting dominated by them

yeah they were not good before the whole store got the flu...... and even when we were playing well.... we were still losing games we should have won...