News Article: Devils fire GM Ray Shero

[Spoiled Bratt]

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.

That’s because they’re in NJ or still in juniors.

Ask Lou and Conte why you’re attending a shit show in Binghamton... they’ll probably have a better answer to give you instead of Ray.

 

[NJDevs26]

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.

My point is you’re preaching a long timeline now when you were win-now gung ho this offseason and before.

 

[R8Devs]

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.

They said they want to win sustainably too. Trading Palmieri now with possible retention would give the acquiring team two playoff runs with him so the Devils could end up with a lot more assets to play with and could avoid the potential ramifications of a long term contract to a near 30 year old. That’s all depending on the return though but if you’re not comfortable with extending him this offseason this would be the best time to trade him in terms of what the devils would get back.

but we’ll never know about this anyway lol, maybe they both wanted to trade him but had different ideas on what the return/or how the assets from the return should be used

 

[NJDevs26]

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.

There’s definitely a lot of revisionist gaslighting going on vis-a-vis what people expected of Ray by now. Most of us criticizing him expected at bare minimum a competitive, borderline playoff team trending up by year FIVE and not needing a second rebuild or an 8-10 year rebuild. Saying anything more was expected or actually expecting more would be foolish, I agree. But that’s not what people are saying. It shouldn’t be too much to hope year five with compete now moves lasts till Easter instead of Halloween.

 

[ChicksDigTheTrap]

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

I would have thought posters would have learned from the reports this summer that had posters creaming in their pants that the Devils and Corey Perry II were making progress toward a contract extension when in reality the Devils never made Hall an offer. Lets wait and see what happens and make judgements based on the moves, not some random tweets.

We cannot even enjoy a 6-2-2 run and back to back regulations wins over the Caps and Lightning.

 

[Call Me Al]

apparently there's no middle ground between last place in the division and a stanley cup favorite and no middle ground between having no prospects at all or a team full of 21 year old connor mcdavids that need no development time. some of these arguments are asinine

 

[Tretyak 20]

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.

It means that you aren't looking to compete for a playoff spot for at least another two seasons (probably three) after this one. I can understand why ownership isn't willing to give a guy a decade before expecting results.

 

[Triumph]

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

I wonder if this piece had input from Shero himself - I doubt it, given that this industry is all about not burning your bridges and getting another opportunity. Still, I'm not really going to get behind this one even as I don't like this move - where there's a hockey man, there's always a sportswriter ready to defend him.

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.

I don't know anything about sales, but I doubt it has the year-to-year variability of hockey teams and the causes for that variability are unlikely to be similar. Incremental improvement isn't something that someone should expect in hockey.

 

[Tretyak 20]

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.

That IS blowing it up. That's exactly the definition of blowing it up.

 

[R8Devs]

I would have thought posters would have learned from the reports this summer that had posters creaming in their pants that the Devils and Corey Perry II were making progress toward a contract extension when in reality the Devils never made Hall an offer. Lets wait and see what happens and make judgements based on the moves, not some random tweets.

We cannot even enjoy a 6-2-2 run and back to back regulations wins over the Caps and Lightning.

It’s not a tweet it was a whole section in Lebruns article talking about Palmieri. He doesn’t make stuff up

 

[guitarguyvic]

And now we are citing Burnside and Politi to defend arguments - two hacks that this board historically (and rightfully) never took seriously before.

I think the biggest manifestation of a losing culture has been with our fans. Yikes.

 

[Lou is God]

It means that you aren't looking to compete for a playoff spot for at least another two seasons (probably three) after this one. I can understand why ownership isn't willing to give a guy a decade before expecting results.

Where in the holy hell did I say I'm not expecting playoffs for three seasons? Especially after I just said I was willing to give him one more year after this one or I want him to gone, wouldn't logic dictate I would be looking for a playoff team NEXT year??

 

[MartyOwns]

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.

i think it’s a stupid analogy anyway, it wasn’t mine to begin with. a CEO has very little in common with a hockey GM, for a variety of reasons. i appreciate the all caps though, that means the things you’re saying are very very important.

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?

no, ray’s response would be to look at our record over the last 10 games, look at our trajectory. then he’d ask to compare our rosters and prospects to what he had when he walked in here.

if you want to make your opinion on any given subject the opposite of everyone else (who has more experience and a better perspective) just to be ‘that guy’ then you go ahead and do that. just for the love of god, never ever own this hockey team

 

[guitarguyvic]

I wonder if this piece had input from Shero himself - I doubt it, given that this industry is all about not burning your bridges and getting another opportunity. Still, I'm not really going to get behind this one even as I don't like this move - where there's a hockey man, there's always a sportswriter ready to defend him.



I don't know anything about sales, but I doubt it has the year-to-year variability of hockey teams and the causes for that variability are unlikely to be similar. Incremental improvement isn't something that someone should expect in hockey.

Why not? It doesn’t necessarily have to be completely linear, and there’s other metrics and results in addition to wins/losses that can be looked at. I completely disagree with that assertion.

 

[longislanddevil]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/28473447/why-new-jersey-devils-fired-gm-ray-shero-now-next?platform=amp

Good read from ESPN, Kaplan & Wyshnyski.

 

[guitarguyvic]

i think it’s a stupid analogy anyway, it wasn’t mine to begin with. a CEO has very little in common with a hockey GM, for a variety of reasons. i appreciate the all caps though, that means the things you’re saying are very very important.

I put it in all caps because you and other posters continue to lie about what the people you disagree with expected out of this team/GM after five years. Why is that?

 

[MNDevilsfan]

Even though I wanted Shero out, I do kind of agree with Burnside on the ownership group looking sorta clueless here. Certainly begs some questions when you let a guy trade your biggest chip and fire your coach, only to can him six weeks later.

 

[Spoiled Bratt]

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?

Or he can say... "I landed Palmieri, Vatanen, Hall, MoJo, Subban, Gusev, Butcher, Hischier and Hughes for peanuts when I had to work with Larsson, Henrique and picks I gained by moving mediocre players that were on the roster I got from Lou".

 

[Tretyak 20]

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.

This is again, the idea that you need the "perfect team" to win Cups. Truth is you don't, and if you keep trading everything hoping to draft 5 superstar players at key positions simultaneously, you'll never do it and just keep losing infinitely.

 

[JimEIV]

I'm not even sure what the argument is anymore?

Are people claiming that Ray actually did do a good job and the firing was unjustified?

It just seems hard to follow what the main point is?

But regardless the owners disagreed at the end of the day that is all that really matters.

 

[217 Forever]

i think it’s a stupid analogy anyway, it wasn’t mine to begin with. a CEO has very little in common with a hockey GM, for a variety of reasons. i appreciate the all caps though, that means the things you’re saying are very very important.



no, ray’s response would be to look at our record over the last 10 games, look at our trajectory. then he’d ask to compare our rosters and prospects to what he had when he walked in here.

if you want to make your opinion on any given subject the opposite of everyone else (who has more experience and a better perspective) just to be ‘that guy’ then you go ahead and do that. just for the love of god, never ever own this hockey team

Clearly we don't agree on substance but if I was the one on the hot seat I don't think I could with a straight face try to hang my hat on the previous few weeks vs the 4+ years leading to that.

 

[AfroThunder396]

The Palmieri rumor came about because someone from The Athletic talked to an unnamed front office source in another unnamed organization who speculated that Palmieri might be available. That's literally it. A guy who works for another team thought something. That's the rumor.

 

[MartyOwns]

I put it in all caps because you and other posters continue to lie about what the people you disagree with expected out of this team/GM after five years. Why is that?

what did you expect, then? improvements? that’s fair. are there improvements? i can’t compare rosters for you, you’ll have to do that yourself.

have those improvements translated to nhl wins yet? no, because the goaltending has been historically awful, our coach wasn’t great, and most importantly prospects take time to develop.

firing shero isn’t some kind of time warp for our prospects. they are still the future of this team, and without any of dumbass lou contracts on the books (aside from schneider) we’re actually in a good position going forward.

 

[Spoiled Bratt]

My point is you’re preaching a long timeline now when you were win-now gung ho this offseason and before.

I was preaching to get a mediocre dman off our roster for a better one, that was on the market and would’ve made our team better.

We all thought we were going to have a good season but it didn’t work as planned. We moved Hall and we’re at the bottom of the standings.

Changing your plan because we didn’t get the results we were expecting is perfectly fine with me and I’m assuming that’s what Ray wanted to do as well. Things happen and you need to react accordingly.

Are you saying that you have to stick by your plan regardless of what happens in front of you?

 

[MartyOwns]

Clearly we don't agree on substance but if I was the one on the hot seat I don't think I could with a straight face try to hang my hat on the previous few weeks vs the 4+ years leading to that.

the thing we don’t agree on is context, not substance. substance is a thing i’m going to abuse after work to erase some of these ridiculous takes on here from my mind