Too many underachievers. The biggest being Schneider, Zacha, Wood, Johansson and maybe Butcher. All of these players are producing significantly less than either last season or their career totals. The only real overachievers right now are Blake Coleman and Mirco Mueller. Zacha needed to take a step forward, but is on pace for only 20 points and spent a couple weeks in the minors because he went the first 10 games without a single point. He only even got his first assist a couple games ago.
Some of these players I listed may not be underachieving as much as they just aren't good enough or in Schneider's case, they're absolutely shot to shit and have nothing left in the tank.
A couple of vets are out of gas. Andy Greene and Ben Lovejoy being the biggest, along with the aforementioned Cory Schneider. I'd be very happy if at least two of them were gone next year. Lovejoy is a UFA, so he probably goes and Greene is terrible and probably needs to play 16 minutes a night to be competent anymore. Schneider needs to be bought out immediately 48 hours after the SCF ends, when the window opens and not a second later. If he can finish the season somewhere around .910%-.915%, I'd be alright with keeping him one more year as a VERY sheltered backup, then letting the very probable amnesty buyout (or two) during the next CBA in a year or two take care of the rest of that albatross. Eye test tells me he's finished and he's about to go for probably an NHL record of consecutive games of allowing a goal on the first shot of the game. And if Shero isn't gonna use the f***in cap space than use some of it on Schneider's dead cap hit for the next 6 years.
One really big problem is the power play. We have a new power play coach this year and he's VERY bad.
Hynes sucks and isn't a good coach, but he can't be faulted when he only has one serviceable goalie. If I were Hynes though, I would fire the power play coach personally or ask Shero to do it. It might even prolong his job security. It was a bad mistake to hire Kowalsky, who was a mediocre head coach in the AHL for years. This was Hynes vouching for him to be the new assistant to Shero. It was his idea, which Shero seemed reluctant to do.
Last but not least, it's time for Shero to start feeling the heat if he doesn't have a huge offseason. We can say the rebuild isn't complete, but we're already looking at what could be the worst season since he's been here and we're 4 years into this rebuild. The team already has fewer points after 26 games than they did in any of the first 3 seasons Shero and Hynes have been here. There's a lack of criticism towards Shero right now in Devils land. Everyone wants to blame the coach, the goalie, the players. That's all fine and they all do deserve to be shredded, but it's Shero that keeps this goalie tandem together and doesn't send Schneider to the AHL. It's Shero that keeps this f***in brutal coaching staff intact. I don't know if his plan is to rebuild until Hall is 30-31 years old, but if it is, I can assume Hall doesn't wanna be a part of it and wasting a couple prime years still rebuilding.
