How Long Of a Leash Does Sheldon Keefe Have as Head Coach of The Devils?
One of the first orders of business for new GM Sunny Mehta was to decide whether or not the Devils would keep Sheldon Keefe aboard as the head coach of the New Jersey Devils. Mehta ultimately decided to keep Keefe, and the Devils rebuilt their coaching staff along with everything else they did this summer.
Under Keefe, the Devils haven’t had issues getting off to good starts. The Devils were 15-7-1 and and 15-8-2 on American Thanksgiving the previous two seasons. The problem has been what the Devils do after that. Obviously, some of that is injury-related but the bottom line is that in both seasons, the Devils have had long, extended periods of hockey that could be classified somewhere between mediocre and bad.
You don’t want to panic, but we’ve also seen this movie enough times in the past to know how it goes once it begins. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The last thing the Devils need is for another good start to be squandered as things snowball and the Devils go from “lock” playoff team to “on the bubble” or worse.
And this is assuming they get off to a good start once again. Which raises the question “what if they don’t”? If they get off to a slow start with the team mostly healthy early in the season, it’ll only make Keefe’s seat warmer.
I can understand Mehta wanting to give Keefe a chance. But at the end of the day, Mehta did not hire Sheldon Keefe, and Mehta is going to be judged on his win-loss record just like any other GM or head coach in any other market would be. And with the changes the Devils have made, there’s no excuse for Keefe not to deliver. Particularly when Keefe has been given a roster that he can work with.
I don’t know who Mehta would target as a replacement head coach. John Tortorella, Bruce Cassidy, and Jay Woodcroft are all sitting out there, but as far as I know, Mehta doesn’t have a direct connection with any of them. New assistant coach Ted Donato has a ton of experience from his two plus decades as Harvard’s head coach. Brad Shaw has some experience as well as a former interim head coach. I do know its unlikely the Panthers let an assistant coach go in-season if Mehta wanted to pluck from the Florida tree once again.
If Things Aren’t Going Well, How Aggressive Will Sunny Mehta Be to Fix It?
Longtime readers will know that one of my biggest pet peeves under the previous regime was Tom Fitzgerald’s tendency to do nothing when things weren’t going well.
Of course, that’s not entirely true as Fitzgerald let it be known through those in the national media that he was always “making calls” and “working the phones”. And it does take two to tango on a trade. But there’s other buttons a general manager can press in-season, whether its calling someone up from the AHL or making a change with the coaching staff, up to and including the head coach. Whether Fitzgerald couldn’t do anything because he hamstrung himself operating in LTIR or he chose not to do anything almost doesn’t matter as both options are unacceptable.
I can understand wanting to be patient and disciplined. I can understand not wanting to make a rash judgment or overreact to something. But it’s a fine line between being patient and being complacent with what was going on on the ice. Too often, Fitzgerald failed to see the difference between the two until it was far too late.
Generally speaking, there needs to be more of a sense of urgency with this entire group, from management to coaches all the way down to players. It’s something that I talked about a few months ago when the Golden Knights made a late season coaching change. We’re seeing more and more in this era of player empowerment that if a star player isn’t thrilled with their current situation, they’re going to want to be moved to an organization that gives them a better chance to win. We’ve seen it with Brady Tkachuk, Connor Hellebuyck, Zach Werenski, and Dylan Larkin to varying degrees this offseason regardless of how much time they have left on their deals. You don’t think if the Devils have another bad season or two here that Jack Hughes might be next, regardless of how many years are left on his deal? The pressure is on to win now.
Mehta knows this group of players better than we do, but he also knows what the current landscape of the league actually is. He knows how much more difficult his job will be if the good players he does have want out because the organization can’t get out of their own way. I say all of this to say that another season of the GM sitting on his hands and/or preaching patience isn’t going to cut it.
In a lot of ways, this is probably the biggest wild card for the Devils this season, and one we hopefully never see because the team is good enough consistently enough where they don’t need to make a sudden change. We don’t know how Mehta will react in-season if things aren’t going well because he’s never done the job before.
We do know that Mehta didn’t become as successful as he is by making rash decisions. The poker cliches have become a bit overdone with Mehta given his background, but any poker player knows pushing the issue with a bad hand more often than not is a losing proposition. Sure, occasionally you’ll hit the low cards or make a straight, but more often than not, you’re just losing in the long run by doubling down with bad cards.
I don’t know that the Devils have ‘bad cards’, per se. But I do know that they can’t afford to be entirely mediocre for 50%, 60%, or 70% of the season before doing something to address an obvious flaw. The league is too competitive night in, night out, and points are at a premium to the point where you can’t afford to just give them away.
Will the Devils Get a Healthy Season Out of Jack Hughes?
There is no question that the Devils need Jack Hughes in the lineup as much as possible.
With Jack Hughes in the lineup last season, the Devils were 34-24-3. Without him, they were 8-13-0.
When healthy, Jack Hughes is a Hart Trophy-caliber level of difference maker, as we saw in 2022-23 when he played 78 games, scored 43 goals, set the franchise record for points in a season with 99, and finished 8th in Hart voting. But the holdup has been that key phrase “when healthy”. The Devils have been chasing that high of the 2022-23 season since it happened, but have yet to get back to that point.
Make no mistake, we are talking about a game-breaking talent who became the fastest Devils player to reach 400 points this past season and currently sits one point shy of being a PPG player for his career (428 points in 429 games). There’s no replacing a Jack Hughes if he does go down, but also, the Devils have shown repeatedly over the last few years that they lack the depth to tread water if Jack misses time. They might be better equipped to handle that this season, but the point is that they have failed to manage to get by without him when he’s been out of the lineup. And while it’s obvious to say they need him to stay in the lineup, that doesn’t make it less true. They need him to stay in the lineup.
75 GP out of 84 needs to be the bare minimum, and ideally, this would be a year where we see him play all 84 or close to it. I wouldn’t actually bet on him playing all 84 games given his history, but if they get anything close to it and he plays the way we know he’s capable of playing, that’ll be a big difference right there in terms of where the Devils finish in the standings.
Will the Devils Forwards Actually Finish Their Chances This Season?
According to Moneypuck, the only Devils forwards (with at least 500 minutes of ice time) with more goals last season than expected goals at 5v5 are the following.
Jack Hughes – 18 goals, 15.3 expected goals
Cody Glass – 18 goals, 11.7 expected goals
Arseny Gritsyuk – 11 goals, 8.6 expected goals
That’s it. That’s the list. And the only addition the Devils made where they added a player who finishes his chances and actually exceeded his expected goal numbers the last few seasons was Anthony Mantha.
Too many Devils were snakebit last season, perhaps none moreso than Timo Meier. The group as a collective whole shot poorly as a team, and while there’s some modicum of bad luck involved (they finished 32nd in PDO), it also speaks to a group that simply did not finish their chances.
It’s not that the Devils did a poor job creating those chances either. They were 14th in expected goals for at 5v5, and 17th in expected goals for/60. Both of which are league average. But their -33.56 goals for above expected was dead last in the league and it’s not even close with the Islanders at 31st with -20.7.
There is plenty of room for the Devils to generate more chances offensively, but it’ll be for naught if the Devils don’t actually start finishing those chances. Adding Mantha should help, but let’s be frank. Expected goals need to become REAL goals at some point. Otherwise, they’re just numbers on a spreadsheet that somebody can point to when analyzing the team and suggesting they’re better than they actually are in reality.
Will Luke Hughes Take That Next Step In His Development?
I already talked about this last month but it bears repeating. The Devils as presently constructed do not have a #1 defenseman on their roster despite paying two defensemen like a #1 defenseman.
The Devils need Luke Hughes to take that next step in his development and look the part, ultimately proving Tom Fitzgerald correct when the Devils handed him $9M AAV for seven seasons.
I don’t have much more to add on this outside of what I wrote last month, but I do have confidence that Luke will take a step forward this season. How big a step that is will likely have a direct hand in the Devils fate this season. The good news is that he looked the part late last season when he returned from injury. There’s also no excuses like there has been in the past between injuries and a contractual negotiation going into camp this season. The Devils don’t have any of that this season. Luke should be ready to go come Opening Night and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t hit the ground running.
Can the Devils Get An Unexpected Boost Elsewhere in the Lineup?
Aside from Luke though, the Devils could stand to get more out of somebody else in the lineup. We know what the top players like the Hughes brothers, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, and Timo Meier are supposed to do. The question is if they can expect more out of anybody else.
Admittedly, I’m skeptical that Dawson Mercer is capable of being that guy. He’s certainly of the right age (25 in October) and experience level (410 NHL games), but he’s also been entirely mediocre the last three seasons despite playing 17+ minutes a night and regularly getting a role in the top six. That doesn’t mean I’m not open to the idea of Dawson Mercer taking another step. It’s just that I’m getting to the point where I don’t expect it from him and anything he does on top of his 20 goals/40 points per season is gravy.
One player I would be looking at though is Arseny Gritsyuk.
Gritsyuk is actually older than Mercer by about seven months, so it’s less about age and more about role with him. He more than held his own in terms of playing a solid two-way game in his first taste of NHL action this past season. The question with him will be if he can earn that Top Six role and position himself to rip home a bunch of feeds from the playmakers on the Devils roster. The Devils have presented some potential roadblocks with their acquisitions of Mantha and Luke Evangelista this offseason, but you also don’t want Gritsyuk to just be handed that opportunity either. Go out there and earn it and he’ll get plenty of ice time. If he can, that would solve a lot of the Devils issues right there.
The other player I look at is the aforementioned Evangelista.
Evangelista set a new high water mark in terms of points in a season, mostly because he was very good at setting up plays and racking up primary assists. But he also did a lot of that on the power play and he may or may not get similar usage on a top Devils power play unit unless they spread their talent across both units. He shot 7.5% and 6.8% the last two seasons, so cue up the jokes on how he’ll fit right in with this Devils group being yet another forward who can’t find the back of the net.
That said, the advanced stats are there in terms of puck possession, play driving, passing metrics, and expected goals share. He did mention during his media availability that he needs to become more of a dual threat and improve his ability to put the puck in the back of the net. If he can actually do that and become a guy who scores 20-25 goals instead of the 10 and 12 he has the last two seasons, that would go a long way. Letting him be the facilitator on a top line with Nico Hischier and Timo Meier who is also defensively responsible, as Jackson suggested, may be the smart play.
When It Matters, Can the Devils Get a Save?
For those outside of our Devils-centric bubble, they’ll likely point to the expected goaltending tandem of Jake Allen and Nico Daws and question whether or not the Devils can get a save?
I would point to the outgoing Jacob Markstrom and say “I don’t know, but we sure didn’t last year when that guy was here”
I don’t want to pin all of the Devils shortcomings on Markstrom, but I’m not going to sugarcoat it either. Markstrom was terrible last season regardless of whatever metric you want to use. The fact that Sunny Mehta was able to not only get out of the Jacob Markstrom contract, but do so while getting assets in return, is reason enough to be optimistic about Mehta as he builds the roster going forward.
But I also get it if one wants to look at a goaltending tandem of 36-year old Jake Allen and a relatively unproven Nico Daws and be underwhelmed. The Devils have tried going the “cheaper, homegrown player with a steady veteran” route before the last few years and for the most part, it hasn’t worked. The Devils may or may not have actually improved at the position, but at least they’re not paying as much to get bad goaltending if that’s what ultimately happens.
Goaltending is voodoo, and if there’s a positive, it’s that the Devils will no longer have the worst goaltending coach in the league overseeing the operation. If the idea is that “we just need league average goaltending”, Jake Allen has proven to be a perfectly cromulent choice. Daws is the wild card here whether or not he will hold up over a larger sample size at the NHL level. The results have been promising, but limited, the last two years for Daws.
We’re not asking for prime Martin Brodeur here. We’re simply asking for whoever is between the pipes to give us a chance to win on any given night. The good news is, for the most part, Jake Allen and Nico Daws have done that when given the opportunity the last two seasons for the Devils. But with Markstrom gone, their respective roles will expand and we’ll see if they’re up to it.
Will the Devils Be Able to Add If the Opportunity Presents Itself?
Even if things go right, it feels like the Devils are a top player away from truly becoming a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. There’s a reason why they’re a coin flip playoff team at best right now.
This year’s iteration of the Devils have two things that last year’s team did not. Cap space (not a ton of it, but they’re also not operating in LTIR) and draft capital. They dipped into their remaining cap space and additional draft capital from the Simon Nemec trade when they made the move for Evangelista, but there are ways to create more cap space and/or acquire more draft capital if necessary.
We don’t know what opportunities may or may not present itself over the course of the season. We don’t know if Quinn Hughes will decline to sign a long-term Minnesota because he wants to play with his brothers and signing in Minnesota makes no sense if that’s what he indeed wants. We don’t know if Dylan Larkin will expand his trade list if/when the Red Wings get around to hiring a new general manager. We don’t know if a team with a big pending UFA may struggle this season, whether it’s Dallas with Jason Robertson, Ottawa with Drake Batherson, Detroit with Alex Debrincat, Seattle with Jared McCann, or whoever.
What we do know is the Devils have the assets, cap, and roster flexibility to be in the mix for whatever may become available. We also know from Mehta’s first offseason as GM that he’ll be aggressive if the situation warrants.
Will the Devils Take Care of Business in the Metropolitan Division?
If one is curious as to why the Devils finished 7th in the Metropolitan Division, look no further than their record in the division at 7-17-2 last season.
It’s one thing to go winless against a team like Carolina that has had their number and was the Stanley Cup champions. It’s another thing to go winless against the Islanders and Flyers. Or to only win one game out of four against a Penguins team that was open to selling anything and everything before last season only to wind up making the playoffs because the rest of the division was that pathetic.
They’re not just losing either. They got dominated. The Islanders outscored them 17-4, thanks in large part to a 9-0 blowout that saw the Devils make precisely zero changes in the immediate aftermath of a game like that. The Penguins and Flyers outscored them by over 2:1 margins, as did the aforementioned Carolina team that these Devils never seem to manage to beat.
Seven wins in division in twenty six games is unacceptable. I don’t care how competitive the Metropolitan is. It’s not the murderer’s row that is The Atlantic, and it doesn’t have the high upside teams like the Central does outside of Carolina. If the Devils want to be more competitive, it starts with being better against the teams closest to home in the Metro.
Can the Devils Solve Their Carolina Problem?
One thing I feel comfortable saying is that until this iteration of the Devils figures out how to consistently beat Carolina, they will never win anything of substance.
Sure, there’s always the possibility they get lucky, someone else takes care of Carolina for them, and that roadblock is cleared out of the way in a potential Eastern Conference Semifinal or Final matchup. But its not something that I would bank on. Carolina is the team to beat until proven otherwise, and they’ve had the Devils number for quite some time.
Define quite some time, you may ask?
How’s 5-11-3 in the regular season and 2-8 in the playoffs since COVID-19 shut the world down sound?
Not great if you’re a Devils fan.
I know this is something that I’ve harped on the last few years on here, but as long as the NHL has their crappy playoff format that emphasizes divisional style brackets, it’s more likely than not that the Devils will run into Carolina at some point if they make the playoffs. There’s no running away from it. It’s a problem that needs to be solved at some point. Carolina isn’t going to age out of their competitive window anytime soon, so unless Eric Tulsky and Rod Brind’Amour get bored and look for a challenge elsewhere, it’s on the Devils to step up their game. It’s the classic Ric Flair “to be the man, you have to beat the man” mantra.