The New Jersey Devils may be on break for the Olympics, but there are still players within the organization that are active. Sure, a few Devils are representing their countries at the Olympics, but I\u2019m mainly referring to prospects and AHL players in action. The team\u2019s affiliate, the Utica Comets, may have had the week off for the All Star break, but play resumes tomorrow for the league, while Utica has to wait until Saturday for their season to resume. Sitting with a record of 13-22-5-3 and in last place in the Eastern Conference, the New Jersey Devils organization as a whole is failing.<\/p>\n
While New Jersey has had some level of success (in that they at least made the playoffs a couple of times) over the last few seasons, Utica hasn\u2019t been a playoff team since 2022-23, and you could argue they were already declining towards the level they are at now in that season. While the team was legitimately good in 2021-22, they still weren\u2019t winners and their predecessor, the Binghamton Devils, was a bottom feeder more often than not as well.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s face it: most of the Devils\u2019 draft success stories are either from high first round selections or, like Arseny Gritsyuk and Jesper Bratt, are from overseas development. Yes, there\u2019s definitely been a handful of players who have come up through the Devils\u2019 minor league system who wound up going on to find NHL success, but even some that you could<\/a> call a success are looking more like minor complementary pieces<\/a> that true Top 6 Forward\/Top 4 Defender talent. There\u2019s still some hope for recent draftee and recently promoted Devil Lenni Hameenaho at least, but there still has to be a good amount of concern. The majority of the NHL club\u2019s current roster wasn\u2019t drafted by the Devils, and while that\u2019s probably true for a lot of teams, the Devils aren\u2019t being supplemented by most of their draft choices either. So what can be done to fix this?<\/p>\n Firing people seems to be a popular topic when discussing the Devils lately, and today will be no exception! If the Devils aren\u2019t finding a lot of success through drafting, maybe it\u2019s time to change the people making those decisions. Whether it\u2019s scouts, members of management, or both, something isn\u2019t working right now. The Devils organization isn\u2019t finding success at either the major league or minor league level and while it could be argued that the major league club is underachieving and should be winning, it\u2019s not the case. Certainly, there doesn\u2019t seem to be enough of a talent influx or pipeline to keep any success sustained even if the NHL team turns things around.<\/p>\n The Devils might also want to invest in a coaching\/management overhaul at the minor league level. I\u2019ll be frank enough to admit I don\u2019t follow the AHL staff closely enough to know how much turnover they\u2019ve had in recent years, but we\u2019re talking about a group that has been bottom of the barrel for three straight years now. Yes, there\u2019s going to be less wins at the AHL level when the NHL team is in win now mode, but we can\u2019t even say the Devils are in win now mode currently! What kind of message does that send to prospects? What kind of culture is that building? How much damage is being done to the development of kids who could maybe one day become legitimate contributors?<\/p>\n My answer for those questions is that honestly it\u2019s hard to gauge right now because of the earlier discussed problem that the Devils just don\u2019t seem to have players coming into Utica that could become legit players. Sure, maybe a guy like Shane LaChance eventually is full time in the NHL, but he projects as more of a low line guy, not an impact player. The Devils just have seemingly not struck on enough mid-round selections lately to fill out a competitive Utica squad, which has also led to limited reinforcements for New Jersey when necessary. Compare that to Boston and Pittsburgh, two teams that were supposed to falter and be on the outside looking in; both are in playoff spots (well above the Devils in the standings) and have two of the best AHL affiliate in terms of results.<\/p>\n Changes need to come for the Devils in multiple aspects of the whole organization. Sadly, it seems like it might very well take quite a few firings and new voices to get the team back on track to where it was supposed to be right now.<\/p>\n What\u2019s your take on the Devils developing of players; do you think it\u2019s time for a change in scouting? Would you rather see management and\/or coaching get overhauled in Utica? Do you think this is a complete top-down problem? Or is the drafting fine and just being overly scrutinized because of how bad the Devils are this season? Leave any and all comments below and thanks as always for reading!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Jersey Devils may be on break for the Olympics, but there are still players within the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5109],"tags":[201,26512,5,576,151,5185,5184,4,4778,13358,26513],"class_list":{"0":"post-455904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-jersey-devils","8":"tag-devils","9":"tag-devils-issues","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-new-jersey","12":"tag-new-jersey-devils","13":"tag-newjersey","14":"tag-newjerseydevils","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-prospects-devils-otherwise","17":"tag-utica-comets","18":"tag-views-analysis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116059071020218691","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}