On Monday evening, the New Jersey Devils, languishing outside the Eastern Conference playoff picture, fired head coach Lindy Ruff, installing Travis Green as interim head coach. On Tuesday morning, Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald addressed the media and explained his decision.
“I started to see certain things I value as a team that [weren’t] changing, “Fitzgerald told reporters. “But then you saw a change. You saw the good games, you saw the details in some of the way we played, and then you wouldn’t see it in the next game. The inconsistency started to creep up and this was the final straw that broke the camel’s back for me, where I felt I needed to make the change.”
The Devils finished with the NHL’s third-best record last season at 52-22-8, setting franchise records for points and wins in a season. This season, weathering a storm of injuries to key players (Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes, Dougie Hamilton, Timo Meier, Jonas Siegenthaler) and terrible goaltending from Vitek Vanecek and Akira Schmid, they’ve tumbled to a 30-27-4 record. They sit eight points out of a playoff spot and have 16.5 percent chance to get in, per moneypuck.com.
The Devils, then, are more likely setting up to be sellers than buyers by Friday’s trade deadline. With leading goal scorer Tyler Toffoli set to become a UFA this summer, his future will be a hot topic over the next 72 hours, and Fitzgerald addressed it head-on Tuesday.
“I’m not shopping Tyler Toffoli,” he told reporters. “Tyler and I sat together in L.A. [during the Devils’ road trip last week], we had a great talk. Tyler knows how much I’d like to bring him back. But unfortunately right now there’s a possible term difference [in negotiation]. That doesn’t mean we can’t revisit this past the deadline if he’s still there, or in the offseason.
“But the reality is, teams have called on him. And what a return looks like, I wouldn’t be giving away a player, my leading scorer, just to gain future assets. But the reality is, those future assets could help us down the road. I’ll know more in the next three days where we’re at.”
The Devils host the Florida Panthers at home Tuesday night and the St. Louis Blues Thursday. If the Devils don’t win both those contests, a seller posture on Friday is likely.
Toffoli currently sits sixth on Daily Faceoff’s Trade Targets board.
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