For a team that has 1 playoff appearance since 2012, and the 4th worst record since 12-13, the Devils have a lot of nothing to show for it.
Yeah, ownership/management change in the middle of that span. The competitor/stubborness of Lou caused him to keep going with aging core. My worry right now is that the analytics group has too much power and I'm not entirely convinced they're not selling snakeoil. I hate to be the Captain Hindsight guy, but some unforced errors:
2012: As a result of the Kovalchuk cap penalty, the Devils were initially supposed to fork over a 1st round pick between 2011-2014. Devils had the 29th pick in 2012 which was a below average year, so it seemed a perfect time to give up the pick. Instead they kept it and took Stefan Matteau who was inexplicably rushed into the NHL. Zach Parise leaves via free agency which was a difficult guy to replace in the moment.
2013: Kovalchuk bails and supposedly Lou knew his intentions before the Draft, so that should have been time to transition to a rebuild. But nope, we send over the 9th overall pick to Vancouver for Schneider. Unfortunately Brodeur is also under contract for one more year and the team ends up splitting starts evenly between the two even though Schneider was clearly the better goalie at that point.
2014: The NHL revises the Kovalchuk cap penalty and the Devils pick gets pushed from (off the top of my head) 11th overall to 30th overall. But not giving up the 2012 pick still costs the team a shot at somebody like Dylan Larkin potentially.
2015: Ray Shero is hired right before the Draft, but the incumbent group of scouts make the decisions. In the stacked draft class, they go with Pavel Zacha. I don't think many Devils fans were fired up about Zacha leading up to the pick. The scouts are let go after the Draft.
2016: Cory Schneider plays well but unfortunately keeps the Devils out of the top tier of prospects. Seemingly out of need, they bypass Chychrun/McAvoy/Bean to take a forward in Michael McLeod.
Retooling seemed to get restarted in 2017, but definitely still feeling some the repercussions from these earlier missteps.
