Fire Lindy and Green, Now

[JimEIV]

It makes more sense to replace him in the offseason, as there will most likely be a better array of candidates.

I personally would like to see them fire him (and Green) and promote Dineen in a clearly interim role (hell, he can bring the AHL goalie coach while he's at it). Let's see how the team reacts to a different voice and scheme. See how Holtz produces with a coach that has confidence in him (Holtz was close to a PPG player in the AHL under Dineen). See how Meier plays in a top 6 role on the RW and maybe even PP1. See if he can change up the Power Play. Hold players besides Holtz accountable. Develop some of our younger players (which worked out seemingly well for guys like Nemec, Zetterlund, Holtz in Utica).

The team seems to have mentally checked out on Ruff. Nice guy, runner up to coach of the year last year and all (though that award is generally just given to teams with the biggest rise versus prior year versus the actual best year-in, year-out coaches) - like I've said many times, I was genuinely rooting for the guy, but the writing is clearly on the wall and it's time to move on. Kick him up to some advisory role if his coaching days are over.

Not like Dineen lacks NHL experience - the guy coached the Panthers for 2+ seasons and very nearly knocked our 2012 Cup Finals team out in the opening round - losing games 6 & 7 in OT. Add in another 5 seasons as an assistant coach and him now being in his 11th year as an AHL Head Coach and the guy is more than qualified for an interim role the rest of the season. Gives him a nice job audition for the role going forward as well (though Devils shouldn't be lacking for interested more qualified candidates this offseason.

To me, it's a no-brainer. Can Ruff, Green & the Rogalski ASAP - promote Dineen & maybe he brings a couple guys with him. This is the exact reason you have a guy like Dineen as your AHL coach.

Question. Honest question: if you have someone else in mind that is currently not available but most likely will be....is it fair to Dineen to let be interim when you know you will be replacing him in 3 or 4 months?

I could see an argument either way . Personally I wouldn't want the job that I have absolutely no chance at holding on to.

 

[BurntToast]

ZzzZz

I feel Fitz is all ready on thin ice after signing two perverts. I argued that the organization probably didn’t know much, but Fitz has dodge the media like “bullet time” in the matrix since the story broke.

 

[Bone Density]

"The Tomfather" does what he wants! Kiss the ring.

I like Fitz, this season just sucks all around. I don't know who the answer is, but it's not Lindy Ruff.

 

[JimEIV]

ZzzZz

I feel Fitz is all ready on thin ice after signing two perverts. I argued that the organization probably didn’t know much, but Fitz has dodge the media like “bullet time” in the matrix since the story broke.

Interesting perspective.

 

[BurntToast]

Interesting perspective.

Guy didn’t even come out for the stadium series (as the host team). Brideur did all the PR.

Benefits for a New Coach (Now):

1) It may spark the Devils into the Playoffs.
2) The team avoids learning a new system at the start of 24-25.
3) The fans are guaranteed Ruff is gone.
4) There may be more coaches availability in the summer, but there is also more competition to fill the vacancy.

 

[Emperoreddy]

You do more harm then good in letting Ruff stay if he is truly already out of a job.

Get him out now and try to create something positive out of these last 20 games instead of just wasting time, which is what the bulk of this season has been, a waste of time and massive step back

 

[Bleedred]

Stay away from Todd McLellan. That's all I ask. I wouldn't be opposed to Woodcroft. It probably goes down in the offseason, but I could see the argument for getting someone in there to make some assessments for the rest of the season, and see how the players react to a new coach.

I forgot Todd McLellan was no longer employed. Unfortunately.

Or better yet, I forgot who he was.

I really hope I don’t remember who he is this coming fall.

Dineen is definitely the lesser of two evils than Green.

If not for the fact that he has no hand in the stink of the NHL team this year.

 

[guitarguyvic]

Can’t even trust Fitz not to hire one of these mediocre options even if he does fire Lindy.

I’m so down on this org right now.

 

[Better Call Sal]

I really think a lot of the takes related to Fitz are over dramatic, in all honesty.

 

[JimEIV]

There is no more waste of time than an interim coach.

It's meaningless. And would serve no purpose other than just getting Lindy out....and I don't see how that could be a priority.

The guy that set the franchise win record and the guy that won the first playoff series since 2012 and the guy that just got a new contract...deserves some level of loyalty.

An organization is only as good as it treats its people in good times and bad.

There is absolutely nothing to be gained from booting the coach at this stage...unless you have a positive long-term replacement and you're truly ready to move into a new direction. But I doubt that is the case.

 

[Better Call Sal]

There is no more waste of time than an interim coach.

It's meaningless. And would serve no purpose other just getting Lindy out....and I don't see how that could be a priority.

The guy that set the franchise win record and the guy that won the first playoff series since 2012 and the guy that just got a new contract...deserves same level of loyalty.

An organization is only as good as it treats its people in good times and bad.

There is absolutely nothing to be gained from booting the coach at this stage...unless you have a positive long-term replacement and you're truly ready to move into a new direction. But I doubt that is the case.

I feel pretty similar. Although it’s funny for us as Devils fans to have that stance about how to treat people given Lou had the itchiest trigger finger known to man. But seemingly none of those coaches, not even Claude Julien, would have a bad thing to say about how Lou treated them as a person.

That said, I don’t think there’s anything to gain with an interim coach. If the results get worse, then I understand the move, but if the team remains competitive, just let Lindy see the year out. Make the decision at season’s end when you have a full slate of candidates available.

 

[JimEIV]

I feel pretty similar. Although it’s funny for us as Devils fans to have that stance about how to treat people given Lou had the itchiest trigger finger known to man. But seemingly none of those coaches, not even Claude Julien, would have a bad thing to say about how Lou treated them as a person.

That said, I don’t think there’s anything to gain with an interim coach. If the results get worse, then I understand the move, but if the team remains competitive, just let Lindy see the year out. Make the decision at season’s end when you have a full slate of candidates available.

Itchy trigger finger to win a championship is a lot different than an itchy trigger finger to save a broken season... Lou didn't fire Lemaire in 96 or Deboer in 2013....that's closer to what we are looking at today.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Firing Ruff isn't about saving the season or any short term gains, you fire him because he's failing at his job.

Like, if I work in business and I'm costing my company money every day, should they wait for a convenient time next quarter to fire me, or do they need to fire me immediately?

Lindy is failing at his job today, he unquestionably is. The head coach is the one responsible for the team's performance. For the health and safety of our injured stars like Jack and Timo, for the growth of our younger players like Luke and Nemec and Holtz. We need to send a message. This team needs a wakeup call and to see what accountability looks like.

If there's no short-term benefit from that, so be it. When we fired Hynes, Nasreddine did not improve the team. But firing Hynes was still the correct decision. We had crossed a point of no return.

This team has an obligation to the season ticket holders who pay money to attend games for an opportunity to watch the team they were promised. The fan base is ready to mutiny, and quite frankly the players look like they are too. The longer this lingers the worse it will get. We've already seen Jack snipe at the goalie, we've seen Nico talk about being embarrassed. This is not how a team with championship aspirations should be functioning.

I don't see anything to gain by letting this team continue to suffocate for the next 6 weeks. Fumigate the room, clear the air, reset everything. See who responds positively and who doesn't, that will be useful information come contract time. This also gives you time to experiment with new PP/systems now instead of waiting months and months until the pre-season.

 

[Call Me Al]

There is no more waste of time than an interim coach.

It's meaningless. And would serve no purpose other than just getting Lindy out....and I don't see how that could be a priority.

The guy that set the franchise win record and the guy that won the first playoff series since 2012 and the guy that just got a new contract...deserves some level of loyalty.

An organization is only as good as it treats its people in good times and bad.

There is absolutely nothing to be gained from booting the coach at this stage...unless you have a positive long-term replacement and you're truly ready to move into a new direction. But I doubt that is the case.

the time would have been months ago. at this point just let him ride out the season and step down gracefully.

i hope the fans understand this and we don’t hear many fire lindy chants, at this point it’s just bad form.

 

[JimEIV]

Firing Ruff isn't about saving the season or any short term gains, you fire him because he's failing at his job.

Like, if I work in business and I'm costing my company money every day, should they wait for a convenient time next quarter to fire me, or do they need to fire me immediately?

Lindy is failing at his job today, he unquestionably is. The head coach is the one responsible for the team's performance. For the health and safety of our injured stars like Jack and Timo, for the growth of our younger players like Luke and Nemec and Holtz. We need to send a message. This team needs a wakeup call and to see what accountability looks like.

If there's no short-term benefit from that, so be it. When we fired Hynes, Nasreddine did not improve the team. But firing Hynes was still the correct decision. We had crossed a point of no return.

This team has an obligation to the season ticket holders who pay money to attend games for an opportunity to watch the team they were promised. The fan base is ready to mutiny, and quite frankly the players look like they are too. The longer this lingers the worse it will get. We've already seen Jack snipe at the goalie, we've seen Nico talk about being embarrassed. This is not how a team with championship aspirations should be functioning.

I don't see anything to gain by letting this team continue to suffocate for the next 6 weeks. Fumigate the room, clear the air, reset everything. See who responds positively and who doesn't, that will be useful information come contract time. This also gives you time to experiment with new PP/systems now instead of waiting months and months until the pre-season.

Depends...are you failing at your job after a couple of mediocre years. Or are you failing at your job after 20 years of successful projects that made your company shit tons of money and your management look great? All depends.

 

[Better Call Sal]

Firing Ruff isn't about saving the season or any short term gains, you fire him because he's failing at his job.

Like, if I work in business and I'm costing my company money every day, should they wait for a convenient time next quarter to fire me, or do they need to fire me immediately?

Lindy is failing at his job today, he unquestionably is. The head coach is the one responsible for the team's performance. For the health and safety of our injured stars like Jack and Timo, for the growth of our younger players like Luke and Nemec and Holtz. We need to send a message. This team needs a wakeup call and to see what accountability looks like.

If there's no short-term benefit from that, so be it. When we fired Hynes, Nasreddine did not improve the team. But firing Hynes was still the correct decision. We had crossed a point of no return.

This team has an obligation to the season ticket holders who pay money to attend games for an opportunity to watch the team they were promised. The fan base is ready to mutiny, and quite frankly the players look like they are too. The longer this lingers the worse it will get. We've already seen Jack snipe at the goalie, we've seen Nico talk about being embarrassed. This is not how a team with championship aspirations should be functioning.

I don't see anything to gain by letting this team continue to suffocate for the next 6 weeks. Fumigate the room, clear the air, reset everything. See who responds positively and who doesn't, that will be useful information come contract time. This also gives you time to experiment with new PP/systems now instead of waiting months and months until the pre-season.

This is all fair as well. And as mentioned above, part of it could even be to let Lindy have some pride left and not have to hear “Fire Lindy” every home game.

 

[HBK27]

Question. Honest question: if you have someone else in mind that is currently not available but most likely will be....is it fair to Dineen to let be interim when you know you will be replacing him in 3 or 4 months?

I could see an argument either way . Personally I wouldn't want the job that I have absolutely no chance at holding on to.

Yeah, I think it's still fair to Dineen. For starters, even if you have someone else in mind that's currently unavailable - there's no guarantee that you can land him, as you wouldn't even be able to discuss the position with the candidate while they're still under contract. It also gives Dineen another shot in the NHL - regardless of whether or not he's able to shed the interim label at the end of the season and land the job in NJ, he still gets his name back out there as a possible NHL coach and gets a ~20 game stretch to show if he can have any impact. Never a bad thing to be on other teams' radar. Lastly, he'll also get a pay bump as part of the move, which I'm sure he'd appreciate. I don't really see any downside for Dineen in all this, other than maybe being away from his family for a few weeks while coaching in NJ.

 

[Nocashstyle]

I think we should all be a little more wary of the potential longer term implications of Green being named the interim head coach and winning a few games to end the year…

At this point, I’d rather just fire Ruff after the season and be able to take the time to make a calculated decision on who is actually the long term replacement.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Depends...are you failing at your job after a couple of mediocre years. Or are you failing at your job after 20 years of successful projects that made your company shit tons of money and your management look great? All depends.

127-123-28 over ~4 seasons is hardly inspired performance. He's been here four years and has had exactly one "successful" season for this franchise. I don't really care what he did with Buffalo 20 years ago.

The guys you mentioned above, Lemaire won the Cup in '95, of course they weren't going to fire him in '96. DeBoer made it to the Cup Finals his first year as head coach, of course they weren't going to fire him in Year 2, especially in a weird lockout season.

Ruff won a playoff series, great. That was the first time Ruff has won a playoff series since 2016 with Dallas, that was 8 years ago. Prior to that, you have to go back to 2007 with Buffalo - 17 seasons ago! DeBoer had as many playoff wins in 2012 as Ruff has *combined* playoff wins *since* 2012.

52 wins last season was great, but Lou fired Claude Julien in a 49 win season. What exactly has Ruff done with the Devils to earn such an enormous amount of goodwill, in your mind?

 

[JimEIV]

What exactly has Ruff done with the Devils to earn such an enormous amount of goodwill, in your mind?

Set a franchise record for wins

Got Jack, Bratt Dougie and Nico to have career years

Made the playoffs for the 2nd time in 11 years.

Beat the Rangers in a playoff series.

 

[forceten]

Set a franchise record for wins

Got Jack, Bratt Dougie and Nico to have career years

Made the playoffs for the 2nd time in 11 years.

Beat the Rangers in a playoff series.

True, but I think that's what got him extended rather than having to hand the baton to Brunette in a "promotion" to the front office.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Set a franchise record for wins

Got Jack, Bratt Dougie and Nico to have career years

Made the playoffs for the 2nd time in 11 years.

Beat the Rangers in a playoff series.

Get out of here with this nonsense. You're going to give Ruff credit for taking a 19 year old player and transforming him into a 20 year old player? Ruff took over when Nico and Bratt were in their age 22 seasons and Jack was in his 19 year old season, that's the time most NHL forwards begin to break out. Everyone on the planet saw that Jack Hughes was a budding star and getting ready to break out, he went #1 overall for a reason. OF COURSE young players will improve when they gain experience and mature physically, that's totally normal and would have happened under any coach.

This is all revisionist history, we all remember 2021 and 2022 when you were talking about how these two centers were disappointments and failures of draft picks. Lindy Ruff was their head coach those years, too. But now that the team has one single good year, you're going to whitewash the past and pretend everything Ruff has done is all peaches and ice cream? If Ruff is responsible for Hischier having his best season in 2023 then he's also responsible for Hischier having his worst season in 2021. Or have you retroactively changed your mind about that too?

We beat the Rangers, great. We've beaten the Rangers three of the last four times we played them in the playoffs. We've beaten them in the playoffs more times in the past 20 years than we've beaten any other team, it's not that special. How about when we got absolutely bulldozed by Carolina? Again, you can't have it both ways, giving him all of the credit for winning and then absolving him of any responsibility for losing.

Ruff is 127-123-28 as Devils head coach. John Hynes was 150-159-45 as Devils head coach. Both made the playoffs exactly 1 time. Both got propped up by the star player having a career season. Hynes had goaltending just as bad and a defense far, FAR worse. Yet when Hynes was fired, no one was making excuses for him.

Come on, this is silly, even for you. I can't believe you of all people have become so smitten with a chronic loser. A guy who makes the playoffs one time in four seasons gets unlimited mulligans? How low have your standards fallen? I suppose when you're starving, a saltine tastes like a banquet.

 

[Nocashstyle]

Get out of here with this nonsense. You're going to give Ruff credit for taking a 19 year old player and transforming him into a 20 year old player? Ruff took over when Nico and Bratt were in their age 22 seasons and Jack was in his 19 year old season, that's the time most NHL forwards begin to break out. Everyone on the planet saw that Jack Hughes was a budding star and getting ready to break out, he went #1 overall for a reason. OF COURSE young players will improve when they gain experience and mature physically, that's totally normal and would have happened under any coach.

This is all revisionist history, we all remember 2021 and 2022 when you were talking about how these two centers were disappointments and failures of draft picks. Lindy Ruff was their head coach those years, too. But now that the team has one single good year, you're going to whitewash the past and pretend everything Ruff has done is all peaches and ice cream? If Ruff is responsible for Hischier having his best season in 2023 then he's also responsible for Hischier having his worst season in 2021. Or have you retroactively changed your mind about that too?

We beat the Rangers, great. We've beaten the Rangers three of the last four times we played them in the playoffs. We've beaten them in the playoffs more times in the past 20 years than we've beaten any other team, it's not that special. How about when we got absolutely bulldozed by Carolina? Again, you can't have it both ways, giving him all of the credit for winning and then absolving him of any responsibility for losing.

Ruff is 127-123-28 as Devils head coach. John Hynes was 150-159-45 as Devils head coach. Both made the playoffs exactly 1 time. Both got propped up by the star player having a career season. Hynes had goaltending just as bad and a defense far, FAR worse. Yet when Hynes was fired, no one was making excuses for him.

Come on, this is silly, even for you. I can't believe you of all people have become so smitten with a chronic loser. A guy who makes the playoffs one time in four seasons gets unlimited mulligans? How low have your standards fallen? I suppose when you're starving, a saltine tastes like a banquet.

Ruff is 4th in all time wins. He has earned some respect.

As much as we all think his time is up here, he has done some good things during his tenure too. It’s okay to acknowledge that.

 

[JimEIV]

Get out of here with this nonsense. You're going to give Ruff credit for taking a 19 year old player and transforming him into a 20 year old player? Ruff took over when Nico and Bratt were in their age 22 seasons and Jack was in his 19 year old season, that's the time most NHL forwards begin to break out. Everyone on the planet saw that Jack Hughes was a budding star and getting ready to break out, he went #1 overall for a reason. OF COURSE young players will improve when they gain experience and mature physically, that's totally normal and would have happened under any coach.

This is all revisionist history, we all remember 2021 and 2022 when you were talking about how these two centers were disappointments and failures of draft picks. Lindy Ruff was their head coach those years, too. But now that the team has one single good year, you're going to whitewash the past and pretend everything Ruff has done is all peaches and ice cream? If Ruff is responsible for Hischier having his best season in 2023 then he's also responsible for Hischier having his worst season in 2021. Or have you retroactively changed your mind about that too?

We beat the Rangers, great. We've beaten the Rangers three of the last four times we played them in the playoffs. We've beaten them in the playoffs more times in the past 20 years than we've beaten any other team, it's not that special. How about when we got absolutely bulldozed by Carolina? Again, you can't have it both ways, giving him all of the credit for winning and then absolving him of any responsibility for losing.

Ruff is 127-123-28 as Devils head coach. John Hynes was 150-159-45 as Devils head coach. Both made the playoffs exactly 1 time. Both got propped up by the star player having a career season. Hynes had goaltending just as bad and a defense far, FAR worse. Yet when Hynes was fired, no one was making excuses for him.

Come on, this is silly, even for you. I can't believe you of all people have become so smitten with a chronic loser. A guy who makes the playoffs one time in four seasons gets unlimited mulligans? How low have your standards fallen? I suppose when you're starving, a saltine tastes like a banquet.

I'm not smitten with him I just don't think this season is his fault. It's not even about mulligans or second chances...

I think they gave him a defense destined to expose the goaltending without injuries. With the injuries to the D and the forwards he stood no chance this season.... like I have said I'm not a Ruff fan or apologist. I don't like his style and never wanted him as a head coach...but here we are and I just don't think you can lay blame on him given the hand he was dealt..

 

[ZYXWVUT]

Ruff is 4th in all time wins. He has earned some respect.

As much as we all think his time is up here, he has done some good things during his tenure too. It’s okay to acknowledge that.

this is my stance as well. as much as we all feel he has done a pretty horrific job this season, he deserves credit for some of those aforementioned things over his tenure and everyone should appreciate him on his way out. that being said, hopefully i am wrong, but i am not convinced at all that he is going to be relieved after the season. i dont trust that he wont be back come training camp next season.