Lindy Ruff Believes He Can Be One of the NHL's Top Coaches in 2022-23

The New Jersey Devils have been a virtual non-factor in the NHL's pecking order the past few seasons, and growing unrest runs rampant across Devils' fandom. Last offseason gave fans a considerable doze of Hopium that ultimately ended in disaster. The Devils signed D Dougie Hamilton, traded for Ryan Graves and Jonas Siegenthaler, and fielded a competitive enough group on paper to suggest the team would take that next step. Alas, injuries, goaltending, and an abysmal powerplay kneecapped the team, and fans were adamant about holding someone accountable.

Thus, the team fired assistant coaches Mark Recchi and Alain Nasreddine shortly after the season's conclusion, leaving fans dumbfounded that head coach Lindy Ruff was spared. Ruff's first two seasons behind New Jersey's bench have been catastrophic; the Devils' record in that span is 46-76-16. Now that the Devils have hired Andrew Brunette as an associate coach, Ruff's position as head coach depends entirely on the team's position after its first 15-20 games. At least, that makes sense to me.

Ryan Novozinsky, who covers the Devils for NJ.com, interviewed Ruff recently, and the nearly-2800 NHL game veteran said he is not worried about his job security in the slightest, even saying he believes he can be a 'Darryl Sutter-esque coach' to use Novozinsky's words.

At first glance, Ruff's time in New Jersey has been underwhelming and unacceptable, and as always it is easy to put it all on the head coach. In 2020-21, the team was not very good, no one believed they would be, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to blame the coach for a bad team. Fair enough. '21-22, however, the team's expectations were much higher, so the criticism was much heavier. Nothing about the Devils' issues in 2021-22 stood out as a coaching problem, though. Well, not a head* coaching issue, anyway.

As I said above, the Devils' season went off the rails for three very simple reasons: injuries, powerplay, goaltending.

According to StatMuse.com, the Devils tied the Philadelphia Flyers for fourth-most man-games lost to injury. And many of these injuries were to key players; Jack Hughes missed 33 games, Dougie Hamilton missed 20 and played the latter half of the season with a broken toe and a fractured jaw, and both of their starting goaltenders combined for 35 starts. I don't see how Ruff was supposed to compensate for that.

The team's powerplay was atrocious, but the team's 5v5 offense was top-ten in the NHL in expected goals-for. So the team scores at an above average rate at even strength but is barren on the powerplay. Assistant coaches are delegated for special teams, so the team's lack of success on the powerplay falls on Mark Recchi more than Ruff, hence why he was canned.

Well, Ruff didn't hire Recchi, so Recchi's firing was the right move rather than a sweeping dismissal. The firing of Alain Nasreddine did not have to happen, as the team's penalty kill was an area of strength, but 5v5 the team's defense was slightly below average. His dismissal was more so to let Ruff pick his staff than anything, giving him full accountability.

The Devils quietly have assembled a great coaching staff for 2022-23:
- Lindy Ruff - Head Coach
- Andrew Brunette - Associate Coach
- Sergei Brylin - Assistant Coach (forwards)
- Ryan McGill - Assistant Coach (defense)

Lastly, goaltending...

The Devils had some of the worst goaltending of all-time last season, largely due to the fact that Jon Gillies and rookie Nico Daws split the majority of the Devils games. It was estimated by The Athletic that the Devils' goaltending alone cost them 11 wins in 2021-22, which would have placed them above the New York Islanders for the first spot out of the playoffs. While I can't speak to that number, it is an absolute fact that the Devils goaltending was the worst in the NHL last season. Partner that fact with the above reasons, I wouldn't feel threatened if I was Ruff either.

The team -- goalies notwithstanding -- yielded promising results last season, and they will once again ice one of the youngest teams in the NHL. Now that Ruff has his own staff, this new and improved team should produce much better results in the upcoming season. I think Ruff will have a short-ish leash, but if the goalies can tread water and the team can basically replicate what they did last season (I think they will actually see improvement), this team can go places this year. And if they do, I don't think it is out of the question for Ruff's name to be in the running for the Jack Adams Award.

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