Ray Shero and Devils Part Ways Effective Immediately

[Nicomo]

1 minute ago, Jimmy Leeds said:

"We"?  My Lord, I hated that and was ecstatic when he bailed.  Ecstatic

Not me. I’ll never get over Kovy leaving. What has all that cap space done for us since he left? I would rather have had a star player who was a blast to watch all these years. 

[Jimmy Leeds]

7 minutes ago, Nicomo said:

Not me. I’ll never get over Kovy leaving. What has all that cap space done for us since he left? I would rather have had a star player who was a blast to watch all these years. 

Really?  Even seeing how awful he's been?  AWFUL. How much longer would that albatross of a contract be going on for? Another 6 years or so?

[Daniel]

FWIW, Lebrun claims that Shero was not shopping Palmieri. 

[lazer]

You guys are looking backwards for clues, the only one not shocked was marty. 

 

Not trying to conspiracy theory but this feels like marty all over it.

 

Thers not a lot of evidence there but it feels like the elephant in the room.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

7 minutes ago, Nicomo said:

Technically the Subban contract is a pretty bad one, but it just doesn’t particularly hurt a team like the Devils that aren’t in cap trouble. 

Only for a couple more years after this one...and yeah, with the Devils figuring to have plenty of cap room the next few years, PK's hit isn't a big deal.  But obviously they may be stuck with him, as his hit is big enough that a contender that might actually have interest in him as a rental in a couple of years may have a hell of a time trying to squeeze his hit in.  

3 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

I didn't get the sense that the owners are going to start meddling in the everyday affairs of the Devils from what was said yesterday.  What I heard was Josh was sick of them losing and thought we would be at least a little bit further along than being in the same spot that we were for most of the past 5 years.  I am glad that the owner at least cares enough to not allow us being terrible to go on forever.

I really still don't get why everyone here is a saying this is the start of owners meddling.  I mean we gave JVB a giant pass on the Kovalchuk contract for Christ sake lol.

Since I'm the one who brought up meddling (was anyone else other than me?), to be clear, I'm not there with these owners YET...as you know, I've actually been very supportive of them.  All I'm saying is that I hope that we won't see that going forward.  Like I said, to date they've been pretty hands-off, letting both Lou and Ray do their thing, including being willing to spend.  I just hope that firing Ray in-season, when no one saw that coming, isn't the beginning of a "New Order", where they now feel like they've been burned by letting their GMs go about their business without any input from upstairs, and now feel like they MUST get much more involved.  

One thing about these owners that Daniel and others definitely got wrong is that they're not just some passive outfit that blindly trusts certain people.  Those who held that perception saw that one die yesterday...how many times have you heard "We need to sit down and evaluate..." crap from owners and/or team presidents, even when everyone KNOWS that a GM and/or coach are going to get canned?  Not saying that such official news should be announced before the ones being fired hear it...but obviously Devils ownership, when they decide that there's no light at the end of the tunnel, don't waste any time.   

I think JVB definitely drove the Kovy deal, but even then, I never thought of him as this major meddler...but of course, as a Met fan who's been watching the Wilpons wilponning all these years, my meddling detector may not be the most accurate in the biz.  

26 minutes ago, Jimmy Leeds said:

I haven't been on and cannot read this entire thread. But CR76 says it all right here ^^^^

Did we all hear Harris yesterday?   This guy knows less about hockey than I do for God's sake.

Who we gonna get now?  The Oilers GM we got Hall from?  And Marty making personnel decisions?   lol, what a way to spoil your legacy.

I trusted Shero. Mistakes happen. FA's do not want to come here. Retaining good players will be hard.

Bad decision, IMO

From a strictly forensic standpoint, it sounds like the owners no longer trusted or believed in Shero enough to let him make moves as he saw fit, and on that count, you simply gotta cut the cord...there's no point in keeping a compromised GM around, and not letting him fully do his job.  The question is will the next GM be afforded as much freedom as the previous two were?  

I can't call this a bad decision until I see who the next hire is and what he does.  I did like Shero, but like I've said, it was starting to feel like it wasn't going to work out for him here...enough so that though I can't say that I'm thrilled that he's gone and still would've given him through next season sometime, I'm not crushed by his firing either.  Of all of the moves he made (most of the ones involving players I was on-board with), I think it's the one he DIDN'T make that really hurt...and that's letting Hynes stay on too long.  Firing Hynes was a move was BEGGING to be made...and it almost sounded like Shero finally went through with it more so that Hynes wouldn't be picked on by the fans.  Shero might've let emotion dictate his actions a little too much with Hynes...you can make the argument that Hynes might've been the biggest factor in Shero's downfall.      

[Nicomo]

5 minutes ago, Jimmy Leeds said:

Really?  Even seeing how awful he's been?  AWFUL. How much longer would that albatross of a contract be going on for? Another 6 years or so?

His play would have just recently started to drop off if he had stayed in the NHL. Sure would have been nice to have him those years where Cory was standing on his head every night but we couldn’t score to save our lives.

As for his contract it was very heavily front loaded. He would have only been getting paid 3.5 million next season, 750k the following season, and then 550k for the final 5 years. 

[HellOnICE]

1 minute ago, lazer said:

You guys are looking backwards for clues, the only one not shocked was marty. 

 

Not trying to conspiracy theory but this feels like marty all over it.

 

Thers not a lot of evidence there but it feels like the elephant in the room.

Not going to doubt you here. I think Marty is the Shanahan role.

[Nicomo]

14 minutes ago, Daniel said:

FWIW, Lebrun claims that Shero was not shopping Palmieri. 

This is all so damn weird. I don’t know what to believe. 

[Devilsfan118]

Brutal article in the Athletic this morning.

Sing along with me now, guys:

M I C

K E Y

M O U S E

[Jerzey]

Maybe it’s ownership that wants to continue to build through the draft and Shero wanted to start contending. Maybe we have it backwards.

We all loved the PK trade, well almost all of us, when it happened so I don’t think it’s fair to use hindsight to blame Shero on that one. I still would make the trade to be honest even though he’s been very underwhelming. Don’t take this as racism but he can do a lot for the Newark community and help bring in fans that might not have ever given hockey a chance. I think he’s looked pretty good as of late too. 
 

 

Edited January 13, 2020 by Jerzey

[Jerzey]

8 minutes ago, lazer said:

You guys are looking backwards for clues, the only one not shocked was marty. 

 

Not trying to conspiracy theory but this feels like marty all over it.

 

Thers not a lot of evidence there but it feels like the elephant in the room.

Good. Out with the old mans club I say. Teams are having a lot of success with younger minds at the helm.

[Nicomo]

2 minutes ago, Jerzey said:

Maybe it’s ownership that wants to continue to build through the draft and Shero wanted to start contending. Maybe we have it backwards.

We all loved the PK trade, well almost all of us, when it happened so I don’t think it’s fair to use hindsight to blame Shero on that one. I still would make the trade to be honest even though he’s been very underwhelming. Don’t take this as racism but he can do a lot for the Newark community and help bring in fans that might not have ever given hockey a chance. I think he’s looked pretty good as of late too. 
 

 

He has looked much better recently. His shots are really starting to get through on a consistent basis. For the life of me I don’t understand what was going on with that the first few months. 

[lazer]

I like marty, if he is effective itcan be great, almost Lou-esque.

 

And if not, it can always get worse.

[Nicomo]

3 minutes ago, Jerzey said:

Good. Out with the old mans club I say. Teams are having a lot of success with younger minds at the helm.

And we’ve seen some former greats turn into really good GM’s, too. Sakic and Yzerman built two of the best teams in the league. 

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

4 minutes ago, Jerzey said:

Maybe it’s ownership that wants to continue to build through the draft and Shero wanted to start contending. Maybe we have it backwards.

We all loved the PK trade, well almost all of us, when it happened so I don’t think it’s fair to use hindsight to blame Shero on that one. I still would make the trade to be honest even though he’s been very underwhelming. Don’t take this as racism but he can do a lot for the Newark community and help bring in fans that might not have ever given hockey a chance. I think he’s looked pretty good as of late too. 

Based on quotes from ownership, sounds like they wanted to win and grew tired of waiting for it to happen under Shero.  Also doubt they let Shero take on PK's money if they wanted to build through the draft.  Or trade for and then sign an unproven Gusev to pretty decent coin.  

[NJDevs4978]

15 minutes ago, lazer said:

You guys are looking backwards for clues, the only one not shocked was marty. 

 

Not trying to conspiracy theory but this feels like marty all over it.

 

Thers not a lot of evidence there but it feels like the elephant in the room.

How can you claim Marty wasn’t ‘shocked’, by facial expressions? Did he even speak at the presser?

Fitz was Shero’s lieutenant, of course he’s going to be taken aback at getting a job this way just like Nas was.

[Jerzey]

1 minute ago, Nicomo said:

And we’ve seen some former greats turn into really good GM’s, too. Sakic and Yzerman built two of the best teams in the league. 

And Shannahan.

[Nicomo]

1 minute ago, NJDevs4978 said:

How can you claim Marty wasn’t ‘shocked’, by facial expressions? Did he even speak at the presser?

Fitz was Shero’s lieutenant, of course he’s going to be taken aback at getting a job this way just like Nas was.

Just like when people accused Marty of not caring about Elias during his jersey retirement. That’s just Marty’s face lol

[Satans Hockey]

Just now, Nicomo said:

Just like when people accused Marty of not caring about Elias during his jersey retirement. That’s just Marty’s face lol

Aka resting Marty face lol

[Devilsfan118]

1 minute ago, Nicomo said:

Just like when people accused Marty of not caring about Elias during his jersey retirement. That’s just Marty’s face lol

The guy's got a resting bitch face, simple as that.

[Jerzey]

2 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

Based on quotes from ownership, sounds like they wanted to win and grew tired of waiting for it to happen under Shero.  Also doubt they let Shero take on PK's money if they wanted to build through the draft.  Or trade for and then sign an unproven Gusev to pretty decent coin.  

I think Subban was brought in for multiple reasons. We had plenty of cap not being used so it really wasn’t that big of a gamble. Not trading Hall this summer was a bigger gamble to me and I have a feeling that the Hall situation played a big part in Shero’s termination. 

But you’re probably right about ownership wanting to start winning. I’m wondering if they even gave him expectations of a timeline to start winning when they brought him on.

[lazer]

3 minutes ago, NJDevs4978 said:

How can you claim Marty wasn’t ‘shocked’, by facial expressions? Did he even speak at the presser?

Fitz was Shero’s lieutenant, of course he’s going to be taken aback at getting a job this way just like Nas was.

He didnt have to, the owner was speaking for him.

 

 

[lazer]

There was aquick shot of the owners box after the win, marty and fitz.

 

Fitz was out like he could care less, dude is shook for sure.

 

Marty wanted to hi five and hug or wtv and could also care less about the win lol

 

Im sure theres agif for that 🙌

[nessus]

49 minutes ago, Daniel said:

FWIW, Lebrun claims that Shero was not shopping Palmieri. 

This doesn't surprise me. If the philosophical differences were centered around whether to go into another rebuild, I would bet that Shero wasn't the tank proponent. Harris can say a lot of things in press conferences, but we'll see if he actually cares about winning this season. It doesn't seem like he had that philosophy with the Sixers.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

9 minutes ago, Jerzey said:

I think Subban was brought in for multiple reasons. We had plenty of cap not being used so it really wasn’t that big of a gamble. Not trading Hall this summer was a bigger gamble to me and I have a feeling that the Hall situation played a big part in Shero’s termination. 

But you’re probably right about ownership wanting to start winning. I’m wondering if they even gave him expectations of a timeline to start winning when they brought him on.

I went through the bolded in an earlier post...pure speculation on my part, but I think ownership was willing to be patient initially (not like they had much choice anyway, given the state of the player personnel at that time), saw the team make the playoffs in Year 3 of Shero's run, then became a lot less willing to wait when Year 4 went off the rails.  I think Shero was then pushed to try to speed this thing up...but unfortunately, in the end there were still just too many question marks (one of whom was Cory, who blew up yet again), and assuming Shero did actually propose blowing this thing up enough where it was clear that the Devils might struggle for another year or two, that was it for him.  

I also think 4-5 years is the magic number for a lot of owners...not saying that a team must win a championship in Year 4 or 5, but at least look like it's not a pipe dream that contending for one can happen in the very near future.  Taking the purely forensic angle again, it's easy to look at the balance of Shero's time here and say "Nope, hasn't gotten any better, next."  

I'm guessing that whoever the new GM is, he's going to have to have a relatively short-term plan that will see him augment the young talent that's here with some "right now" players.  Don't think he'll get the job otherwise.