Longtime NHL coach Brad Shaw is going from Philadelphia to Newark in 2025, as he looks to take the Devils’ defense to the next level.
The New Jersey Devils took a big step forward on defense in the 2024-25 season, so I was surprised when their most significant staffing change came in the form of dismissing defensive assistant Ryan McGill earlier this month. In asking McGill to seek other opportunities, Sheldon Keefe got the opportunity to pick a second assistant for his coaching staff. This second assistant will join Jeremy Colliton, who was hired by Keefe and Fitzgerald last offseason, alongside Sergei Brylin and David Rogalski.
Today, the team officially announced that Brad Shaw, a long-time NHL coach and former player, would be joining the staff as a defensive assistant. Most recently, Shaw has served as an assistant for John Tortorella in Philadelphia, helping those teams achieve well above expectations. When Tortorella finally had enough of that situation this year, Shaw took over behind the bench as an interim head coach for the second time in his career. Shaw had his Flyers finish 5-3-1 in nine games coached, bringing his career head coaching record to 23-21-5.
Shaw has been coaching since 1995 when he was a player-coach for the Detroit Vipers of the IHL, and he first joined an NHL staff in 1999 when he was an assistant in Tampa. After spending five more years between the IHL and AHL, Shaw became an assistant for the Islanders in 2005 and never looked back. Since 2006, he has had a 10-year stint with the St. Louis Blues, a five-year stint with the Columbus Blue Jackets, a year with the Vancouver Canucks, and a three-year stint with the Philadelphia Flyers.
Over at Broad Street Hockey, Ryan Gilbert quoted Elliotte Friedman’s 32 Thoughts podcast regarding Shaw’s disappointment with Daniel Briere and the Flyers for passing him over for the head coaching job, instead handing it to Rick Tocchet. Apparently, many credit Shaw for his work with defensemen in Philadelphia, aiding oft-maligned blueliners such as Rasmus Ristolainen play more effectively. Travis Sanheim affirmed Shaw’s coaching ability to NBC Sports Philadelphia, saying it would be a “disappointment” if he did not get to keep working with Shaw.
While his job with Philadelphia was not glamorous, Shaw has had success in his roles before. With St. Louis, Shaw oversaw a top-10 defense in five straight seasons from 2011 to 2016, including four top-five defenses and a first-ranked blueline group in 2011-12. The Blues, who had the 28th ranked defense in 2005-06, only had a bottom-10 defense under Shaw once — in the 2007-08 season (21st). Then, Shaw’s Blue Jackets defenses ranked in the top 10 three out of five times, ranking 11th in 2018-19 and 24th in the COVID-bubble 2020-21 season.
With the Devils, Shaw will have a rare opportunity to helm a defense that was already performing well before his arrival. In addition to St. Louis’s dysfunction before his arrival, the Blue Jackets had the 29th-ranked defense in 2015-16. Tortorella and Shaw coached them to being the second-ranked defense the following season. Before Shaw took over the Vancouver defense, they were ranked 26th in the COVID-bubble year and 16th in 2019-20. Shaw saw them rise, becoming the seventh-ranked defense in the league. After Shaw left for Philadelphia, Vancouver sunk to the 25th-ranked defense. Also of note in that 2021-22 Vancouver season: that was the first year Quinn Hughes scored over 60 points, as Quinn tallied eight goals and 60 assists under Brad Shaw.
With the Devils, Shaw will have the chance to coach Quinn’s younger brother, Luke, while managing an array of skills in his other blueliners. Shaw is no stranger to asking his defensemen to be offensively active, so we may see a more skilled breakout alongside a continuation of the team’s stringent defensive details in 2025-26. Assuming that Shaw will get plenty of room to operate from Sheldon Keefe, he may very well be the kind of hire that ties Keefe’s system together.
Ultimately, Shaw brings a track record of proven excellence and an ability to work with players from 18 years old to 40-plus. I feel like he is a great fit for the New Jersey Devils — and he should prove a boon for Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec. Additionally, I have hope that he can help Dougie Hamilton keep the defensive side of his game up as he ages, while getting a bit more offense out of guys like Siegenthaler, Dillon, Pesce, and Kovacevic. I am pretty excited: his teams tend to do well.
Your Thoughts
What do you think of the hire? What do you know of Brad Shaw? What do you remember about him from his time around the league? How do you think he will work with Sheldon Keefe? How will he work with our young blueliners? How will the veterans respond? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.