In early December, after Sheldon Keefe called the team “essentially lifeless” following a bad loss, I wrote an article titled, “Essentially Lifeless: The New Jersey Devils Organization is Faltering, Part One: The Roster.” Over the past few days, Jared, and I have written articles about Tom Fitzgerald and the front office, while Gerard wrote about the players. Jackson hit both Fitzgerald and Keefe after the Islanders game. But today, I would like to zero in on the coaching staff, who do not seem to have a good grasp on the locker room.
Another problem since I first reacted to Keefe’s “essentially lifeless” comment: the organization is no longer faltering. It’s slipping to the point of failing. So, on we go.
Sheldon Keefe, Head Coach
I wanted Sheldon Keefe to be the guy. I thought he could be the guy.
To be honest, Lindy Ruff grew on me over his years as Devils coach. By the time he left, I just kept saying, you can’t fire Ruff and have a coach like Travis Green take over. But that’s what happened, and the Devils finished the 2023-24 season with a regression after firing the head coach, rather than the usual “bump” teams get from a firing.
If Sheldon Keefe, singularly, gets fired from the coaching staff, nobody on the bench deserves to take the head coaching seat. I don’t trust Jeremy Colliton, who had a bad time coaching in Chicago and is now overseeing the worst power play I have seen run by the Devils since Mark Recchi was the offensive assistant. I thought Brad Shaw deserved the Flyers job based on how he performed there with John Tortorella, but he has overseen a massive regression in defensive performance at five-on-five and the penalty kill from his predecessor in Ryan McGill, who I liked, and I don’t think he deserves anything more in New Jersey with how putrid our penalty kill and defensive breakout has been.
But Keefe was asked about his job security by Ryan Novozinsky last night, and he surprised me with his answer. Most coaches would say “no comment” or just leave it at “it’s out of my hands.” Keefe didn’t do that. He paused, thought about it, and went into a response about how the organization can take the team’s struggle as a real opportunity to look at themselves in the big picture and take the steps they need to take to become a “real hockey team.”
I know what this team needs, and I’ve gotta get them going. But I’m also well aware of the business, and how it works.
This on its own does not read like too much of a statement, but he just kept talking in response to a question — again — most coaches would have left at a one-line answer.
To me, this is…uh…we can use this as an organization as a great opportunity to take great steps in the big picture. And, because, we have a lot of things we need to do better at, you know. And uh when we lose focus on that and we get ahead of ourselves these kind of things happen. We got work to do to become a real hockey team. I think there’s a perception that we’re we were a real hockey team before the work was put in and you get exposed.
The last I checked, players on the ice are not responsible for taking “great steps” in the big picture.
To be honest, I think that Keefe is correct. The big picture from the front office is suspect at the moment. But a lot of this season’s troubles fall on him, too. The Devils have a lot of fast skaters — Tom Fitzgerald sought out faster skaters in Connor Brown, Evgenii Dadonov, and Luke Glendening in the offseason. One would think that would set up a system that’s built more around forechecking and offensive zone control than a trap game with a dump-and-chase. Repeatedly, I have heard Keefe say that the team needs to keep the game in front of them. But even when they do so, they’re often giving up goals against because they do not pressure shooters and play defense like they’re just hoping a shot hits them instead of the net.
Keefe likes a gritty game. That’s great — other available former head coaches like John Tortorella and Pete DeBoer push gritty games, too. But grit doesn’t just happen in the neutral zone and defensive zone, it has to come on all 200 feet of the ice. If your team is regularly ceding the forecheck to sit back in the neutral zone, but they also don’t stop the other team at the center ice red line, and they also play an ultra-conservative defensive zone game, they’re just letting themselves get hemmed in the defensive zone repeatedly throughout the season.
And when they do finally get possession, are they getting numbers the other way? Or is one Devil trying to skate the puck in against three opponents? Are they dumping the puck and getting to it first? No, they aren’t conditioned to forecheck, so they don’t get dump-ins. Is not forechecking what the team needs?
Then, when they do get all five skaters in the offensive zone, do they get to the net? No. They regularly run a three-high offensive zone system in which players like Jesper Bratt give up the advantages of their skating ability to stand smack in the middle of the blueline without a defenseman activating so the forward can fire a weak one-timer through weak traffic into the goalie’s stomach. Low-to-high offenses can work, but only if the offense has numbers by the net. Opposing teams know they can outnumber the Devils around the net, so deflections are rare and rebounds are nonexistent. By the time the Devils have numbers crashing the net for a loose puck, there are four opponent skaters and the goalie hounding it.
A result: the Devils generate shots from the middle, but goalies are able to stay squared up because of the lack of varied angles.
The Devils are motionless. They play so much of the game at a near-standstill. Is it the players not listening to what Keefe asks them to do, or is Keefe too stubborn to see the flaws in his system?
And is he too stubborn to see how poorly players are performing? Why is Luke Glendening, who seems to be tracking as having the worst skater season in HockeyViz’s tracking history (since 2006), still getting so much ice time and a nightly role? Why is Ondrej Palat, who is on track for 15 points, not being sent a message? Why has he not asked for someone better than Paul Cotter, who has seen the Devils outscored at a 9 to 1 rate when on the fourth line this season? Why is he rolling four lines with those players on the ice?
Dave Rogalski, Goaltending Coach
Tom Fitzgerald, Lindy Ruff, and the New Jersey Devils hired goaltender coach Dave Rogalski on October 23, 2020. This is how the team has performed in goal since then:
- 2020-21: .897 team SV%, 3.16 GAA (LG average: .908 SV%)
- 2021-22: .886 team SV%, 3.52 GAA (LG average: .907 SV%)
- 2022-23: .908 team SV%, 2.56 GAA (LG average: .904 SV%)
- 2023-24: .896 team SV%, 3.12 GAA (LG average: .903 SV%)
- 2024-25: .904 team SV%, 2.51 GAA (LG average: .900 SV%)
- 2025-26: .896 team SV%, 3.09 GAA (LG average: .897 SV%)
Out of six seasons out of goalie coach, Dave Rogalski has only twice had his goaltenders perform above league average. Not so coincidentally, those are the only two out of five full seasons where the Devils have made the playoffs. In this span of time, the Devils have had three head coaches and the following goaltenders.
- Mackenzie Blackwood
- Scott Wedgewood
- Aaron Dell
- Eric Comrie
- Jon Gillies
- Nico Daws
- Andrew Hammond
- Jonathan Bernier
- Akira Schmid
- Vitek Vanecek
- Kaapo Kahkonen
- Jake Allen
- Jacob Markstrom
With 13 goalies over just five-plus seasons, the New Jersey Devils have yet to find a tandem that could stay together for more than a single season while staying around a league average save percentage the entire time.
What is most shocking about this season is that Jake Allen has been good, even close to great in goal. With a .909 save percentage, he is 17th in the league in save percentage among goalies with 15 or more games played. Among goalies with 20 or more games played, Allen is 10th. This means that Jacob Markstrom — the goalie that Markstrom signed to a high-dollar extension to be a starting, 1A goaltender — has dragged the team down with his .878 save percentage through 22 appearances.
For Rogalski, his saving grace was always that he hadn’t really gotten a great tandem to work with. But his first two goalies, Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood, are now two of the best-performing goaltenders in the league with the Colorado Avalanche. Jacob Markstrom is now even worse than Vitek Vanecek was in the 2023-24 season, when he was considered unplayable with an .890 save percentage.
It’s a serious problem. You can hide behind the goal scoring to some extent, but this team was built to win 2-1, 3-2, and 1-0 games. If you have a goalie who will regularly give up 3 or more, regardless of the quality of chances given up, the team isn’t going to win. For Markstrom, it seems to be a positioning and fundamentals issue. He’s sliding in and out of the crease too easily. He’s dropping to the butterfly with potential shooters still 30 or 40 feet from the net. He’s playing the puck recklessly. It can be one of two things: the coaching isn’t working, or Fitzgerald made a huge mistake rushing to extend Markstrom.
Either way, fire Rogalski since you can’t fire Markstrom.
Jeremy Colliton, Offensive Assistant Coach
The Devils have too many high-skilled players with a history of power play success to be this bad with the man advantage. Full stop. Colliton needs to go.
Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, Timo Meier, Stefan Noesen, Dawson Mercer, Dougie Hamilton, and Luke Hughes. If you cannot make a functioning PP1 out of that group, you have failed. Honestly, that’s enough personnel for two pretty good power plays, especially when factoring Arseny Gritsyuk into the second unit.
The Devils started well with 10 power play goals in the 31 opportunities (32.26%) they had in their first 11 games. Between then and Jack Hughes’s injury at the Chicago steakhouse, the team went 1 for 13 (7.69%). Between then and his return, the power play went 8 for 47 (17.02%). Since then: 4 for 20 (20%). In total, a 16.25% conversion rate since the first 11 games of the season has helped bury this team in the standings, as their power play looks more like the kind of units that would run about 20 years ago than one in this era of NHL hockey.
Consider that the Devils have three one-timer threats in Dougie Hamilton, Timo Meier, and Arseny Gritsyuk. Unfortunately, none of those three players are favored to be on the top unit at the current moment. Meier and Gritsyuk can’t both take one-timers on PP2, and Dougie is not being fed any passes when he’s put in the one-timer position around the left circle. The result? Just like their five-on-five offense, the Devils’ power play does not vary the angle of their attack, shooting entirely from the middle and right side.
Do you want to guess where HockeyViz notes the Devils have their best finishing? It’s when they take slap shots in the left circle: right where they take the fewest shots on their power play and at five-on-five.
Could Dawson Mercer or Connor Brown be utilized there on PP2? What about Cody Glass? Why is Dougie Hamilton not firing one-timers from the left circle every 10 or 15 seconds on PP1?
As it works now, Jesper Bratt or Jack Hughes works from the left-side half-wall and tries to thread passes through the middle to the right side. They shoot, they jam, but it’s gotten so repetitive that even their high level of passing skill is not enough to create from that position alone anymore. For the love of all that is good in this world, Jeremy Colliton needs to be replaced with an offensive assistant that will push a different approach at both five-on-five and on the power play.
Maybe Jack Hughes or Jesper Bratt are really the power play quarterbacks, similar to how Sheldon Keefe used Mitch Marner in Toronto. Maybe those forwards work from the center point and feed either Dougie Hamilton or Timo Meier for one-timers, with Nico Hischier in the bumper and Stefan Noesen in the crease.
Something else, please. Fire Colliton.
Brad Shaw, Defensive Assistant
I do not think Brad Shaw should be fired yet. It’s his first year in New Jersey, and I personally think there are bigger fish to fry.
But this much is true: there was nothing wrong with what Ryan McGill had done in New Jersey before being dismissed by Keefe and Fitzgerald. When he was let go, I wrote in the title that McGill might be missed. I wrote in the article:
Still, looking at where the defense has ranked over these three years, there has been a lot more good than bad with McGill. The 2022-23 coaching staff of Lindy Ruff, Andrew Brunette, and Ryan McGill seemed to be a perfect blend of strengths and weaknesses, along with a roster well-suited to their approach. Now, with Sheldon Keefe and Jeremy Colliton also behind the bench, the Devils’ coaching staff was rather defensively-biased in 2024-25. Keefe has a strong defensive reputation and preaches fundamental details, and would generally rather see his team wait for the opportunity to come to them than make a mistake by taking a risk. McGill got good results out of his guys, though, and I don’t think you can explain this move with numbers. The numbers say McGill did a good job.
These were the aforementioned numbers:
This season, the Devils are ranked:
- 17th in total goals against — 3.08/60, on track for about 252-257 goals against
- 16th in total expected goals against — 3.23/60, on track for about 265-270 expected goals against
- 23rd in 5v5 goals against per 60 — 2.71/60
- 23rd in 5v5 expected goals against per 60 — 2.72/60
- 22nd in PK goals against per 60 — 8.17/60
- 27th in PK expected goals against per 60 — 9.78/60
For a coach like Brad Shaw, who has regularly seen his defenses from St. Louis to Philadelphia finish top ten in real goal metrics, these are horrific numbers. For a team that has over $36 million of cap space devoted to defensemen, with two making $9 million and another three making $4 million or more (albeit with one on LTIR), this is unacceptable.
Luke Hughes is regressing. He played his best hockey under Lindy Ruff and Ryan McGill two years ago as a rookie.
Jonas Siegenthaler’s defensive game has taken steps back, as he used to be the Devils’ best left-handed defenseman at preventing transitions through the neutral zone. Now he sits back behind the blueline and never makes any plays against entries.
Shaw has been unable to leverage Pesce, Dillon, Siegenthaler, and Hamilton into a good penalty kill. He never thought to replace either lefty with Colton White for a longer stretch despite the Devils allowing zero shot attempts on his three penalty killing shifts with the other defensemen in the box.
Shaw is failing at his job. If there is not a serious turnaround by the end of the season, I do not know how Keefe or Keefe’s potential replacement could justify keeping him around. It does not look good. These defensemen were paid to make plays, but it looks more and more like Sheldon Keefe and Brad Shaw have systematically neutered them in a similar fashion to how Keefe and Colliton have neutered the forwards. But with respect to Shaw’s long history of good job performance with different teams and this being his first season with the Devils, I don’t think he should go just yet.
Last Words and Your Thoughts
A system change is needed. If these coaches cannot deliver that, multiple coaches — not just the head coach — need to be fired and replaced. In my opinion, Colliton and Rogalski have both been around for long enough and have had poor enough progress with so many players that their firings are overdue. Keefe is teetering on the edge of a knife at best, but Shaw should be safe.
No matter if Tom Fitzgerald is fired (and I will have words about him on a different day, as I think I’ve said enough about him this week, along with Jared and Gerard), these coaches need to get more out of the team they have been given. The season is over halfway gone, and the clock is ticking faster than the Devils can put out all of their on-ice fires.
But what do you think of this coaching staff? Do you think differently about them? Do you agree? Leave your thoughts in the comments below and thanks for reading.
As always, big thanks to HockeyViz and Natural Stat Trick for their great data tracking.