The New Jersey Devils season was disappointing, and team president and General Manager Tom Fitzgerald expressed his frustration at the end-of-year press conference.
Nobody saw a coaching change in the middle of the season and the team missing the playoffs. However, the real work is now beginning for the Fitzgerald.
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While there are holes to fill on the roster, beginning with the goaltender, he wants to bring in the right type of coach to push his players to be better and hold them accountable.
Travis Green replaced Lindy Ruff, who was fired and is now hired in Buffalo as the interim head coach in New Jersey. While he will get a chance to interview for the position, Fitzgerald will also look outside the organization to find the right coach for his players.
Tom Fitzgerald sat down with Matt Loughlin to discuss what he sees as an ideal coach for the New Jersey Devils.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Matt Loughlin: “You said that Travis Green will be interviewed for the head coaching job, permanent head coaching job next year; you will also look at other candidates. You may wait to see who falls and becomes available after the first round. Kind of what are the traits you looking for and what are the most important traits of those and what’s your timeframe?”
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Tom Fitzgerald: “Well, I’m not going to commit to NHL experience, but I do think our players deserve someone who has pedigree, who’s coached in this league and understands maybe where they were in their last job to what they need to be to get on the next job to take a team to the next level. There are certain boxes.
Someone who’s an excellent communicator who can not only speak to the top players but make sure the scratches are feeling like they’re part of the organization, you know, make sure there’s communication through management up even ownership for that matter. Communicating with our strength conditioning coaches, and our analytics department. They’re the CEO of that area down there and so understanding making sure that they’re in tune with every ounce of that locker room is vital.
And it doesn’t matter to me if you win or lose. I think players want feedback after every game. Great job, guys. We’d lucked out there, but we’ll keep going, or hey, we deserve more. Players want that, and I think that’s important, and then someone who understands how to use the resources that we have, including analytics and sports science, in the right way.
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That’s a non-starter for me, because those those areas are real, and they can help us strategize. You know how we want to play potentially lines, lines, D pairings, which goalies for you know where their strengths are. But being able to use that with sports science, the things that we give our players on the ice practice understanding where they’re at what level they’re at, be the best condition to what kind of drills we need to do to get our team to that level.
So those those areas are non-starters for me, quite honestly, and someone has to check those boxes at least.”
It will be interesting to see the direction they go in with names like Gerard Gallant and Craig Berube out there.
