Fire Sale Is the Devils' Only Friend

Wayne Simmonds is not reacting to the news that

the Devils have already traded him. But the confusion is understandable.

Today is the NHL's trading deadline, and my team, the New Jersey Devils, have gone into full "fire sale" mold. The great new era they tried to build didn't happen, so they're tearing it all down and starting all over.

Before the season began, they signed free agent right wing Wayne Simmonds to a 1-year contract, obtained defenseman P.K. Subban in a trade with the Nashville Predators that looked like a steal, and sent 2 draft picks to the Vegas Gold Knights for left wing Nikita Gusev. Things were looking up.

They didn't stay that way. Head coach John Hynes remained clueless, and the team hasn't looked like making the Playoffs at any point during this season. General manager Ray Shero then traded the team's best player, left wing Taylor Hall, as part of a package with the Arizona Coyotes for right wing Nick Merkley, 2 guys who will probably never make it, and 2 conditional draft picks. This was the 1st sign that Shero intended to blow it all up.

On December 3, Hynes was fired, and replaced by Alain Nasreddine, who still hasn't had the "interim" tag taken off him, and hasn't really earned that yet. On January 12, Shero was fired, and replaced with Tom Fitzgerald, a former Islander and the 1st Captain of the Nashville Predators. He's also serving as an assistant coach to Nasreddine, and also awaits the removal of the "interim" tag.

I thought getting rid of Shero and Hynes was the answer. But the owners -- including Josh Harris, also the owner of the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers, whose "Trust the Process" slogan also seems to have stalled -- don't seem to get that a question exists.

Then, last Sunday, Fitzgerald made a pair of trades. Andy Greene, a Devils since 2006, thus the last remaining player from the Meadowlands era, and the team's Captain since 2015, was sent to the Islanders for a 2021 draft pick and David Quenneville -- whose brother John had been traded away at the start of the season, and whose cousin Joel was an original 1982-83 Devil and a 3-time Stanley Cup-winning coach for the Chicago Blackhawks.

I can understand trading Greene. He's 37, and isn't doing us or himself any good by staying. But David Quenneville is far from ready for the NHL, and that draft pick won't help us for over a year, if at all.

The same day, Fitzgerald sent center Blake Coleman to the Tampa Bay Lightning for yet another draft pick, and left wing Nolan Foote, son of former NHL star Adam Foote. He's nowhere near ready, either.

Today, it got worse. The Devils traded Simmonds to the Buffalo Sabres for a conditional 5th round pick in 2021. Someone joked online that both teams lost the trade. Another person joked that Simmons deserved the respect of being traded to "not Buffalo."

It was also announced that defenseman Sami Vatanen had been traded to the Carolina Hurricanes for left wing Janne Kuokkanen, defenseman Frederick Claesson, and a conditional 4th round pick this year. Kuokkanen is doing well at the hockey equivalent of Triple-A ball, but this was a trade of a reasonably good NHL defenseman for 3 guys who are not ready to play in the NHL, and might never be.

The Devils are trading good, proven players for prospects. Seems to me that there's a baseball team not far away that tried this, and it spectacularly failed (never mind the Asstros' cheating), and now the owner has said, "Fuck this, I'm opening the vault."

I know that can't really be done in a league with a salary cap (one of the dumbest inventions in sports history: Socialism for the owners, unregulated capitalism for the fans), but the Devils are no better off than they were when Lou Lamoriello went senile.

Since the trip to the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals, the Devils have made the Playoffs only once, in 2018. In divisional play, they have finished 5th, 6th, 7th, 7th, 8th, 5th and 8th. They are currently 8th and dead last in the NHL Metropolitan Division. Their 58 points put them 16 behind the last Eastern Conference Playoff berth. Only 5 teams have fewer points.

With a roster that started out with a former Hart Trophy (regular season MVP) winner in Hall; plus veteran talent in Subban, Simmonds, center Travis Zajac and right wing Kyle Palmieri; exciting prospects in Gusev, and centers Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes, and Kevin Rooney; and good young goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood, this could have been the season the Devils turned it around.

Nothing has been turned around. To paraphrase Don McLean, "So, come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack Flash sat on a candlestick, 'cause a fire sale is the Devils' only friend."