John MacLean Pays Price for New Jersey Devils' Ill-Conceived Personnel Moves

John MacLean served as an assistant coach with the New Jersey Devils for seven years. After a short stint as head coach with the AHL's Lowell Devils, the New Jersey farm team, he was brought in to replace Jacques Lemaire. Lemaire stepped down as head coach after yet another first round exit by the Devils in the playoffs last year.  

Before that, John was a high draft choice and star as a Devils player. 

Now MacLean, after being head coach of the New Jersey Devils for only 33 games this season, has been fired. 

The Devils are admittedly playing abysmally, but injuries to key veterans Zach Parise and Martin Brodeur have forced the cap-strapped team at times to play with much less than a full roster. The decision to sign Ilya Kovalchuk to a ridiculous 15-year contract with a $6.66 million cap hit has left the organization with no personnel flexibility.

The organization also chose to spend their free agent money on the aged Henrik Tallinder and able but often injured defensive defenseman Anton Volchenkov. The team has no power play quarterback.

Star offensive forward Zach Parise is likely out for three months with a torn meniscus in his knee. As a consequence of these things, the team is scoring a miserable league-worst 1.73 goals per game.

The aging Martin Brodeur sports a horrible .893 save percentage when he has been healthy enough to play. Johan Hedberg has been little better at .897.

Jacques Lemaire has been brought back, the story goes, to help the organization recalibrate. The thought is that if the team plays this bad for Lemaire, than they really are this bad. What management needs to realize is that Brodeur kept what has been a steady decline in the Devils' play over the years in check. Now that he seems to have failed, the whole house of cards has come down at once. 

The Devils have resorted to trying to recapture past glory by signing former stars like Jason Arnott. They have resorted to high cost free agent signings.  They have put together one of the oldest lineups in hockey and potentially one of the worst. The people who put this lineup together are much more deserving of being fired than a rookie coach who got stuck at the wrong time in the coach's chair.

Lemaire and his veteran coaching staff of Larry Robinson, Chris Terreri and Adam Oates have been handed the almost impossible task of turning the season around. If they fail, look for Lou Lamoriello to be the next man asked to accept the responsibility for what has gone wrong in New Jersey.