Green has shot to be Devs’ full-time coach
General manager Tom Fitzgerald is looking for a new coach for the New Jersey Devils and interim skipper Travis Green remains in the running for the job.
Speaking three days after the Devils ended a disappointing season by missing the playoffs, Fitzgerald said he hopes to have a full-time coach in place for the NHL draft in late June.
“Travis is well aware of my intentions,” Fitzgerald said Thursday. “I owe it to the organization to make sure I was following the coaching world with who I believe would be the perfect coach for this group moving forward for what’s available out there.”
Fitzgerald wants his coach to be a person who can communicate with his players while holding them accountable.
Green checks many of those boxes, including being a no-nonsense coach, Fitzgerald said. He said there are other coaches to be considered and others may become available, possibly after the first round of the postseason.
A year after posting a franchise-record 112 points and winning a first-round playoff series with the Rangers, the young Devils took a major step back this season, finishing seventh in the Metropolitan Division and 13th in the Eastern Conference. They went 38-39-5 for 81 points. Their goals against went from 226 in 22-23 to 283. Their goals for, goals-against differential went from plus-65 to minus-19.
They never won more than three games in a row.
It led to the firing of Lindy Ruff in March and the promotion of Green from associate head coach to interim coach. New Jersey was 30-27-4 when Ruff was relieved. Green went 8-12-1, losing eight times by a goal if open-net scores were not counted, Green said.
Green said he has talked with Fitzgerald briefly since the season ended and the two will talk more in the coming weeks. “I want to be the head coach of the New Jersey Devils,” said Green, who previously was the head coach in Vancouver from 2017 through the early part of the 2021-22 season.
“It’s an exciting, exciting group and I think the future is bright,” Green said.
The Devils are young and they are loaded with skilled players up front with Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Dawson Mercer, Timo Meier and Alexander Holtz. The back end missed star defenseman Dougie Hamilton most of the season with a pectoral injury, forcing prospects Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec to play more than expected.
JAGR, 52, MAKES HISTORY
Jaromir Jagr returned to action Thursday for the first time since turning 52 and immediately scored as he surpassed legend Gordie Howe to become the oldest player taking regular shifts in professional ice hockey.
Howe, known as “Mr. Hockey,” was 52 years, 11 days old when played his final NHL game in 1980. The Canadian later played a single shift with the Detroit Vipers in the International Hockey League in 1997 at the age of 69. Howe died in 2016.
Jagr hadn’t played since Feb. 10 — five days before he turned 52 — and rejoined his Kladno Knights, a top-division team from his Czech Republic hometown, in the second game of a playoff relegation series against Vsetin.
JUDGE DENIES DERBY HOPEFUL
A judge has denied a request by the owner of Bob Baffert-trained Arkansas Derby winner Muth for the colt to run in next month’s 150th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.
Jefferson County Circuit Judge Mitch Perry declined Thursday to grant a temporary injunction to Zedan Racing Stables, which had argued that the ban of Baffert was “illegal.”
Muth won the Arkansas Derby on March 30 but is ineligible to receive the 100 points that would have put him in the Run for the Roses because of Baffert’s suspension. ZRS sued Churchill Downs days later.
In his ruling, Perry expressed concern about “innocent third parties” having to remove eligible horses from the Derby on May 4 to accommodate the horse trained by the Hall of Famer, whose suspension by Churchill Downs was extended through 2024.
Eric Andrus, a spokesman for ZRS, said an emergency appeal would be filed “as soon as possible.”
RICE’S COLLEGE COACH DIES
Archie Cooley, the innovative Black college football coach whose offense helped Jerry Rice become a star at Mississippi Valley State, has died, his family announced through the school Thursday. He was 84.
Nicknamed “Gunslinger” for his passion for the passing game, Cooley spent 19 seasons as a head coach at four HBCUs and went 83-78-5.
The Mississippi native played both ways at Jackson State in the Southwestern Athletic Conference in the early 1960s and started his coaching career as a defensive assistant.
He became a head coach for the first time in the SWAC at Mississippi Valley State in 1980. Cooley’s five-wide receiver, no-huddle offense helped revolutionize the passing game at a time when many top programs were still using run-heavy attacks.
The Satellite Express offense, with Willie “Satellite” Totten at quarterback and Rice at receiver, set dozens of NCAA records.