- Darren Dreger believes Peter Laviolette has the best prospects to become New Jersey Devils’ new head coach.
- The team from NJ is currently led by the interim head coach Alain Nasreddine.
- Their previous HC was John Hynes.
Dreger’s Information Points To Laviolette
According to Darren Dreger, TSN’s NHL insider, Peter Laviolette is one of the biggest, if not the biggest contender for becoming the New Jersey Devils’ head coach.
Dreger stated that yesterday, confirming the stories his colleague Pierre LeBrun said a couple of days ago, once he claimed that the Devils narrowed down the competition to only four names. Those names included the current interim head coach Alaine Nasreddine, Dreger believes he won’t be a long-term solution.
“There’s a number of top candidates including the interim head coach, who’s with the New Jersey Devils, Alaine Nasreddine, but the name that I keep hearing is a familiar one,” Dreger said. “And that is Peter Laviolette, formerly of the Nashville Predators.”
The Nashville Predators fired Laviolette on January 6. The board wasn’t happy with his leadership, and the team’s performances. Until that point, the Predators had 19-15-7 record. On February 26, Laviolette was named the head coach of the United States’ national team.
Laviolette’s CV is impressive as has one Stanely Cup Trophy with the Hurricanes in 2006, and two more trips to the Stanley Cup finals, which he unfortunately lost.
Dreger would also add that this process is still on, and that there won’t be an easy way of dealing with it. The one thing which could be slowing down the entire process is the fact that Tom Fitzgerald, who is in charge of this matter also has a prefix “interim” ahead of his title. The 52-year old still doesn’t have the authority to make final decisions.
“Tom Fitzgerald, who is the interim general manager, who has been managing this search. He still hasn’t had the interim tag removed from his title. So it’s an ongoing process for the Devils.”
Nasreddine in the Middle
In the meantime, Nasreddine spoke with the media a couple of od days ago, adding that he, in fact, doesn’t know anything and has no information about his future or the search for the new head coach.
Nassredine took over the Devils on December 3, replacing John Hynes. He would post 19-16-8 record and improve the overall situation in the team. Still, the management apparently believes there might be better options than him, which is why he didn’t get a contract offer until now.
This is his first head coaching job in the NHL. Nasreddine was the assistant coach for the Devils since 2015, and jumped in seven months ago.
John Hynes was leading the Devils for five incomplete seasons and managed to get them to the playoffs just once in 2018. In all other campaigns, the team from New Jersey posted losing records and was among the worst teams in the league.
We can expect to hear more about NJ’s search for the new head coach in the next couple of days, as well as about Tom Fitzgerald’s status.
