GMs on the Jets, Rangers and other NHL teams must address their team's struggles right now, even if they're not at risk of being fired.
The temperature is rising on NHL teams performing below expectations at the midway point of the season.
We usually have at least one person on The Hockey News' Hot Seat Radar whose seat is "cooling down" instead of "heating up," meaning they're facing less pressure than before. This week is not the case.
For instance, New Jersey Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald's hot seat cooled down in December when it was reported his job was safe despite missing out on acquiring Quinn Hughes. But this week, he's not in nearly so comfortable a position. He's one of many GMs who need to figure out what is ailing their team and address it before this year's March 6 NHL trade deadline.
The four GMs we're focusing on in this file clearly have their work cut out for them in trying to turn things around. And as always with our Hot Seat Radar, not everyone's job is at risk, but the pressure on them to improve before bigger problems arise is increasing.
With that said, here are our choices for the NHL Hot Seat Radar this week.
Warming Up: Kevin Cheveldayoff, GM, Winnipeg Jets
If you said prior to the season that the Jets would be the NHL's worst team by the halfway point of the season, Winnipeg fans would've laughed you out of the room. But here we are, and the Jets are 32nd with a 15-21-5 record.
Since Dec. 5, Winnipeg has gone 2-9-4, and they're currently in the midst of a 10-game winless streak, including six losses in regulation. One or two of those losses you might chalk up to bad luck, but continuously finding ways to lose speaks to a much more serious problem for the Jets. And Cheveldayoff has to get his team on the right track before it's too late to salvage Winnipeg's season.
Cheveldayoff does have about $7.07 million in salary cap space – a number that rises to $16.7 million at the trade deadline. But it won't be easy to jumpstart the Jets' anemic offense. And although Cheveldayoff has been on the job in Winnipeg for 15 years and his job security isn't in doubt, there's also no question that missing the playoffs one year after winning the NHL's Presidents' Trophy as the league's best regular-season team would be a major blemish on his record.
Warming Up: Tom Fitzgerald, GM, New Jersey Devils
The Devils came out of the gate strongly this season, posting an 8-1-0 record in their first nine games. But while there have been short stretches of strong play for them since then, it's been mostly a series of increasingly alarming letdowns.
New Jersey was 16-7-1 as of Nov. 28, but after that, they've gone 6-12-1 to plummet to sixth place in the Metropolitan Division and 13th in the East. So it's no wonder Devils fans are pointing an accusatory finger at Fitzgerald's way and demanding he change things up with a roster that can’t shoot straight.
In that 6-12-1 stretch, New Jersey has scored one goal or fewer nine times. And their most recent loss was an utterly humiliating 9-0 defeat at the hands of the New York Islanders.
The good news for the Devils is they're still only three points out of the final wild-card spot and five points behind third place in the Metro. But Fitzgerald has less than $788,000 in cap space, and he's running out of runway to stick the landing and get the Devils into the post-season.
Fitzgerald's seat is definitely getting warmer, and he needs to demonstrate he can make the necessary tweaks to the lineup to make this New Jersey team much more competitive. Otherwise, the Devils are going to find their season buried beneath a pile of subpar performances.
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Warming Up: Steve Staios, GM, Ottawa Senators
Staios' job is not at risk. But the Senators are last in the Atlantic Division and second-last in the Eastern Conference after ending a playoff drought last year, so the last thing the team and fan base want is a step back.
Staios made curious comments this past week about the Senators being contenders when they're ready to be contenders, even though he said earlier in his press conference that he has higher expectations of the team and wants to take a step forward, not backward. In that case, they better be ready to be contenders.
The Senators look like playoff contenders on offense, averaging 3.19 goals-for per game, the NHL's 11th-most. But they rank 23rd in goals against per game, at 3.26. They're not getting great goaltending at the moment, but the problem feels bigger than that for Staios to solve.
Staios has $4.4 million in cap space, and that amount grows to $10.4 million at the trade deadline. But although Ottawa is only four points out of the final wild-card position, there are seven teams for the Senators to leap over, so improvement has to be immediate. And the buck stops with Staios.
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Warming Up: Chris Drury, GM, New York Rangers
The Rangers came into this season looking to atone for missing the playoffs last year.
So far, that hasn't happened.
They've sagged badly over the holiday season, going 5-6-4 in their past 15 games. And now, the Blueshirts sit seventh in the Metro and in 14th in the East.
This brings us to Drury, who recently received the dreaded vote of confidence from Rangers owner James Dolan. Drury doesn't have a wealth of cap space, with $4.7 million available now and at the trade deadline. But the Blueshirts need an infusion of offense in the worst way, and with so much parity in the league, there's no easy answer as to who Drury should be targeting in a trade.
The Rangers' schedule offers no letup, with showdowns against the Buffalo Sabres, Boston Bruins, Seattle Kraken, Senators and Philadelphia Flyers in their next five games.
It isn't as if Drury can flip a switch and get his players to perform well under first-year Rangers coach Mike Sullivan, but something has to improve if the Rangers are to get back into a playoff position. We'd be surprised if Drury was fired, but stranger things have happened in Manhattan. And the Rangers can only ease the pressure on their GM by getting back into the win column on a regular basis.
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