The New Jersey Devils relieved Lindy Ruff of his head coaching duties. Travis Green becomes the interim coach.
The New Jersey Devils made a coaching change leading to the NHL trade deadline.
The team fired coach Lindy Ruff and named associate coach Travis Green its interim coach for the rest of the season, GM-president Tom Fitzgerald announced Monday.
The Devils sit sixth in the NHL's Metropolitan Division with a 30-27-4 record for 64 points. They're seven points back of the Philadelphia Flyers for third place in the division and eight points behind the Tampa Bay Lightning for the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
“I hold our entire organization to the highest levels of accountability to focus on being a competitive team that expects to be a perennial playoff contender,” Fitzgerald said in a press release. “Unfortunately, we are not currently at that level, and I needed to make this decision.
“This was an extremely difficult conversation to have with Lindy based on the relationship that he and I have. He was the right coach to develop our young players on the ice, and above all else, he is a tremendous person.”
Green gets his second chance at head coaching an NHL team. The 53-year-old coached the Vancouver Canucks for parts of five seasons from 2017-18 to 2021-22.
“Travis has key experience running benches at the junior, AHL and NHL levels and knows that there are no shortcuts to success,” Fitzgerald said. “He is a high-demanding individual who is familiar with the group and excited about working to get us back on track.”
Ruff, 64, is the fourth-winningest coach in NHL history, with 864 wins. He also has the fourth-most games coached, with 1,774.
Ruff had been coach of the Devils since the 2020-21 season. He took over after the team finished last in the Metropolitan Division two years in a row under John Hynes and interim Alain Nasreddine. Ruff oversaw a team with Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, Nico Hischier and more looking to take steps toward playoff contention.
New Jersey finished seventh of eight teams in their division in 2020-21 and 2021-22, but they took a large step forward in 2022-23. Their team went from having 63 points in 2021-22 to 112 last season, which ranked the Devils third in the NHL. They even eliminated the New York Rangers in the first round of the playoffs before bowing out in the second to the Carolina Hurricanes.
This season, the Devils struggled to keep the momentum going.
Since the beginning of 2024, the Devils haven't won three straight games since doing so four times from November to December 2023. They've also had the worst power-play in the NHL since Jan. 1, at 11.5 percent, and their 3.49 goals against per game is the seventh-worst this season.
Ruff's record with the Devils ends for now at 128 wins, 125 losses and 28 overtime losses.
For more coverage on the coaching change, visit The Hockey News' New Jersey Devils site.