The New Jersey Devils are adding Bryan McCabe and Jessica Campbell to their front office, and the timing says plenty about what they think is broken.
Gino Hard put the news out this morning, crediting Emily Kaplan. McCabe comes in as vice president of prospect personnel, Campbell as manager of player development.
The photos attached to the post tell their own story. One shows the new prospect boss hoisting the Stanley Cup, the other has his development counterpart at a podium in Seattle colours.
Now look at why New Jersey needed this. The Devils went 42-37-3 and finished 21st in the league.
They scored 230 goals and allowed 254. A club averaging 2.8 per night is not a club one prospect away from anything.
The season ended on a shutout, a 4-0 night in Boston with nothing on the board. Fitting close to a year that never found a gear.
And here is the detail that makes these hires land. The young players in that organization barely touched the ice.
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Bryan McCabe and Jessica Campbell join Devils in major organizational reset
Seamus Casey dressed twice at 22. Topias Vilen also got two games, and Shane Lachance played exactly one.
Lenni Hameenaho was the only one who got real runway, and 33 games produced eight points at 21 years old. That is the pipeline these two were hired to fix.
Meanwhile the top of the roster is already expensive. Jack Hughes put up 77 points in only 61 games on an $8 million cap hit.
His brother is the bigger bet. Luke Hughes carries a $9 million number, managed 35 points, and is already day to day and questionable for the opener.
Dougie Hamilton sits on the same $9 million figure at 33. That is a lot of money for one blue line that finished under water.
Timo Meier is the other one that stings. Forty four points and a -16 rating on $8.8 million is not what anybody signed up for.
The bargains exist too. Anthony Mantha scored 33 times on a $2.5 million deal, which is the kind of contract a development staff is supposed to keep finding.
Luke Evangelista just got five years and $36.25 million after a 56 point season with 44 assists. That one they paid up for.
So what exactly does a prospect department fix in the next six months?
Hiring development people after a year where your kids dressed twice is like buying a cookbook the week after you burned dinner. Useful. Late.
Sheldon Keefe still has Arseny Gritsyuk and Evan Rodrigues listed as questionable for the start, on top of everything else.
Two good hires do not change a single thing about October. They matter in 2029, which is a long time to ask a fanbase to wait.
Will hiring Bryan McCabe and Jessica Campbell actually fix what is wrong with the Devils pipeline?
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