For years, the New Jersey Devils‘ defense held the team back from its goals. Both Ray Shero and Tom Fitzgerald (and Lou Lamoriello before them) tried quick fixes to solve the problem. It actually started with the failures of Alexander Urbom, Eric Gelinas, and Jon Merrill to become the next great defensive core that hurt this team. That led to trades and signings of P.K. Subban, Sami Vatanen, Ryan Murray, Dmitry Kulikov, Will Butcher, Mirco Müller, Ben Lovejoy, and Egor Yakovlev. Those players all had various levels of success in New Jersey, but none could be considered “successful” overall.
Tom Fitzgerald Changed His Defensive Appraoch, and It’s Why Devils Are Winners
