this morning, the New Jersey Devils He filled out one of his offseason needs: an assistant coach. The team hired Andrew Brunette as associate coach to fulfill Mark Recchi’s responsibilities. The vacancy left by the departure of Alain Nasreddine is now filled. The Devils announced this morning that they have hired Ryan McGill as an assistant coach for the upcoming season.
McGill is a very experienced trainer. According to your Elite Prospects staff profile, McGill began training at the junior level first with the Edmonton Ice of the WHL. After becoming head coach in the 1997-98 season and continuing through 2001-02, he became a head coach in the AHL. He first with Hartford for three seasons, two with Omaha and two with Quad City. The previous two teams were franchises affiliated with Calgary, so the NHL Flames gave him the opportunity to be an assistant coach in 2009-10 and 2010-11. That didn’t work out so well as McGill returned to major youth hockey as Kootenay’s head coach for three seasons (and Canada’s WJC coach in 2013) and two seasons as head coach of Owen Sound in the OHL. When Las Vegas joined the league, he was named an assistant as part of Gerard Gallant’s inaugural staff. He was a Gold Knight until last season. He now joins New Jersey in the midst of his third decade as coach.
Ryan Novozinsky article on hiring at NJ.com, which is limited to subscribers, has the important detail that McGill was primarily in charge of the defense in Las Vegas. It is fair to assume that he will do the same in New Jersey. Therefore, he is Nasreddine’s replacement. To give Novozinsky credit, yesterday listed three possible candidates for an assistant coaching position on NJ.com and McGill was one of them. After his article about hiring McGill was published, Novozinsky tweeted that the Devils may not have finished hiring assistant coaches. We’ll see if that means Sergei Brylin is getting promoted or someone else comes in.
This leads to the obvious question: Is McGill any good? We can see how he has fared in Las Vegas defensively over the last five seasons.
For 5v5 situations, Natural Stat Trick is the place to go. In 2017-18, they finished in the top half of the league in CA/60 and SA/60 with an xGA/60 top-ten of 2.36. In 2018-19, they were even better with a CA/60 top five rate, SA/60 top ten rate, and xGA/60 top five rate of 2.24. In 2019-20 (and in the midst of a head coaching change), Las Vegas was still very good at limiting the opposition’s offense to 5v5 with third best CA/60 in the league, second best SA/60 and seventh best xGA/60 of 2.21. The pandemic-shortened 2021 season wasn’t as kind defensively as the team finished 13th in CA/60, 5th in SA/60, and 20th (!) in xGA/60 at 2.34. McGill’s last season with the organization ended a little better; 16 in CA/60, 7 in SA/60 and 15 in xGA/60 with 2.44. The last two seasons weren’t so kind from an expected goals model perspective. They peaked in 2018-19 and 2019-20 with arguably one of the best defenses in the NHL. However, the Knights were consistently at least an average team in the league in 5-on-5 hockey when it came to limiting the opposition’s offense.
Penalty kill during the G-Knights first five hockey seasons ranged from pretty good to not that impressive in terms of success rate NHL.com. However, neither season stands out as particularly horrible. That 77.4% success rate last season was 21 of 32 teams. and not far off the league average of 79.5%.
Between those two, along with the knowledge that McGill worked for two different head coaches, two different general managers and a bunch of player changes over the five seasons, I think it’s fair to conclude that he knows what he’s doing. Even his worst seasons weren’t so bad in 5-on-5 situations or understaffing. And when it all came together, Las Vegas was a strong defensive team. It remains to be seen how skaters adopt McGill’s defense systems (especially fenders); and how well their systems fit with what Lindy Ruff wants to do. Still, I have to think this is a very good hire based on the results he had in Las Vegas. The additional experience at the major and minor league levels are perks that go with his past experience in the NHL.
On paper, it looks to me like the Devils upgraded their coaching staff by replacing Recchi and Nasreddine with Brunette and McGill. I think the Devils were held back last season in part by the coaching staff and their tactical shortcomings. I hope that is not the case in 2022-23. Ruff’s staff is better than last season. Now we’ll have to see if Ruff can put it all together as head coach for a more successful team.
That is my opinion on this rental. Now I want to know yours. Are you satisfied with the signing of the Devils’ Ryan McGill? Do you think he did a good job in Vegas? Do you think the Devils are set behind the bench for 2022-23, or do you think there will be more changes? Leave your answers and other thoughts about Ryan McGill and this hire in the comments. Thank you for reading.