On the departure of Andrew Brunette

The 49-year-old landed a head coaching job in Nashville after just one year with the Devils.

Follow along on Twitter @ToddCordell | @InfernalAccess

Be sure to join the Discord channel to talk hockey, and everything else, with our writers and subscribers.

---

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. After weeks of Andrew Brunette’s name circulating in the coaching carousel, he has landed a job as the new head man for the Nashville Predators.

Coincidentally, it’ll be another former Devils coach in John Hynes who Brunette will replace.

The Predators are a surprise destination – the Ducks and Blue Jackets were a couple of teams rumored to be interested in Brunette – but it’s far from a shock Brunette has taken a promotion elsewhere.

The writing was on the wall when Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald announced Lindy Ruff would (deservedly) be sticking around as the team’s head coach.

There was a ton of speculation that Brunette came to New Jersey with the intention of taking over sooner rather than later.

With Ruff seemingly manning the bench for a couple more years (perhaps more), and plenty of outside interest, it was only a matter of time before Brunette packed his bags.

Brunette has a rosy reputation as an offensive guru and power play specialist. Perhaps a little too rosy.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you he did a horrendous job. I do think it was a little underwhelming, however. At the very least, worse than most would have you believing.

The Devils rostered a healthy Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, and Dougie Hamilton for the entirety of the season. They also had 40-goal scorer Timo Meier for well over a quarter of the year.

Few teams could match the level of star power the Devils iced on a nightly basis – and yet the power play was still highly mediocre.

During the regular season, the Devils ranked 20th in power play markers and 22nd in goal share. They grade out better when looking at rate stats – 12th in goals/60, 13th in high-danger chances/60 – but that’s still nothing to write home about given the personnel.

I’m not suggesting Brunette was a disaster and any team would be nuts to bring him on board. But it wasn’t as if he made magic with a bunch of spare parts.