Scott Stevens served as a co-coach for the New Jersey Devils alongside Adam Oates last season and he was consequently in the running to become the team’s new head coach. That job went to John Hynes instead, but Stevens was still willing to stick around as an assistant.
That won’t happen either though, per the Bergen Record.
As previously reported, the Devils hired Alain Nasreddine and Geoff Ward to work under Hynes. The addition of Nasreddine is particularly relevant because of his history of running the the AHL’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins’ defense and penalty kill when Hynes was serving as that squad’s bench boss. That was the role Stevens would have been in if he was hired.
“The decision with Alain (who will coach the defensemen) wasn’t about Scott. It was more about Alain,” Devils GM Ray Shero said.
From here Stevens is expected to pursue coaching opportunities elsewhere, but it sounds like Shero’s leaving the door open to Stevens staying with the Devils in some other role, including potentially as a coach with AHL Albany.
“That’s a conversation I haven’t had because it was more NHL assistant and there certainly are openings around the league still,” Shero said. “So, that’s a different conversation with Scott that I’ll have to have or he’ll have to have with me in terms where he wants to go with his career. Then, like with anybody, you have to make career choices and go from there.”
Fellow 2014-15 co-coach Adam Oates has already told the Devils he won’t be returning.
