Which Devils Bloggers Predicted The Firing Of John MacLean?

At the beginning of November, Mike Chen at SB Nation’s From The Rink held a roundtable discussion with four Devils bloggers -- John Fischer of In Lou We Trust, Greg Wyshynski of Yahoo!‘s Puck Daddy, Steve Lepore of SB Nation New York and Chris Wassel of The Program.

Chen asked the guys if coach John MacLean would be fired, and if so, when he’d be fired. Well, now that it’s happened, let’s look back and see who was right.

-Prediction: Does Lou fire MacLean, and if so, at what point in the season?

Chris: Lou Lamoriello will ultimately not fire John MacLean. The team is too good not to at least somewhat turn this around and then make a run late in the season. The bigger question may be this. Would a guy like Mike Haviland been a better hire than MacLean who Lamoriello clearly had reservations about hiring? After all, Coach MacLean had what amounted to a six or seven year internship in the Devils’ organization before taking the reigns.
Clearly work needs to be done. The team is stuck with MacLean and MacLean is stuck with them. Time for each side to deal with it. Point blank!

Greg: Yes, and within the next month.

John: Before the Anaheim game, I stated that if the Devils drop both that game and the LA game, then MacLean’s on notice. They did win the Anaheim game, and it would make more sense to let the road trip play out and . I will say this, though. If MacLean can’t get this team to .500 by the end of November, then I’d say he’s a dead man walking. The root issues may not be solved with a new head coach, but there needs to be reason to believe they are being addressed by MacLean and his staff working with the players. This requires that progress is made and results are earned.

Steve: If, at 35 games, the Devils are more than 5 games under .500, John MacLean will be gone. I think Lou can only let this go so long, and Christmas seems the right time.

All but one of them predicted the firing, and Lepore was apparently bang on with his prediction.