When Pete DeBoer was cleaning out his office in New Jersey after getting fired from the Devils on Christmas 2014, one of the biggest criticisms of him at that time was that he wasn’t giving the younger players enough of an opportunity. The Devils were an aging team that had lost star forwards Zach Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk in recent seasons, but had some high round draft picks waiting to make the jump and help fill that void.
DeBoer, though, didn’t give them enough of an opportunity, according to many Devils supporters. Guys like Mattias Tedenby (first round, 2008), Jacob Josefson (first round, 2009), Stefan Matteau (first round, 2012), and Eric Gelinas (second round, 2009) were spending most of their time in the minors, while the NHL club had a miserable 12-17-7 record at the time of his dismissal.