By all non-committal accounts, this sounds like it's more about letting a recent retiree get some coaching experience while playing out a depressingly insignificant stretch than about getting a franchise favorite's first foot back in the door to an official organizational re-entry. For that reason, I'll stop short of putting the final strokes on my painfully optimistic mental picture of John Hynes and Patrik Elias sharing an excited embrace behind the bench after leading the Devils back to the postseason next Spring. That being said, this is still welcomed news for a variety of reasons. Of course, a warm, friendly face from much more successful season's past is a good distraction from the dumpster fire that's been raging since late October. Not that another set of eyes, whether they lay claim to 20/20 on-ice vision or not, is going to see anything other than a woefully inferior NHL lineup. After all, Patrik Elias' biggest impact would probably come from knocking the rust off the old wheels and taking them for a spin in a top-6 that is currently in desperate need of even the most out-of-practice of playmakers. Still, it's a positive to get the perspective of someone who both played and thought the game at a banner-worthy level. Even more so than that, at the end of a humbling year that has some shortsighted people questioning the future of John Hynes, a former player whose biggest knock on his HOF resume is the versatility and well-roundedness to which he sacrificed his stats just gave him not only a vote of confidence, but the trust of temporary employment. Whether it be Larry Robinson, Pat Burns, or Jacques Lemaire, Patrik Elias has had a first-hand look at some legendary leaders over the years, and yet he still took a break from living a best life that would make that of an Instagram model seem overworked to learn from a young coach that is very much still a work in progress in his own right. Convenience is certainly a factor, as #26 has earned his fair share of favors inside the confines of the Prudential Center, but Patrik Elias reaching out for both advice and mentorship speaks to how well-respected John Hynes is by...well...the well-respected. Who knows whether or not his prospective coaching career ever pulls him off the ski slopes and mountainsides he's been endearingly exploring with his young family and onto a one-way trip to Newark, New Jersey. That's not really the point. The point is that the mutual admiration that Patrik Elias and John Hynes clearly have for each other's acumen, after spending only a short-time tenured together, can only be an encouraging thing for the New Jersey Devils' franchise moving forward.
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