from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Ray Shero’s dismissal after 4¹/₂ seasons as Devils general manager wasn’t as much a commentary on his and his team’s performance as it was a story about lines of authority and autonomy within the hierarchy.

Make no mistake. This is an owner-driven operation. If you didn’t recognize that David Blitzer and Josh Harris were calling the shots, then you might have missed the summer trade for PK Subban that was hatched in the owners’ suite. Not that New Jersey was alone on this, as another Eastern Conference team beaten to the punch on No. 76 was also holding talks above the GM level with the Predators, sources reported at the time.

There has been previous reporting by CBC’s redoubtable Elliotte Friedman about the “collaborative” process favored by ownership in decision-making. George Steinbrenner once favored a collaborative process, too.

Slap Shots has been told New Jersey features an organizational chart in which all lines on the hockey side lead to ownership rather than the general manager and that the influence the analytics department had on ownership was an issue, with VP Tyler Dellow reporting to Blitzer/Harris rather than Shero and with reports from the analytics department awarded prominence in weekly meetings between ownership and the hockey department.

continued