Scott Stevens, who served with Adam Oates as co-head coaches in New Jersey after Lou Lamoriello sacked Peter DeBoer Dec. 26, will not stay on as an assistant under new bench boss John Hynes.
The 2007 Hockey Hall of Fame inductee and three time Stanley Cup champion was interested in becoming the teams permanent head coach and even offered to stick around as an assistant. But he will now be free to pursue any coaching opportunities that come his way.
Hynes brought in Alain Nasreddine and Geoff Ward to work as assistants. Nasreddine and Hynes 
have previous history as Nasreddine ran the defense and penalty kill with the AHL’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins’ when Hynes was their head coach. That was the role Stevens would have been in if he was hired.
Devils GM Ray Shero has yet to have have a conversation with Stevens on whether if he’s a fit for their AHL affiliate in Albany or working in another capacity with New Jersey.
“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. He would be a valuable addition to any staff I’m sure, but it’s a matter of what direction he wants to go and what’s important to him, whether it’s in New Jersey or somewhere else.
“Again, I don’t want to speak for Scott or get too far ahead in anything because it was more about the Devils’ job and the assistant job. That’s what he was focused on and what we were focused on.”
Ward comes back stateside after leading Adler Mannheim to the championship of the German Ice Hockey League and was named the coach of the year after one season in Europe. He previously spent seven seasons as an assistant with the Boston Bruins.
