So I started thinking about two of my favorite teams last night, the Oakland A's and the New Jersey Devils (a combination that Blez would surely be proud of), and started to see a distinct parallel between the Devils and the A's this year. Despite what some may think of hockey, and how very, very different hockey and baseball are, this comparison actually seemed to make sense to me. The parallel starts with early season expectations.

For those of you who don't know much about the Devils, they are team who have had a lot of success in the NHL, and made a splash by signing elite scorer Ilya this past offseason. Kovalchuk, who is one of the best offensive players in hockey, is not a typical devils player, and the signing garnered a lot of attention. Many people picked the Devils as serious Stanley Cup contenders with the addition of Kovy to a team that was eliminated in the playoffs the season before by the eventual eastern conference champions. This is where the first loose comparison comes in; the increase expectation for the A’s this year. With a couple offseason acquisitions and the maturing rotation, many experts picked the A’s for the playoffs this year, much like the Devils.

Another of the more “gotta-really-wanna-see-it” comparisons are the distractions that both teams are dealing with. The A’s of course, are struggling with the MLB for a new stadium; meanwhile the Devils were engaged in a tussle with NHL over the Kovalchuk negotiation. Upon first attempt at signing the superstar, the Devils were found guilty of trying to circumvent the salary cap by making his contract extremely long (17 years) to make the per year hit less. This was a distraction for the Devs, who had to renegotiate a deal with Kovy and take the NHL’s punishment.

Now, aside from the off the field/ice issues, both teams seasons got off to a similar start. We all know how the A’s have been, which can be described as frustrating to say the least, much like the first month of the Devils season, which started off 3-8-1. After October, the Devils sat in last place and looked lost on the ice. The A’s are nowhere near this bad yet, but I don’t think any fans are pleased with how the team started off.

The next parallel lies within the disappointing offenses. Both franchises are currently thought of as defensive teams, yet both attempted to bolster the O with offseason acquisitions, the Devils with Kovalchuk, and the A’s with Matsui, Willingham, and Dejesus. Despite both teams’ best efforts, both struggled offensively out of the gate. The Devils were suffering from terribly low shooting percentages. (Thanks to John Fischer over at Inlouwetrust.com for these numbers, he runs a fantastic Devils focused SBnation blog. The article where these numbers come from is here: http://www.inlouwetrust.com/2010/11/29/1843910/the-very-low-shooting-percentages-of-the-2010-11-new-jersey-devils )

Zach Parise, a talented young scorer, was shooting 6.4% early on in the 10-11 season, despite a career shooting percentage of 11.6%, before he promptly got injured, and was lost for the year (A big blow for the Devils). Kovalchuk, the new acquisition was shooting 5.8%, despite one of the best shots in the league and a career 14.5%.  Patrick Elias, a longtime Devil, was shooting 5.4%, much lower than his career 12.2%. Brian Rolston, a career 9.1% shooter, was shooting 5.3%, and Travis Zajac, a career 10.6% shooter was shooting a miserable 3.8% on the year. The futility that plagued the Devils early season offense is similar to the very early struggles of the A’s offense.

Granted, these numbers are a very small sample, and cannot be taken too seriously, they just help to create the comparison, but the A’s offense has struggled in a similar way to the Devils early season. Coco Crisp, David Dejesus, Mark Ellis, Hideki Matsui, Kurt Suzuki, and Kevin Kouzmanoff, are all hitting well below their career .OPS marks, some quite dramatically. These offensive struggles, much like the Dev’s were, are way too low to be expected to continue without some improvement.

Now, with these comparisons put forth, I see three ways that the A’s could use the Devils as an example to make sure not to follow the same path as the Devils, and miss the playoffs after a disappointing start. (The Devils finished well out of the playoffs, despite an impressive 23-2-3 run at the end of the season)

One lesson is as follows: A coaching change can make a difference, just don’t wait too long.

The Devils came into the past season with a brand new coach, John Maclean, who was at one time, a good player for the Devils. Maclean had waited a long time for his chance, and was liked by the fans, however his NHL coaching career got off to a horrid start. Despite fan callings for Maclean to be fired, the Devils hung on to Maclean for quite a while into the season, despite the record. Whether it was his history with the team, or just a long leash because he was a new coach, Maclean took the Devils down a terrible path (9-22-2) before he was fired in the middle of the year. Once Maclean was replaced, the Devil’s hired the right man for the job and went 28-17-3 and made a small charge to the playoffs, which eventually fell short, but was still impressive. The Devils were one of the best teams in the league the second half of the season, finally playing up their potential despite injuries.

The A’s need to see this, and not make the same mistake of waiting too long before firing a coach who deserves to be fired. Bob Geren, despite his relationship with the front office, is the not the right man for the job, and the faster the A’s realize this, the faster they can hire a coach who can actually help the team. While I am not blaming all of the A’s early struggles on Geren, much like I wouldn’t blame all the Devils early struggles on Maclean, a coaching change is one of the things that can make this team better before it is too late. The Devils late season charge fell short of the playoffs because of the miserable start, and the A’s have plenty of time to avoid this, as long as they don’t make the same mistakes as New Jersey did.

The second lesson that the A’s could learn from the Devils is: The offense doesn’t need to be great, just average, to make a good team.

The Devils offense, despite a second half surge, was never very good. New Jersey won a lot of one-goal games with low scores in the second half of the season, when they were one of the hottest teams in all of sports. When the Devils stopped trying to be an offensive powerhouse, and play more responsible defensive hockey, they became a good team. While I think the A’s realize that offense is not their strong suit, they should see that with a little improvement of the offense, they can become a good team, just like the Devils did, as long as they don’t wait too long to wake up. 

The final lesson the A’s should take from the Devils is: You can not play sloppy and expect to win.

The Devils started the season playing incredible sloppy hockey. They were giving away pucks in the defensive zone, passing terribly, and playing lazy defense. This is very similar to what is happening with Oakland. The A’s are playing terrible defense, and giving away a ton of scoring chances when at bat. The faster the sloppy play ends, the faster the improvement will come, and the better chance the team has at recovering from the sloppy start.

Now, with that comparison made, am I crazy and looking too hard to draw these parallels? The A’s bad start is no where near as severe as the Devils was, mainly because the A’s are not playing as bad as NJ was, NJ’s bad start lasted longer, and the NHL season is shorter than an MLB season, yet if you look at it the reason for the bad starts, they are incredibly similar, and the A’s should look to learn from the Devils.