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Coach Lindy Ruff's decision to bench Alex Holtz has caused quite a stir among New Jersey Devils fans. They are upset with the 63-year-old coach and expressed their discontent for benching the forward.
On Wednesday, the New Jersey Devils took on the Montreal Canadiens. The Devils recovered from a two-goal deficit, and a large part of the comeback was due to forward Alex Holtz.
In the third period, the Devils were down by a goal after Luke Hughes scored on the powerplay to make it 2-1 47 seconds into the third period. At the 1:38 mark, Holtz tied it for the Devils, scoring on another powerplay.
However, despite contributing to the third-period comeback, there was no reward for Holtz, as his ice time decreased. He only played two more shifts of the final 18 minutes remaining as the Devils eventually lost 3-2 to the Canadiens.
When Lindy Ruff was asked about Holtz's lack of ice time, he didn't seem to take the question seriously; in fact, he scoffed at it.
Devils fans were furious with Ruff's response to benching Alex Holtz even after his contributions to the team. One tweeted:
"With a team of guys making dumb mistakes, Lindy’s taking it out solely on Holtz. He just seems to hate the kid :("
Here are some more reactions on X:
What did Lindy Ruff say about Alex Holtz's ice time?
Despite Holtz helping the New Jersey Devils mount a comeback against the Montreal Canadiens, the Devils coach unexpectedly benched Holtz.
It became one of the biggest talking points following the Devils' defeat to the Canadiens. Lindy Ruff didn't take kindly to questions of Alex Holtz's ice time as he explained his decision (quoted by NJ.com):
"You don’t watch the game very well,” Ruff said. “If you look at the opportunity in the second period where (he) threw the puck in the middle of the ice, you get a point-blank scoring chance.
"In a tight game, in a one-goal game, it’s plays like that where we’re trying to get back in the game, and we drop down to three lines. We happened to get back in the game."
Lindy Ruff added:
"He understands we’re trying to eliminate the pucks that go into the middle of the ice, the puck management part.
"So when you make a play like that, then, it’s going to be hard to get back onto the ice because we just gave them a quality scoring chance off a play where we put it in the middle of the ice, where we didn’t need to put it in the middle of the ice."
Holtz has played most games this season on the Devils' bottom-six line. This season, the 21-year-old forward has notched up 21 points through 11 goals and 10 assists in 42 games and has averaged 12:05 minutes of ice time.
