I'm not going to bored you with details and minutia as far as statistics go,but if you are a Devils fans that remember this franchise before Lou Lamoriello took over the reigns,you remember just how bleak things were and how bad the Devils were.
Before Lou-the franchise had made the playoffs just once and that was in Denver as the Colorado Rockies in a best of three cameo that saw two straight losses to Philadelphia.
Anything that was worth noting in the New Jersey Devils history came under the stewardship of Lou Lamoriello.
Bringing the first players from the Soviet Union,drafting the core of three Stanley Cup winners,maneuvering a silly compensation system to land the best defensive defenseman of his time ,managing to keep the greatest goalie of all time at a rate that was more than affordable and building a defensive system that was so effective at shutting teams down that the league twice changed the rules in order to add offense to the game are just the main cogs of the Lou Lamoriello era.
Lamoriello also managed to build a tradition that put the logo above individuals,fight off a potential move to Nashville of all places and give the team a glittering arena that ranks with any in the country-all factors that built the dominant team in the Eastern Conference for years.
New Jersey Devils hockey is always going to be a tough sell in a market that is over-served with three teams.
Much like the Islanders as a team that that will never have the amount of fans that the Rangers do,the Devils are constantly in a tug of war over fans,media attention and sponsorship dollars and only winning allows them to compete for those goals,
Lou Lamoriello knew the issues that he would face and built the Devils from the bottom and succeeded well beyond what could have been expected.
However,the "new " NHL game seemed to see Lou lose a little off his slap shot.
Lamoriello continued to try to fight the new direction of speed with older and slower players,a decision that left the Devils frustrated and unable to keep pace with faster teams.
Lou's free agent signings were designed to keep an aging team afloat in an attempt to remain competitive and instead kept them fluttering closer to the edge of mediocrity.
Signings like a molasses slow Anton Volchenkov,a clearly physically damaged Ryane Clowe and a long term deal for Bryce Salvador in a overreaction to the last Devils run at a title are just a few things that contributed to a team's speedy decline.
Combine that with the persistence in sticking with David Conte (Click here for our thoughts on the recent canning of Conte),who had real problems in drafting forwards over the last decade for the new style and it's easy to see that far all the good that Lamoriello had done for the franchise,it was Lamoriello that was mainly responsible for the team's fall from grace along with the hole that Ray Shero will have to dig out of..
Forget the "astonishment" of the owners and Shero that Lamoriello left for Toronto.
Any observer that has watched the Devils during the Lamoriello tenure could have foreseen that Lou Lamoriello was never going to be happy without micromanaging every aspect of the team.
This was just a matter of time,although I'm surprised that this happened this quickly.
Lou Lamoriello was never going to be satisfied with just a advisory role in personnel and the Devils should have certainly known this beforehand.
It was that single mindedness that built what New Jersey had done and it had a lot to do with the situation that the team currently faces.
Raise a glass to the man that built the Devils into a franchise that changed the game and try to forget the end to his reign.
Thanks Lou for what you've done and it's time to move on and rebuild-even if it means watching some less than stellar hockey for a while....
If I have time,perhaps a few words on Braxton Miller and Cavaliers later today....
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