Lou Lamoriello has a history of reaching into winning organizations when conducting his seemingly annual head-coaching searches, with the GM’s focus trained primarily on Montreal, where they actually have not won anything meaningful in 17 years.
Now that Jacques Lemaire, whose first tenure in New Jersey from 1993-94 through 1997-98 established the foundation of excellence that would follow on the banks of the Hudson, has announced his retirement just one year into his encore, Lamoriello should reach into another winning organization for the Devils’ next head coach.
And that would be his own.
For the timing is right and the time is now to promote John MacLean, who guided the AHL Lowell Devils to the playoffs in his first year running the show behind the bench after seven seasons as an assistant in New Jersey.
There are coaches available with resumes that include a Stanley Cup victory who, no doubt, will be interested in this temporary position that comes with health benefits and vacation time, the latter quite often permanent, come to think of it.
Ken Hitchcock, who won the Cup in Dallas in 1999, late of the Blue Jackets, is one such candidate. Bob Hartley, whose Avalanche took the 2001 Cup in seven over the Devils, is another. Mike Keenan, who won one somewhere or another, will no doubt dip his toe into the water.
But this is the time for Lamoriello to promote from within, given the combination of need for the aging Devils to add youth from the farm and the job that MacLean did with that youth in taking the AHL team to the postseason for the first time in the organization’s four years in Massachusetts.
Something was off in the playoffs in New Jersey. Even given their structural flaws, the Devils didn’t lose in five to the Flyers as much as they abstained from the competition. There was a disconnect between their performance, and what’s required in the playoffs every bit as much as there was a disconnect between the team and the coach, who never appeared in command of the situation.
Just as it is impossible to distinguish between Martin Brodeur and Scott Stevens when attempting to designate the most influential player in franchise history, it is similarly essentially impossible to distinguish between Lamoriello and Lemaire in naming the most influential person in the Devils’ run of sustained excellence beginning in 1993-94, during which the team has won three Stanley Cups and nine division championships.
When Lemaire walked on the St. Lawrence Seaway on his way from Montreal to New Jersey to take the job the first time, he was taking over a Lamoriello club that had been treading water for a half-decade. It was Lemaire (with assistant Larry Robinson) whose pedigree and influence changed everything after previous Lamoriello hires were unable to surmount institutional mediocrity.
The Devils are graying, primarily a result of unacceptable work at the entry draft from 1999 through 2005, with Zach Parise, Paul Martin and Travis Zajac serving as exceptions that prove the rule. But the re-stocking should soon be under way, what with Matt Corrente, Matt Halischuk, Alexander Vasyunov, Nick Palmieri, Tyler Eckford, Mattias Tedenby and Jacob Josefson on the way, and all but Tedenby and Josefson on the way from Lowell.
This is the time for Lamoriello to promote a coach just as he promotes players. MacLean was a big-time Devil, 1 and 1A, with Patrik Elias as the greatest forward in franchise history. This is the time.