Jacques Lemaire
Despite so much going so wrong for so long, general manager Lou Lamoriello said he expects Jacques Lemaire to return as Devils coach next season.
“There’s no question he will be back, unless you know something I don’t know,” Lamoriello said yesterday in the wake of his team’s third straight first-round elimination from the playoffs.
“I’m certainly happy with the job Jacques has done and not unhappy with the effort put in,” he said. “We just didn’t get the job done.”
The Devils, who went from 32-11-1 in their first 44 games to 16-16-6 thereafter, bombed out of the playoffs in five games to the Flyers, losing the final game 3-0 Thursday night in Newark.
“The standards here are very high — it’s not something that will be accepted,” Lamoriello said. “It’s three years in a row. It’s not something you can hide. We have to look at it.
“Was this team playoff-built? There’s no question in my mind it was. It didn’t get it done. Start with the specialty teams. One team did it, one team didn’t.
“You can’t put any blame on goaltending. We’ve got goaltending.”
Lamoriello said he had high hopes for this team, which earned a 13th straight playoff berth, won a ninth Atlantic Division title, topped 100 points (103) for the 12th time and won its fifth Jennings Trophy for fewest goals-against.
“This team had the ability and potential to go a great distance,” Lamoriello said.
Instead, they have won only two of eight series since their last Stanley Cup in 2003, and are they are 6-16 in their past 22 playoff games. They also are 3-7 in playoff games in Newark, where they have been eliminated in the first round in front of their fans in every year since they moved there.
Lamoriello said he wants to keep upcoming unrestricted free agent Ilya Kovalchuk, his big midseason acquisition.
“We certainly would like to keep him. He did everything we’ve asked of him. He’s a solid citizen,” Lamoriello said. “We would like him to be a Devil. We have not spoken [contract] intentionally to not disrupt the season.”
Lamoriello said Kovalchuk’s integration into the team’s style was not complete.
“Some of the things Ilya did, you don’t correct over a short period of time, but he is a player that could become a Devil pretty quickly,” he said.
Kovalchuk said he was happy about joining the Devils, but the star winger spoke in the past tense.
“It’s a business, and I appreciate the chance they gave me,” Kovalchuk told The Post. “If I had to do it again, I’d do exactly the same thing. I couldn’t ask for anything better.”
Kovalchuk added significant excitement to the Devils when he arrived on Feb. 4 with Anssi Salmela from Atlanta for Johnny Oduya, Niclas Bergfors, Patrice Cormier, a first-round draft pick and a swap of seconds. Ultimately, though, he failed to mesh with New Jersey’s style, although he led the team at with six points (two goals, four assists) in five playoff games and was 10-17-27 in 27 games with the team.
The Thrashers said they offered Kovalchuk contracts of $101 million over 12 years and $70 million over seven, but he turned them down, prompting the trade. Former Atlanta general manager Don Waddell looks brighter today, even more so if Kovalchuk signs elsewhere in free agency.
Still, Kovalchuk repeatedly hinted that the chance to win may trump top dollar when it comes to his future.
Lamoriello said he also wants to keep Paul Martin, another upcoming unrestricted free agent.
“It’s important to keep all your players in a higher role,” Lamoriello said.
He seemed almost stunned at the Devils’ season being over.
“Very disappointed in the outcome. I certainly wasn’t disappointed with the people or the effort,” Lamoriello said. “It’s just that we were not intelligent at certain times and did not take advantage of our opportunities.
“There must be something that should be done, hopefully the right thing, to make us better.”
The shopping list is lengthy, and it includes a scoring center and a right-handed defenseman who can man the point and do yeoman’s duty in his own zone. But that was the list at the start of the season, in the middle and at the trade deadline, and Lamoriello did not make any moves accordingly.