NHL

SUTTER GETS OFF DEVILS’ HOT SEAT

The candidates are mighty and many: Peter Laviolette, Mike Keenan, Jacques Lemaire, Ted Nolan, Guy Carbonneau, Marc Crawford, Craig MacTavish, John MacLean and certainly others. The Devils’ next issue is finding their 11th coach in 12 seasons. They don’t last long any more.

Lou Lamoriello said he deliberately decided not to start considering candidates until Brent Sutter actually resigned as Devils coach. He can start sifting through them now, because Sutter left the team yesterday after two years as head coach.

The merry-go-round has resumed. The departure of Lemaire in 1998 started a run of Robbie Ftorek, Larry Robinson, Kevin Constantine, Pat Burns, Robinson again, Lamoriello, Claude Julien, Lamoriello again and Sutter.

“My reaction is ‘Who will our next coach be?’ ” Brian Rolston said. “Sutter was very similar to Mike Keenan, the way he ran the team. My year was certainly a disappointment to me. When I got back [from an ankle sprain], I didn’t feel I got a fair shake. But I thought Brent did a good job.”

“It has happened more often here than anyplace else,” defenseman Paul Martin said. “I’ve had more coaches than years played. He had the longest time coaching since I’ve been here.”

Sutter figured the Devils won’t collapse without him.

“I’m a pretty low-key guy. I don’t look at myself as different from anybody else. Lou’s going to find a coach and that coach is going to be a better coach than Brent Sutter,” said Sutter, who endorsed Devils assistant MacLean.

“You bet,” Sutter said of MacLean.

The possibility Sutter might not return next season was first broken here on Jan. 31, after Sutter pointedly declined to deny the proven-legitimate rumble passed along by Post columnist Jay Greenberg.

“There was always that [possibility]; something that quite frankly, you reported first,” Lamoriello told The Post. “I’m disappointed, but I certainly understand the reasons. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Sutter went 97-56-11 as Devils coach, with a team-record 51 victories last season despite losing Martin Brodeur for 50 games. But his Devils were KO’d in the first round each year, losing in five to the 2008 Rangers, and blowing a Game 7 lead this year in the final two minutes to Carolina.

“When the season ended, my decision at this point in time wasn’t the decision I would have had six weeks ago,” Sutter said.

Despite the early exits, Lamoriello called Sutter a success. “Yes, he was. You just have to look at the record,” he said. “No, we did not win in the playoffs, but only one team can.”

Sutter said yesterday that being away from his family and the junior Red Deer Rebels team he owns in Alberta were the reasons he quit as Devils coach.

“I just wanted to make sure I never look back on it and regret it,” Sutter said. “It’s the right thing to do. I had a decent sleep last night for the first time in seven weeks.”

Sutter said he has not “even thought about it, whether I have interest,” in coaching the Flames for brother and GM Darryl, who fired Keenan earlier this month. The Flames would need Devils permission to negotiate with Brent Sutter.

But then Sutter seemed to leave the door open.

“That had no bearing at all on my decision process,” Sutter said. “If that occurred, like anything else, you’d always look at it.”

mark.everson@nypost.com