AP's corner: My rant on the New Jersey Devils!

Hi all,

New blog section. My (AP's) corner.

The following is my rant on the current state on the New Jersey Devils... read on after the jump.

Watching the Devils play the Penguins today really got me fired up. Everyone that has listened to the podcasts knows my view on the New Jersey Devils current situation. I totally thought the Devils may crumble under the weight of Kovalchuk and the offseason distractions, but actually seeing the lack of performance on the ice has got me really really angry. I'm not even a strong New Jersey supporter, but I recognise that they have been a successful, albeit boring, franchise built on a solid philosophy. Over the last 6 months the management of this team has gone against that philosophy and now the team is struggling.... let me explain.

For starters, lets just recap what got me so fired up in the first place. As I said, New Jersey played Pittsburgh today and lost. Now losing is something that I won't get angry over, after all, I am a Toronto fan. However in this game, due to the Devils outrageous salary cap situation, New Jersey was only able to dress 15 skaters and 2 goalies. 15! Pittsburgh had the full compliment of 18 skaters and 2 goalies. Why did New Jersey only dress 15 players? Because the team is so far over the salary cap, that if they were to dress 18 skaters, they would have been fined and whipped by the NHL. Dressing 18 skaters for a team  with this salary cap situation is impossible. For the current detailed view of the New Jersey cap, go here. This is game 3 people! Calgary also had some problems with salary cap management a few years ago and couldn't dress a full roster, but that was at the end of the season AFTER the team had acquired additional (and more expensive) players. I think that situation is okay. Being over the cap on the 3rd game of the season is a total joke!

The new $100M dollar man

The record for New Jersey's 3 games into the season is nothing to get excited about. 3 games played, 0 wins, 2 losses and 1 tie. 6 goals for and 14 against. I'll just repeat myself there so you know it wasn't a typo... 6 goals for, 14(!) against. New Jersey believe they have re-signed the premier offensive talent that was available during the offseason. While Kovalchuck has put up 2 assists since the season started, 0 goals 3 games into the season is certainly not what New Jersey was expecting. Kovalchuck is out of excuses now. He is playing on a good team, he is not the focus of the other teams defensive strategy and he has offensive support. He must start producing or the Devils will quickly regret the $100M investment they have made in him. 14 goals against is also very uncharacteristic for New Jersey. However being uncharacteristic is keeping in tune with the organisations performance during the last 6 months.

Lou Lamoriello (the Devils general manager) is a great example of a successful team builder. Since, oh, lets say, 1995, Lou has managed the Devils almost to perfection. With the trades he has made, the signings he has made and the coaching personnel he has put in place, the Devils have been a successful team year after year. This has culminated in 3 Stanley Cups since 1995. His success was built on a team-first strategy and philosophy where no one player was ever considered to be more important than the team. This philosophy was evident when Lamoriello split up the Devils "A-Line" of Arnott, Elias and Sykora over 2002-2003. Both Sykora and Arnott were traded away because Lou felt that line (which was wildly successful and popular) had become a bigger focus than the team itself. And that's fine. Good for Lou for sticking to his guns. The same philosophy also came into play when Bobby Holik left the team in 2002. Every player on the roster knew that they were part of something bigger in New Jersey, no questions asked. And if you stepped out of line, you could likely be traded.

Cups in NJ??.. Unlikely

Turn your attention now to the current 2010/11 New Jersey Devils. After witnessing the offseason farce that was the Kovalchuk situation, can you still say that Lou has stuck to his team-first mentality? I say no. He kicked Holik out for wanting too much money. Come to think of it, Lou hasn't resigned a lot of players because of their demands. And now, with ownership putting the pressure on Lou to sign a big name player, Lou has completely hand-cuffed his team. Lou has also established that he is not going to get "bullied" into making a trade with another NHL team to dump some salary and free up some space. Well Lou, what other options do you have? Swallow some pride and get it done! A team obviously can't go through an entire reason relying on 15 skaters can it? You can't be praying for injuries to move players to the long term injured reserve (where by his salary won't count to the cap) can you? See here's my point: Spending all this money on Kovalchuk has put him ahead of the team, Lou refusing to fix the problem is putting his own ego in front of the team. This is NOT the successful philosophy and characteristics that the Devils were built on. I think they only have themselves to blame.

Kovalchuk may be preventing his team from being successful rather than improving it? Does he need to be top dog? Is he going to cruise through the next 15 years of his contract?  I have no idea what is going to happen to this team. They may rebound and go on a run of success that will have me eating my words. I really hope that is not the case. But I will laugh myself stupid if the Devils don't make the playoffs this year....




But hey, all you New Jersey fans.. here is some good news:

Am I right? Am I wrong? Share your thoughts below....