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Hall of Fame general manager keeps team at top of the division

BY SAM HITCHCOCK

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

ANALYSIS

It is fitting that just a week ago, Devils General Manager Lou Lamoriello was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame 2009 class. His peers praised him for his foresight as a builder of champions, taking a franchise in New Jersey that had no history, no prior success, and turning it into a mini dynasty over a 10-year period.

What Lamoriello does is defy logic. Conventional wisdom says if a player scores goals and produces assists, try to keep him on your team. Conventional wisdom says if a player has good chemistry with his teammates, he may be integral to the team's success, so keeping him on the squad and building around him helps maintain a winning team.

But Lamoriello seems to see almost every player as a dispensable part. Heralded veterans like Scott Gomez, Brian Gionta, and John Madden are major contributors who were all traded or let go to explore free agency in the last few seasons. What separates Lamoriello from the rest of the GM's in the league is that he does not believe one player is worth the money to make or break a team.

In another off season in which many experts lambasted Lamoriello for staying complacent and letting previous Stanley Cup pieces leave the team for next to nothing, many fans worriedly watched as the Atlantic Division, already possessing the reigning Stanley Cup champions (Pittsburgh Penguins), got even stronger. Seemingly, every team brought in faster, tougher, more dynamic players — except the Devils.

Nevertheless, with the season almost a fourth of the way through, the Devils lead their division in points and have several games in hand. This year may be Lamoriello's most impressive masterpiece, considering that the Devils got the injury bug early and often. With Patrik Elias going down in the preseason, and Paul Martin, Johnny Oduya, and Jay Pandolfo all taking games off to heal, the Devils continue to roll, undeterred by personnel changes.

Players like Tim Sestito, Matt Halischuk, Mark Fraser and Cory Murphy have stepped in and contributed in a big way. With Fraser and Murphy patrolling the blue line and making the necessary stops, and Sestito and Halischuk doing the nitty gritty and knocking in a goal now and then, the Devils pull through and win games even when they may be overmatched talent wise.

Monday's loss against the Flyers, the first in eleven games, marked the first time in the last eight contests that the Devils have given up more than two goals. For those who watched the game, the Flyers dictated much of the play and probably should have had a four or five goal lead. But Martin Brodeur made countless acrobatic saves to keep the Devils alive, as the Flyers cycled it vigorously in the Devils zone hoping for a break. This is where the Devils excel, and so far no other team in the division can match them.

The Devils linger around. They show patience, avoid costly errors, and eventually capitalize when the opportunity presents itself. The Flyers knew this and almost blew the game as they got called for three penalties in a row, which finally the Devils converted on when David Clarkson buried a point blank shot past goalie Ray Emery.

So how does the Devils offensive machine work? If the Devils were a car, Zach Parise surely would be the axle, showing the rare ability to control the puck and keep balance despite an underwhelming size differential. Parise was his usual speedy self Monday against a much bigger Flyers team. Parise zips around, with his head on a swivel, understanding full well that opposing defenses focus on him. This allows him to find his teammates who have space and time. Ask Travis Zajac and Niklas Bergfors, two beneficiaries of playing with this superstar; both have put up spectacular numbers already and are headed for 60-70 point seasons.

Then there is the captain, Jamie Langenbrunner, whose selfless play is commendable. Once heading the first line with Parise and Gionta, now he is put in the position of making the second line work. With journeyman Danius Zubrus and bruiser-turned-dynamic-scorer Clarkson, Langenbrunner has helped both teammates blossom and turned their line into a viable threat.

What Clarkson is accomplishing this season deserves league-wide recognition. Not since his days in the OHL, has he peaked offensively like this. Perhaps to a fault, Clarkson was type-cast into a grinder/bruiser, entering the league for the Devils in 2006, and seldom finding himself on the score sheet. Not this season, as Clarkson may shatter his previous point total high before the halfway point. He has shown a fleetness and soft hands that few knew he possessed, and Coach Jacques Lemaire deserves all the credit for getting it out of him.

When you lose two defensemen as important as Johnny Oduya and Paul Martin, someone will be asked to fill those big skates. Well, Andy Greene has been that man, stepping in and showing a real talent for getting his name not only on the score sheet, but also in front of snipers' shots. Drawing comparisons to Devils' great Scott Niedermayer, Greene has shown an ability to move the puck through the neutral zone that has been essential in the Devils' success.

Still, all of this would add up to an average team if it were not for the man behind the pipes. From night to night different players score, but the controlled variable in this equation is Brodeur. A goaltender with a laundry list of accomplishments — four Vezinas, three Stanley Cups, and the most wins and shutouts of all time — Brodeur is consistently spectacular.

The most pertinent point is that he is as sharp as ever. Even at age 37, Brodeur is showing once again that he is in top form to help the Devils and Team Canada win championships. The worry with Brodeur, like with a pitcher approaching 40, is that now his amount of time on the game field needs to be rationed. One can only hope the Devils will play Brodeur 70 times maximum this season, and allow him to be fresh for the playoffs. With the break for the Olympics and the strong possibility of him starting, Brodeur's fatigue will be a big issue going down the stretch. But for now, he is showing no worse for wear, using his stick and his flexibility to keep the puck from crossing the line and each night being rock solid.

All of these are contributing factors to a Devils team that seems rejuvenated. Last year they finished strong, despite lapses throughout the season. The difference between this season and the last few is that in the NHL, to have a Stanley Cup contender you need to really excel in a particular area. Last year the Penguins were spectacular in offense. With an NHL more geared towards offense, rule changes encourage a more aggressive, dynamic, flashy style of play that is fan friendly and exciting. The Devils the past few years had scored more goals, playing more opportunistically, perhaps trying to change with the NHL. But this year, Lamoriello has gone the other way, disbanding players who did not fit his system, and centering around a style of play which won him the '95 cup.

In 1995, when the Devils defeated the heavily favorite Red Wings, it was not because they were putting up 5-6 goals a night; it was because they were the best defensive team in the league and were able to successfully neutralize the talents of Detroit. With Lamoriello's hiring of Lemaire, the team is once again seeking a strategy of patience, a strategy that insists on hard forechecking by its forwards, and even harder backchecking. When defense is the primary concern, the team learns how to play and act in close games (a strategy extremely beneficial come playoff time). It would seem that Lamoriello is setting the learning curve again, and like always, we fans are trying to keep up with the star pupil.