DEVILS SEASON REVIEW---01-02
The 2001-2002 Season-----One To Forget
The 01-02 season was a letdown, and only the Devils GM is to blame
Devils GM Lou Lamoriello shown above. He's done some good things but in 01-02 it was him who caused the Devils to do bad, not Larry Robinson
April 28, 2002
On April 27, 2002, the New Jersey Devils 2001-2002 season officially came to a close. The 2001-2002 season was a season of disappointment for the Devils and their fans who have been the second best team statistically since 1990 (Detroit is the best). New Jersey was coming into this season as defending Eastern Conference Champions and with memories of the 2001 Stanley Cup Finals, specifically Game 7. The Devils were the Stanley Cup Champions in 2000 and in 2001 they were within one win of repeating as champions. The Devils lost Game 7 of the 2001 Stanley Cup Finals 3-1 in Colorado and the Avalanche were the NHL Champion. When the season opened in October the Devils already had something to worry about. With the loss of star player Alexander Mogilny who scored 43 goals in the 00-01 season, the Devils had no one who was capable of taking his place, right there New Jersey had some problems. Imagine if Mogilny was with the Devils this year, 43 more goals on the season total imagine how many more games New Jersey would have won. Devils GM Lou Lamoriello's decision to do nothing last season except sign Andreas Salomonsson and Tommy Albelin was also a huge reason why this season was a disappointment. While the rest of the teams in the Eastern Conference were signing great players and making deals with other teams Lamoriello obviously figured he didn't have to do anything, the Devils certainly paid for that this year.
The Devils got right off to a bad start when their season began October 6th in Washington and they lost 6-1. That was followed by three more losses including one from both the Rangers and Islanders. So as their record went to 0-4-0-0 it still wasn't time to worry. As everyone thought things were getting bad the Devils realized it wasn't the pre-season anymore and won six straight and lost just one game in nine. So it was a sigh of relief, the Devils just had a slow start----not. That streak was followed by yet another streak where the Devils won just one game in ten. In the month of December the Devils picked up their play just a little bit but it still wasn't acceptable for a team that was a win away from repeating as Stanley Cup Champions just six months earlier.
The Devils started off the year 2002 on a good note defeating St. Louis 2-0 but things went back to normal for this season as they continued to lose. On January 27th the Devils fired their head coach Larry Robinson and replaced him with Kevin Constantine. In Robinson's time as head coach, he'd bought the Devils to Stanley Cup Finals twice and in 2001, his only full season as coach, he led the Devils through their best regular season in franchise history. In Constantine's first game as coach the Devils defeated the Islanders 3-1. That win was followed by another win over Chicago. After those two victories the Devils were shutout 1-0 by Montreal on February 5th and played their last game before the Olympic Break on February 12th. In Constantine's first seven games the Devils went 4-1-2-0 which was better then they had been doing. The Devils played their first game back from the Olympic break on February 26th and defeated the Rangers 4-3. In late February, GM Lou Lamoriello called former head coach Larry Robinson and took him back as an assistant.
The Devils went 1-3-0-0 in their first four games in March but after that things got much better. On March 10th the Devils shutout Dallas 3-0 and that was followed by two wins, one over the Islanders and then the Rangers. It was the first time since October that New Jersey won more then two games in a row. The three game winning streak came to an end when Vancouver defeated them 3-2 on March 17th. That next week, at the NHL trade deadline, Lamoriello sent his team a wakeup call when he sent longtime Devil Randy McKay and their first line center Jason Arnott to Dallas in exchange for Jamie Langenbrunner and Joe Nieuwendyk. This trade was like a spark for New Jersey who in the final games of the regular season played like the 2001 Devils. The Devils went into the playoffs on a six game winning streak. Their late season winning streak actually began against the Hurricanes on April 3rd when they defeated them in North Carolina 3-2. If New Jersey had won the previous game against the Islanders they would have finished with 97 points and in the fifth seed, so they would've played Toronto instead of Carolina in the first round of the playoffs.
The Devils went into the playoffs with high expectations. Their late season spark convinced many that New Jersey was a team to watch for as the playoffs came around. The Devils had eliminated Carolina from the 2001 playoffs 4-2 as the top seed. I don't think I need to say what happened in 2002.
This season, the Devils finished with a record of 41-28-9-4 and 95 points. That is 16 points fewer then they had last season. This was the Devils worst season since 1996 and their second worst since 1993. New Jersey finished in the sixth seed, excluding 1996 when they missed the playoffs, it was the lowest seed they'd been in since 1993. 2002 was the first year in five years that the Devils failed to win more then 45 games and failed to get at least 100 points. According to Captain Scott Stevens and Goaltender Martin Brodeur, the Devils will be back next year. Maybe being knocked out of the playoffs early and getting more rest will help them. Game 6 was the 300th game (reg. season & playoffs) the Devils have played since the beginning of the 1999-2000 season. 300 games in three years is an awful lot of games. Last season alone the Devils played 106.
One thing to know about next season is that this team will be different. After a season like this, there is no way Lou Lamoriello will sit back all summer and do nothing like he did last year. He will have a lot of work to do. Other current Devils like Bobby Holik may be gone next year. Holik becomes an unrestricted free agent July 1st and he's not the only one. Sergei Nemchinov, Valeri Kamensky, and Stephane Richer also are unrestricted free agents. Jamie Langenbrunner, Scott Gomez, Patrik Elias and Jay Pandolfo will become restricted free agents on July 1st. Let us just hope that Lamoriello doesn't act stupid again and let these guys go like he did with Mogilny last summer. All of them play very important roles for the Devils but especially Scott Gomez and Bobby Holik who led the team in scoring during their playoff series with Carolina.
In the end, the only person to blame is General Manager Lou Lamoriello. He's done some good things in the past but this year he's the one who made the Devils have a horrible season. Instead of having Larry Robinson fired in January Lamoriello should have been fired. Lamoriello had no right in firing Robinson. Yes Robinson was not dealing with this season in the greatest way but what did he expect, a coach and turn all his players into superstars, he did the best he can and even though after Kevin Constantine was fired the Devils won some games, I still believe that Robinson was the better coach. The Devils don't need a new coach, they need a new GM. Like I said before, let's just hope Lamoriello doesn't sit around doing nothing this summer or else the Eastern Conference teams will just get even better while the Devils stay the same. If I owned the Devils Lamoriello would be out.
Devils GM Lou Lamoriello
