New Jersey Devils General Manager Lou Lamarillo fired head coach Claude Juilen this morning. Julien was in his first season as the Devils' Head coach, the team has 102 points with 3 games reamaing, leading the Atlantic division and in 2nd place (behind only Buffalo) in the NHL's eastern conference. Lamirillo is going behind the bench for the remainder of the season. He did something similar in 2000 firing Peter Ftorek and replacing him with Larry Robinson with 8 games remaining. The Devils did go on to win the Stanley Cup. However Robison resigned in december of last season citing personal reasons (though now I have to question how voluntary that resignation was), Lamarillo took over as head coach and the 6th seeded devils "upset" the slumping New York Rangers in the first round.
Now I think this is a pretty stupid thing to do with the playoffs starting next week. The Devils are the best defensive team in the Eastern Conference (giving up just 2.47 goals/game). The team has been injury ridden, that had a rather rough March, they were temporarily passed by the hot Pittsburgh Penguins in the Atlantic division race. The Devils have had to battle through injuries to key players like Eilas and Gomez, I just don't know what Juilen did to deserve this, nor do I get what Lamarillo is hoping to gain.
Now I just watched the Versus 1st intermission show with Keith Jones, Brian Engblom, and Bill Clement, and for whatever reason they're defending Lamarillo in this. He is the longest tenured GM in the league, having been with the club since 1987, and they keep saying "he's such a hockey guy he must know what he's doing" and echoes to that effect are popping up all over the 'net. First off all he did was upset a slumping Rangers team last season when he took over as coach, that being the only playoff series they've won since raising the cup in 2003. I just don't know why he gets a pass for being so stupid. And that it seems not one columnist has come out to challege this.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=burnside_scott&id=2823081
If you look closley as this article by ESPN.com columnist Scotty Burnside, he hints that since he won a playoff series over the Rangers last year this move would be considered a success if he can repeat that in this years playoffs. Well anyone that knows hockey well can see plain as day the Eastern Conference playoffs are basically Buffalo, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, and 5 scrubs (maybe I'll give Ottawa some love as a dark horse). But as long as Jersey avoids these teams in the first round (which a #2 team should do, if they finished 4th they would draw Ottawa). there's no way they were going to lose.
I think Lamirillo is just trying to make this about him (see Kobe running Shaq out of town and the success of Miami and the medeocracy of LA since), and he's goign to win an easy playoff series and claim victory, which will make it tough for columnists to take shots at him. Well I think they're all gutless, you know what they're doing in New Jersey is wrong, and I'm not afraid to say it (although I don't have the readership of ESPN.com, I'll admit it). If these team doesn't get to the East finals, this has to be considered a failure, and if they shoudl be beaten by some Eastern conference scrub in the first round, oh should Lamarillo pay for this in terms of being able to hire serious candidates in the future. As for being scared to critisize this and giving Lamirillo a pass, I think the NHL media should all be ashamed, I'm calling all of you out Jones, Burnside, Clement, Engblom.
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