Now that we've completely derailed the Patrik Elias thread.
Which just gave me a good idea. We should have a thread for old Devils talk. Like talk of the past, historical, old games, etc. That way, we don't have to derail other threads with it, including the current team discussions!
Sadly that would probably be dominated with KHL All-Star talk until he retires for good at least
The funny thing re: Lemaire with Elias is they had issues during Lemaire 1.0 cause Elias was still a kid and Lemaire really wasn't trusting of kids before his time in Minnesota, but early in Lemaire 2.0 he said something nice about Elias and Patrik responded to the effect of 'a coach praising me, I'm not used to that' (of course that was coming off the Sutter tenure, and Patty definitely had issues with Sutter)
BACK TO PATTY!!!
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/78/90/cf/7890cf62abc0da92934995d458b9a341.jpg[/IM][/QUOTE]
i agree
[MEDIA=youtube]6JnTRYPg2OA[/MEDIA]
This is like the cutest and most adorable image ever! Hahahaha.BACK TO PATTY!!!
i agree
I was always a Lemaire supporter, but he lost me during that 98 series and he was skewered by the media during that series. At least in the papers, from what I remember. I'm pretty sure NHL2Nite was critiquing him during that playoff year. I forgot if Melrose was still there or not. Sometimes, coaches do all they can with one team and it's just time to go. I think Julien in Boston was that case. Lemaire took us as far as he could and it was time for a change in 98. Was Lemaire 1.0 the longest tenured coach in Devils history? I'm pretty sure he was. 5 years under Lou, was like 10 years under most other GM's haha. Scott Daniels for Petr Sykora was another head scratcher. It almost seemed like Lemaire had cracked and was just like ''**** it!'' at that point.
I think Patty's game took off under Ftorek, the Ftorek system allowed more offensive creativity, though Patty was still only like 21 (maybe just turned 22) when he last played for Lemaire 1.0?