Very simple. As Lou always wanted it. The logo comes first. His most important legacy that hopefully stays intact and one the fans need to stick to as well. There is a successful hockey franchise in NJ. Lou is the reason for that, but he wants it to continue past him.
Well said.
I think we all knew Lou would be gone soon enough, I never would have thought he would have still been this team's GM in the year 2015 (or possibly even in 2010 to 2012) if you asked me that back in the early or even mid 2000s. I figured he would have retired sometime early in the 2010s decade. I think the fact that he's working somewhere else makes it harder to watch. It's kind of like Marty for me. I didn't really want Marty to continue playing for us after last year, but it sucked that he had to play somewhere else. I didn't wanna see that happen, at least not for only 7 games and just 3 more wins.
I said this after the cup run in 2012, I think the cup run that year and success might have given Lou a shot of energy to go on for another few years. I think that may have extended his drive to continue on for a few more years. I also said after Kovalchuk left that Lou probably didn't wanna go out like that. He wanted to try and set things right before he left. I think these last couple of crappy years might have even gave him motivation to not go out this way, not that it would have made one dent to his legacy anyway if this is how it ended.
Marty and Lou are very similar beast's, that's why they worked so well together. It looked like Marty was ready to maybe call it a career after his contract was to expire in 11-12. He spoke towards the end of 10-11 in a tone that made you think he was almost definitely retiring after that season. He hinted a couple times even at the start of 11-12 that it was probably his last season and last opening night and training camp. It wasn't until the middle point of that season that he said he wanted to come back for another year. And then he pretty much said he was likely coming back for just a year from that point on. Then he goes to free agency and we learn that he wanted a TWO year deal and not just a one year deal. And that was just a month or so after saying that a season long lockout would undoubtedly push him into retirement. And then he said that the lockout was his motivation for a two year contract, and was worried he wouldn't be offered a contract if the entire season was wiped out and he hadn't played in over a year at 41 years old.
I think that 2012 cup run gave him motivation to continue playing as well. And I also think that taking a back seat to Cory also motivated him to try to continue playing, so he wouldn't go out with his career ending that way. It didn't turn out to end much better than that anyway, as he was demoted to 3rd stringer after Elliott came back from injury. But I guess it's a little different from being a GM/front office guy to being a player.
It's very funny how both of these men's NHL career's kind of went down the same path. Lou becoming GM of a team that really wasn't worth a damn and had nothing worth bragging about as far as management went. And then Marty comes in to the team, which didn't have goaltending worth a damn. Don't care what anyone says, Burke STUNK as a Devil outside of 2 months in 1988 and Terreri wasn't gonna be good enough to be a long term starter and it turned out that he wasn't. And you think both are career Devils, then they wound up both exiting to play for/GM other team's.
