Lou Lamoriello roster building - reference/video request

[Flukeshot]

Hi Devils fans,

I'm looking for a pretty old video or reference about Lou. I'm sure it was mid 90s or early 00s when Lou was with NJ. It was a "beind the scenes" peak at how Lou built his rosters. I believe he would put player roles on a board and then fill them in with players not just on his team but potential acquisitions.

For example, he would want a 3rd line checking center and then have a stack of 10-20 guys in the league that he would want to fill that role.

He was pretty much EA NHL build a team mode before it existed.

Does anyone remember such a thing?

Click to read more...

 

[Brodeur]

I remember a magazine picture of Lou in his office and it had a wall of league wide depth charts behind him that he forgot to hide / pull the curtain on. I tried looking for that photo recently but came up empty. I think it was from the early 2000s and I distinctly remember the Kings depth chart being visible with Ian Laperriere's name. I remembered Laperriere in particular since he seemed to be "ranked" higher on Lou's depth chart than how the Kings were using him and I don't think the list was alphabetical.

 

[Flukeshot]

Yes it was something like that. I think there were names circled and some thought was he had potential trade or free agent targets listed.

 

[Peter Sidorkiewicz]

 

[Darkauron]

I need more old gold like these

 

[NJDevs26]

Might as well laugh while we can till he sticks it in our eye (deservedly so) and wins the Cup. At the very least he's proving that Conte was the much bigger problem with the old guard post-2005 than Lou himself.

 

[Spoiled Bratt]

I just loooooove watching this video. Cracks me up every, single, time!!!

 

[Ripshot 43]

This is the HF Devils board version of being Rick Rolled

 

[AfroThunder396]

Might as well laugh while we can till he sticks it in our eye (deservedly so) and wins the Cup. At the very least he's proving that Conte was the much bigger problem with the old guard post-2005 than Lou himself.

Ehhhh, yes and no, Lou made some absolutely baffling roster decisions and completely mismanaged the cap for a decade.

 

[Triumph]

Might as well laugh while we can till he sticks it in our eye (deservedly so) and wins the Cup. At the very least he's proving that Conte was the much bigger problem with the old guard post-2005 than Lou himself.

The Islanders still have 3 more series left to win. But I do enjoy how winning 1 round and a game in that round is 'winning the Cup'.

Lou didn't do anything to this Islanders team other than hire a coach and bring in a few pieces at the fringes. Pageau is the only major acquisition he made. It's like giving him credit for the 88 team.

 

[Blender]

Might as well laugh while we can till he sticks it in our eye (deservedly so) and wins the Cup. At the very least he's proving that Conte was the much bigger problem with the old guard post-2005 than Lou himself.

The best move he's made with the Islanders was to hire Trotz, and that one fell in his lap. It's not like he's built that team or made tons of great moves, just little ones.

 

[JimEIV]

The Islanders still have 3 more series left to win. But I do enjoy how winning 1 round and a game in that round is 'winning the Cup'.

Lou didn't do anything to this Islanders team other than hire a coach and bring in a few pieces at the fringes. Pageau is the only major acquisition he made. It's like giving him credit for the 88 team.

He absolutely deserved credit for the 88 team. Yes core pieces of Muller, Verbeek, Broten, Maclean, Driver and Cirella were in place... but as soon as he got there he drafted Shannahan and traded for Kurvers and Sundstrom along with some ansilary pieces like Dave Maley and Jim Korn that was more of a statement of the image of toughness he was looking for...

Sundstrom was critical to the 88 run and the leading playoff point producer as well as tied for 2nd in goals. He made a critical coaching change and brought a kid goalie in the stretch run that paid off huge. So yeah there were pieces there but the 1987-88 season and playoff run had Lou's finger prints all over it. You don't have the 88 team without Burke, Sundstrom and the firery spirit of Jim Schoenfield...Burke was largely the catalyst for the regular season stretch run that got them to the dance and Schoenfield was the perfect guy at the perfect time to replace Doug Carpenter and fire up a young team to new heights. All of that was Lou's doing.

 

[NJDevs26]

The Islanders still have 3 more series left to win. But I do enjoy how winning 1 round and a game in that round is 'winning the Cup'.

Lou didn't do anything to this Islanders team other than hire a coach and bring in a few pieces at the fringes. Pageau is the only major acquisition he made. It's like giving him credit for the 88 team.

Well two rounds, and they’ve looked damn impressive doing it while the Flyers were freaking lucky to get a horrible Montreal team they still struggled against. I wouldn’t favor the Isles against Boston or Tampa but in a bubble situation where Lou practically invented a playoff bubble, who knows?

It’s just in bad taste to repost that meme from our dark days while Lou and the Isles are kicking our ass. I mean really we’re still gonna laugh about the 2014 lineup when we’ve done next to nothing since and he’s on the verge of a deep run?

 

[Triumph]

Well two rounds, and they’ve looked damn impressive doing it while the Flyers were freaking lucky to get a horrible Montreal team they still struggled against. I wouldn’t favor the Isles against Boston or Tampa but in a bubble situation where Lou practically invented a playoff bubble, who knows?

It’s just in bad taste to repost that meme from our dark days while Lou and the Isles are kicking our ass. I mean really we’re still gonna laugh about the 2014 lineup when we’ve done next to nothing since and he’s on the verge of a deep run?

Look at what the Islanders have and when they got it. So yeah, we're really going to laugh about the 2014 lineup when Garth Snow was piling up assets for Lou to use on his new team.

 

[JimEIV]

Pieces in place do not equal success. If it did, why didn't his predecessors have the success? With Taveras no-less?

Success follows Lou.


"Since being appointed as President, the New York Islanders hold an 83-50-17 record good for 183 points record and ranking them as the seventh-best franchise in the league.
In 2019-20, the Islanders powered their way to the top of the standings thanks to a franchise-record 17-game point streak.
His team has been to the playoffs once and is likely heading to playoffs again this season, even if that comes with an asterisk due to the COVID-19 pandemic. His team has already won a playoff round. Something that was only done once in the 25 years before he took over.
And that playoff series win under Lou was a four-game sweep over the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Islanders haven’t won a playoff series by sweeping their opponents since they swept the Oilers in 1983 for their fourth Stanley Cup in a row."

Islanders Lou Lamoriello tenure has been a resounding success | News Break

 

[Blender]

Pieces in place do not equal success. If it did, why didn't his predecessors have the success? With Taveras no-less?

They hired the best coach in the league. They went from 80 points to 103 points with Trotz with a worse roster on paper.

 

[JimEIV]

Funny last year the claim was "unsustainable goaltending. team isn't that good"

This year "All the pieces were in place"........LOL

 

[Triumph]

No, they don't equal success, and that is what Lou is good at, molding what can be a successful team into one. What he's no longer good at is building a successful team from nothing, and he's not good at laying a good foundation for his successor.

 

[None Shall Pass]

Lou inherited Barzal instead of skipping him to draft an underachieving kid who hadn't broken out at any level yet.

Good news though, he brought Conte with him to the Islanders.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Funny last year the claim was "unsustainable goaltending. team isn't that good"

This year "All the pieces were in place"........LOL

The goaltending wasn't sustainable and it didn't get sustained. Greiss dropped from a .927 and 2.28 to a .913 and 2.74. And they replaced Lehner (.930/2.13) with Varlamov (.914/2.62).

Their goals against per game dropped from a stellar 2.33 (1st in the league) to 2.79 (9th). Considering their offense didn't change (22nd in the league both years) goaltending is obviously why they dropped from 4th in the conference to 7th.

Kind of weird to be propping up Lou's "success" when he has 0 division wins and 1 playoff series win in the 5 years he's been gone, but whatever.

And if I *really* wanted to be that guy, I'd point out that Lou's Leafs in 2016 finished with fewer points than any of Shero's Devils teams have in the past 5 years (our 68 points in 69 games when this season ended were one shy of Toronto's 82 game total that year). But that season wasn't his fault because all the pieces were already in place when he got there.

 

[MadDevil]

The majority of the Islanders roster was already there when Lou took over. He hired the best coach available and he's gotten the most out of that roster. I think it's fair to say he's done a good job of managing the Islanders, but the actual building of the team was mostly the guy before him.

It's also not like the Islanders were a garbage team for years before Lou took over. The three previous years to their 80 point season they had 94, 100, and 101 points. If anything I think it just proves what a horrendous coach Doug Weight was.

 

[tailfins]

Delete - late to the conversation

 

[guitarguyvic]

Here we go again.

I hope the islanders win the cup just out of spite.

 

[britdevil]

"Don't cry because it ended, smile because it happened - Wayne Gretzky" - Britdevil

 

[Sgt Brylin]

Here we go again.

I hope the islanders win the cup just out of spite.

Seeing Greene lift the cup alone would be worth it. Lou getting a fourth is icing.