c9777666
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- Aug 31, 2016
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For longtime Devils fans from back in the day when red/green were the primary colors, I'm interested to get your thought on the team during that 5 season stretch in between their defining playoff runs in 1988-1994 to game 7 of the Wales/Eastern Conference Finals. Those Devils teams were pretty interesting and intriguing in a way.
Before they became the consistent contender, powerhouse, and Cup holder that they would become for a decade, New Jersey in the early 90s was a team that went through a lot of transistion.
It all began of course with the famous Schoenfeld 1988 playoff run (Burke's Olympic callup, John MacLean's OT goal on the final day of the season in Chicago, playoff upsets over the Islanders and Capitals, Have another doughnut) that took them, like a few years later, to game 7 of the conference finals.
That was followed by a five season stretch where they seemed to be a bit in flux behind the bench and perhaps on the ice in some ways (coaches, goalies, roster moves), but seemed to flash potential that was waiting to be fulfilled.
Jacques Lemaire became head coach and we all know what happened in 1993-94 when they began their run in which they would be a major force, defensive juggernaut, and an annual Cup threat year after year.
Before that, it was an interesting stretch.
Priot to Lemaire, New Jersey had had 4 different head coaches at some point from 1989-90 to 1992-93 (Schoenfeld, John Cunniff, John McVie, Herb Brooks).
They made a lot of player transistions- Fetisov and the Pat Verbeek/Sylvain Turgeon transaction before 1989-90, a 1990 in-season trade for Peter Stastny, Claude Lemieux before 1990-91, Scott Stevens/Stephane Richer/Kirk Muller before 1991-92, the drafting of Niedermayer and Brodeur.
Their records were hovering around .500 (37-34-9, 32-33-15, 38-31-11, 40-37-7), but they were able to get into the playoffs each time (and as it turned out all but three times from 1988-2012).
In 1991-92, they actually had the 5th best record in their conference, but the divisional playoff format of that era trapped them against the #1 overall Rangers instead of getting to play a weaker Adams Division foe.
Looking back, considering the job McVie did in '92 (first year of Stevens/Niedermayer), I'm surprised they didn't give him another year.
They gave the Patrick Division first-place teams a tough time in 1991 and 1992 in seven game series- had the Penguins on the brink of elimination before Sidorkiewicz made "The Save" and were up 2-1 on the President's Trophy Rangers of '92, instances where you could see strides being made.
They became a more offensive minded team under Herb Brooks in 1993 (308 goals for, a then-franchise record 40 wins, Craig Billington was an All Star) but lost on the final night of the season against the Islanders, blew a chance to avoid the red-hot Penguins, and ended up going out early.
And despite those plusses, there seemed to be too many minuses and thus Brooks ended up one-and-done, setting the stage for you-know-who.
Chris Terreri, Sean Burke, and Billington seemed to be consistently inconsistent- they had their moments at times (Billington and Burke each were one-time All-Stars), but not enough to lift them to better records and avoiding fourth place in the Patrick Division (of course the playoff format at the time didn't help in a usually tough Patrick Division).
What did you make of these versions of the Devils in between their famous playoff runs to game 7 of the conference finals? Did you feel they were on the verge of something potentially big, or did they seem like potential underachievers that didn't quite put it all together at the time and needed the right mix (Lemaire, Brodeur) to put themselves over the top and set the stage for their run of Cup greatness?
Before they became the consistent contender, powerhouse, and Cup holder that they would become for a decade, New Jersey in the early 90s was a team that went through a lot of transistion.
It all began of course with the famous Schoenfeld 1988 playoff run (Burke's Olympic callup, John MacLean's OT goal on the final day of the season in Chicago, playoff upsets over the Islanders and Capitals, Have another doughnut) that took them, like a few years later, to game 7 of the conference finals.
That was followed by a five season stretch where they seemed to be a bit in flux behind the bench and perhaps on the ice in some ways (coaches, goalies, roster moves), but seemed to flash potential that was waiting to be fulfilled.
Jacques Lemaire became head coach and we all know what happened in 1993-94 when they began their run in which they would be a major force, defensive juggernaut, and an annual Cup threat year after year.
Before that, it was an interesting stretch.
Priot to Lemaire, New Jersey had had 4 different head coaches at some point from 1989-90 to 1992-93 (Schoenfeld, John Cunniff, John McVie, Herb Brooks).
They made a lot of player transistions- Fetisov and the Pat Verbeek/Sylvain Turgeon transaction before 1989-90, a 1990 in-season trade for Peter Stastny, Claude Lemieux before 1990-91, Scott Stevens/Stephane Richer/Kirk Muller before 1991-92, the drafting of Niedermayer and Brodeur.
Their records were hovering around .500 (37-34-9, 32-33-15, 38-31-11, 40-37-7), but they were able to get into the playoffs each time (and as it turned out all but three times from 1988-2012).
In 1991-92, they actually had the 5th best record in their conference, but the divisional playoff format of that era trapped them against the #1 overall Rangers instead of getting to play a weaker Adams Division foe.
Looking back, considering the job McVie did in '92 (first year of Stevens/Niedermayer), I'm surprised they didn't give him another year.
They gave the Patrick Division first-place teams a tough time in 1991 and 1992 in seven game series- had the Penguins on the brink of elimination before Sidorkiewicz made "The Save" and were up 2-1 on the President's Trophy Rangers of '92, instances where you could see strides being made.
They became a more offensive minded team under Herb Brooks in 1993 (308 goals for, a then-franchise record 40 wins, Craig Billington was an All Star) but lost on the final night of the season against the Islanders, blew a chance to avoid the red-hot Penguins, and ended up going out early.
And despite those plusses, there seemed to be too many minuses and thus Brooks ended up one-and-done, setting the stage for you-know-who.
Chris Terreri, Sean Burke, and Billington seemed to be consistently inconsistent- they had their moments at times (Billington and Burke each were one-time All-Stars), but not enough to lift them to better records and avoiding fourth place in the Patrick Division (of course the playoff format at the time didn't help in a usually tough Patrick Division).
What did you make of these versions of the Devils in between their famous playoff runs to game 7 of the conference finals? Did you feel they were on the verge of something potentially big, or did they seem like potential underachievers that didn't quite put it all together at the time and needed the right mix (Lemaire, Brodeur) to put themselves over the top and set the stage for their run of Cup greatness?
but they really were a necessity at the time. It was quite remarkable what Lou was able to construct with so limited resources compared to other teams.
