2009-10 NHL preview: New Jersey Devils
No one should ever underestimate the ability of the New Jersey Devils to win hockey games. No one picked them to score 106 points last year, even while missing goalie Martin Brodeur for three months of the season. No one expected, Head Coach Brent Suter to return to New Jersey just to get fired in favor of Jacques Lemaire, and no one expected them to clear out seven million dollars in cap space only to do virtually nothing with it.
In that way the Devil are a bit of a quandary. GM Lou Lamoriello apparently likes to stir up the pot and keep his team hungry. For the most part, those efforts have been a success as the Devils have been an elite NHL team now for quite some time, but one has to wonder with what they lost, and what they failed to replace, maybe that run is over.
Brian Gionta, John Madden, Mike Rupp, and backup Goalie Scott Clemmensen are all gone. In their place comes is back up net minder Yann Davis. While Andy Greene and Johnny Oduya both got raises and the club re-signed Forward Brendan Shanahan, they did little else to improve the roster.
Lamoriello seems to believe they are good enough as is to compete with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers, and the New York Rangers in the Atlantic division. Time will tell if he is correct, or not.
Additions- G Yann Danis and D Cory Murphy
Subtractions- G Scott Clemmensen, RW Jon Disalvatore, RW Brian Gionta, C John Madden, LW Mike Rupp, and RW Barry Tallackson
