[Note: I posted this in another forum before Brent Sutter decided to step down.]

So a couple of interesting notes about the Devils -- my dad's friend played golf with Marty Brodeur and Jamie Langenbrunner a few weeks ago. According to a few conversations had during this one round of golf (take it for what it's worth), Jamie is taking that game 7 loss really hard, really personal. Brodeur had a couple of interesting things to say. First, 99 out 100 times he's stop those two shots in the final 1:30 of game 7. "For it to happen to me once, from that bad angle, is very rare. But to happen twice, in game 7, at home? I couldn't believe it." Also, when asked about Brent Sutter returning to coach NJ again next year, Brodeur responded, "I actually hope he doesn't come back. Sutter put the 4th line out in the last shift. I understand that Brent wanted to roll 4 lines in the series, but this is the final shifts of game 7 -- you want your best players out there to finish that game. Brent didn't, he stuck to rolling out his fourth line, and we lost." (And now Sutter's gone... I wonder if Marty had any feedback for Lamoriello regarding this issue.)
 
I'm still kinda pissed off on how that ended. I really think we could've gone to the Finals this year. I do think we had a better team than Pittsburgh. Oh well. Even with the emergence of Parise, this team is on the down-swing. Gionta and Madden are probably gone, Holik's retired, Havelid signed overseas, and we might not be able to afford to re-sign out best d-man, Johnny Oduya. And Brodeur, although stellar during the season, just flat-out choked.  
 
We've lost some key players over the past summers in Niedermayer, Stevens, etc, but I always felt that the core was good enough to compete for the Cup each year. Many thought we'd be out of the playoffs this past season, but we wound up winning the division. For the first off-season in quite a long time, I'm a little fearful of not making the playoffs next year. So much depends on Oduya re-signing, and if Lou still believes that "there's no such thing as a rebuilding season". We'll see what free agency brings.

I'm from Jersey and would love to see the Devils get back in it.  Great stuff on the post.

I'm also a Jersey native, and grew up watching the team since '93.

John Madden will be testing the free agency market, and the latest rumors have Jacques Lemaire returning as coach. That'd be great for Brian Rolston, who flourished under Lemaire's style in Minnesota -- plus he's already well-respected in the locker room, having coached their first championship team in '95. But I'm not sure he's the answer. He'd be great for younger players like Parise and Martin, but I don't know if his style fits our team anymore. We're losing a lot of grinders and role players and I think NJD is having a bit of identity crisis. They played their best hockey when Brodeur was hurt -- they showed a sustained offensive flair for the first time in 8 seasons -- do they want to go back to Lemaire's draining, grinding, defensive system?

John MacLean is also in the running for coach, but he may be too close and friendly with the players to make the tough bench decisions. Lou wants to get a coach in place before free agency, I'd be surprised if that happens, but Lou surprises me all the time.

We have a top-5/10 forward in the leage in Zach Parise, a very under-rated team defense (as long as we bring back Oduya), and a decent group of forwards. Brodeur's not getting any younger, but he's still the best that's ever protected the crease. There's no reason why we can't go deep in next year's playoffs, but there's a cloud of uncertainly this summer that I haven't felt in a long time.

Most insightful, you know far more than I do.  But I always appreciate the knowledge.

Many thanks

Hey my pleasure, I dig the ability to vent here 

Lemaire's coach and we re-signed Oduya, I'm pretty happy... we're way, wayyy under the salary cap ($12 million!) and we resigned Zajac for 4 years at 3.75 million per year. Crafty Lou at it again. Brendan Shannahan is supposed to decide whether he wants to come back to NJ this week -- I see him as an 8-minute-per-game guy who'll chip in maybe 8-10 goals on the power play, as well as help some of the many, many rookies and young players that will be at this training camp and finalized roster.

Nothing major from the team, although there are a few decent free agents left - wouldn't mind Petr Sykora or Alex Tanguay in a Devils sweater -- but we have to think about giving Parise a 7-year deal in another two seasons, and with the salary cap expected to drop *heavily* next year (thereby screwing big free-agent spenders like Philly and NYR), NJ is setting themselves up to be competitive in the long-term while raising players from within and scoffing at big money summer signings.

I'm still not sold on the playoffs this year -- every team in the Atlantic got better except NJ (and maybe Pittsburgh, but they're the champs so they're already good enough). Islanders are no longer a throwaway team. Flyers got Pronger, RanJerks got Gaborik (I give him 20 games before a hangnail sidelines him until 2014). Gonna be a challenging season. Can't wait to get started.

Shannahan just re-signed