Every GM, even the great ones, makes moves that baffle their fans and drive them nuts. When a team has won 3 cups in the last 12 seasons and has numerous 100 point seasons since 1993-1994. …fans from other teams have a tendency to either have sour grapes or think they have had everything easy. This is not the case. These are the ones that got away…the ones that either left or were traded and shouldn’t have left.
The big one for most fans is the Scott Niedermayer situation. After Stevens was forced to retire, the d-man most likely to take the reins for the Devils defense was Niedermayer. Every fan cringed when it was revealed Stevens would miss the rest of the 2003-2004 season. Sure enough…the Devils went .500 the rest of the way and went out meekly to the Flyers in five games. Then the lockout hit. When the CBA was ratified and the cap was set…everyone was expecting the worst in New Jersey which did happen. The hard part was Lou never had a backup plan. He had tried to trade for Scott’s brother in 2003-2004 and when that didn’t pan out…the writing should have been on the wall. When Niedermayer signed with the Ducks….Lou’s idea was to sign Malakhov and McGillis….with both being out of the NHL before the season went too long. The Devils basically put all their poker chips in….with a pair of deuces and the dealer had a pair of aces.
That wasn’t the only transaction that Lou made a mistake on. Going a little further back was little Steve Sullivan…the 155 pound dynamo that became a fan favorite in Jersey. He was really small for the old nhl but really quick and could bounce back from nasty hits that you didn’t expect him to. Late in the 96-97 season came the trade that at least for me I could never understand. The Toronto Maple Leafs traded Dave Ellett, Doug Gilmour and a 3rd round selection (previously acquired – Andre Lakos) to the New Jersey Devils for Jason Smith, Steve Sullivan and the rights to Alyn McCauley. Smith was a pretty good stay at home d-man…and McCauley had some ok seasons but Sullivan was the one that bothered me. For some reason I had seen the promise that maybe Lou didn’t. Sure enough Sullivan got better with Toronto…blossomed with Chicago and has turned into a very good player with Nashville. For the Devils…Ellett didn’t play very long as a Devil….Gilmour didn’t quite pan out and Lakos never saw any NHL action. Truly another one that got away.
Third but not least was the Claude Lemieux fiasco….or what became more famously known as the lost fax. Lemieux never had spectacular regular season numbers for the Devils but in one magical postseason run in 1994-1995, he led the Devils to their first ever Stanley Cup championship. He scored 13 goals in the run including 6 game winners….the memorable one actually being the Game 5 goal against Philly on the road. For all that he was named the Conn Smythe winner. After that the picture got a bit murky and rather bizarre. In the weeks after the Stanley Cup….Claude made numerous appearances in the New Jersey area. One memorable appearance was at a Sears in Woodbridge, New Jersey around the end of September. My brother had asked him how the contract situation was coming along. He had told us some offers were being tossed around and that in a few days he should be signing a new one. Here my brother and I thought a deal would be done and on October 3rd…one was indeed. The Devils had traded Claude to the Isles who then traded him to Colorado. Colorado then went on to win the Stanley Cup. All Lou could later say was I sent him a contract offer via fax only the fax never had gone through….a copy of the fax remains to this day in Lou’s office. Lou would later reacquire Claude for the second cup run in the 1999-2000 season but what happened October 3rd, 1995 set the Devils back almost five years. Another one that truly got away.
It just proves every GM doesn’t get this right 100% of the time. If they did, they would be somewhere else and probably not on this planet. Lou has made his great share of excellent moves thru the years like getting under the salary cap the last two seasons…but he has also done things that have killed us as Devils fans. To err is to be human as they say.
