From the Archive: Devils Horn In On Patrick Race

The Hockey News Archive is an exclusive vault of 2,640 issues and more than 156,000 stories for subscribers, chronicling the complete history of The Hockey News from 1947 until today. Visit THN.com/archive and subscribe today at subscribe.thehockeynews.com. Today, we will revisit a story by Walt Macpeek from 1987.

The New Jersey Devils were knocking off foes in October again, but they couldn’t seem to beat their own reputation. They have tempted their long-suffering fans with encouraging starts before, only to fall down, down, down…

And, after all, isn’t that where those Devils belong?

Lou Lamoriello doesn’t think so. The energetic 45-year-old former athletic director at Providence College knows his team has a dark past to overcome, but he has been an optimist since April 30, the day he took over as the club’s second president.

Even when only 10,803 fans turned out to watch the Devils improve their Brendan Byrne Arena record to 5-0-0 by dominating Philadelphia 4-0 on Oct. 27, Lamoriello refused to be discouraged.

“One thing you can’t buy and you can’t establish overnight is a winning tradition,” Lamoriello says. “We’re the third team in a well-established hockey area and we have to accept where we are right now and the fact people are not yet convinced that this is for real or that this is the team they want to be part of.”

Lamoriello realizes that everybody loves a winner and, therefore, fan reluctance to identify with the Devils can hardly be classified as a surprise.

Including two years as the Kansas City Scouts, six as the Colorado Rockies and five as the Devils, the franchise began the 1987-88 season with the worst long-term record (253638-149) in pro sports.

In 13 seasons, the Scouts-Rockies-Devils have never won 30 games or lost fewer than 40 in a season—and there have been only two playoff games, both Colorado losses, in franchise history.

Devil captain Kirk Muller, who was eight years old when Kansas City became an expansion team, regards those numbers as little more than answers to triva questions, but he understands their cumulative impact.

“I know we’ve had some tough years behind us,” Muller says, “but this is really a brand new team and, in a way, it is disappointing to see only 10,000 people in the stands when we’re playing so well.”

The Devils appear to be bigger, stronger, more experienced and deeper this fall but the most obvious change has been commitment to a more conscientious team defensive effort. New Jersey gave up an NHL-high of 368 goals last season and has not yielded fewer than 300 goals in the 13-season franchise history.

“We ranked ninth in goals scored last year,” right winger Pat Verbeek says, “and didn’t make the playoffs, so it’s pretty obvious where we have to improve.”

Goalie Alain Chevrier suspects that the Devils won’t convince people, once and for all, that they really are as good as their 6-3-0 start suggests—until they can roll into February playing better than.500 hockey.

“It’s early yet,” he says, “and we’ve had good starts before…then fallen back. I know we’re a lot better because I can see what kind of shots are coming at me but it’s a little harder for the fans to see, right away, how far we’ve come.”

While the Devils are enjoying their strong early showing, there is increased pressure on everyone.

Coach Doug Carpenter, the only coach the Devils could find who was brave enough to sign a one-year contract in May of 1984, is still hard at work three years later and says the pressure is really nothing new.

With majority owner John McMullen having lost more than $10 million since spending $32.5 million to bring the Rockies to New Jersey in 1982, Carpenter appreciates the realities of big business.

“The whole idea of professional sports is to be able to perform under pressure,” Carpenter says. “Most of us have been here four years and it is time to take the big, difficult step up. Yes, I would say that we have to make the playoffs for me to stay here…and that’s okay.”

Under Carpenter, the Devils have shown a slow but steady upswing in points, from41 to 54 in his first season to 59 and then to 64 last season. But the 29-45-6 record still left New Jersey in last place in the tough Patrick Division.

The players sense a make-or-break urgency to the task at hand, too.

“There just can’t be any more excuses,” right winger John MacLean explains. “We’re not too young, we’re not too small. We’re not inexperienced. Now it’s up to us.”

Lamoriello, who upgraded both the Providence College hockey and basketball progams and left with a 15-year hockey coaching record of 248-179-13, appears to have accelerated the Devils’ maturation process without disturbing the patient, one-step-at-a-time orderliness of the Max McNab regime.

“I don’t believe a new boss has to tear down before he can continue the building process,” says Lamoriello, who took over as GM on Sept. 10 and made McNab an executive vice president.

“We all owe Max McNab a debt of gratitude for having the intestinal fortitude not to trade his draft choices, the way the GMs before him did. His patience and development of the team’s depth is about to pay great dividends.”

Even before the season began, the Devils shored up some obvious weaknesses by signing a veteran goalie (Bob Sauve) to support Chevrier, adding two big forwards (Jim Korn and Dave Maley) and acquiring a slick point man (Tom Kurvers).

The Devils still lack a big-name superstar to enhance their drawing power but Muller, Verbeek, MacLean and Chevrier form an improving, energetic, homegrown nucleus.

A trade for Patrik Sundstrom and the quick development of 1987 first-round draft choice Brendan Shanahan have also been early-season Devil pluses, but not all that has been impressive is brand new.

“The Devils,” Islander defenseman Denis Potvin said early this season, “look like they’ve gotten bigger and better, but the thing that has got to worry the rest of us in the Patrick Division is that they seem to have been able to hold on to their trademark—hard work—in the process.”

Despite the hard work, New Jersey’s hockey team is still a hard sell in an area which has been New York Ranger territory for 62 years and where 80 games of the popular, four-time Stanley Cup-champion New York Islanders are carried on cable TV.

“We keep trying,” veteran defenseman Joe Cirella says, “but, deep down, a lot of people in this area are Ranger fans, die-hards. I think our hope is with the young ones who see the improvement and are having fun growing with us.”

For the losingest team in pro sports, the past undoubtedly makes its climb more difficult. Lamoriello, though, refuses to look back.

“What is here and now is what we must focus on,” he says. “Hopefully, we have learned from the past and, yes, there is still a stigma attached to this team but we can’t dwell on it. We have to draw out the positives and there are a lot of them.

“You have to believe before you make things happen and I honestly believe we can be successful here, that we can fill the 19,000 seats in this building, not because I’m dreaming but because the potential and the ingredients for success are here.”

What would Lamoriello say to the skeptical fan who has seen too many second-half Devil collapses to be convinced that New Jersey is, finally, on the way up?

“You don’t change a person’s mind by telling him what you’re going to do. It’s what you actually do that counts. What we have to do is to keep going the way we’ve started this season. We are creating our identity out there; we are being aggressive in our play, we are taking the initiative in the way we do things.”

And so, New Jersey’s hockey team keeps working and waiting for acceptance, recognition—and game No. 81 of its season.

“When it finally comes,” says eight-year veteran Aaron Broten, the longest-suffering Devil of all, “it’s going to be so sweet.”