From the THN Archive: March 14, 1997 Volume 50, Issue 26 - 'Missing Link'

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 about Doug Gilmour being the missing link for the New Jersey Devils. 

UNIONDALE, N.Y.- The New Jersey Devils were good-no, make that very good-before they picked up Doug Gilmour and Dave Ellett.

Care to venture a guess what that makes them now?

Yes, suffice it to say they’re much improved after the Feb. 25 transaction that sent little Steve Sullivan (an explosive part-time forward), big Jason Smith (no better than No. 6 on the Devils’ blue line), and unsigned draftee Alyn McCauley to the Toronto Maple Leafs for the two veterans and their own third-round pick in the 1999 draft.

Much improved, indeed.

“I think you’re looking at the team to beat in the East,” a New York Islander player said as the Devils’ team bus pulled out of Nassau County Coliseum on Feb. 26, the night Gilmour debuted with a goal and three assists in a 5-3 victory over the Isles.

Another Islander player just nodded in agreement.

Fast forward to the next afternoon, at the New York Rangers practice facility in Rye, N.Y. Wayne Gretzky was on the ice, saying cheese during a photo session when he was asked if he’d seen Gilmour and the Devils in action the night before.

“Yup,” he said. “They were pretty good, weren’t they?”

He smiled weakly at that and gave a little shake of the head that left no doubt as to his assessment of a team the Rangers had beaten twice and tied once this season.

That is, the Devils just got a lot better while the other Eastern Conference contenders, everyone from the Philadelphia Flyers to the Florida Panthers to the Rangers, were still just talking about how they could improve themselves before the March 18 trade deadline.

The next move belongs to one of Bob Clarke, Brian Murray, Neil Smith, Craig Patrick, or John Muckier. Gentlemen, start your engines. The real 1996-97 NHL race is just now getting underway.

Hey, isn’t that Happy Gilmour driving the pace car?

“If we can improve ourselves, we will,” Clarke said of the Flyers’ ongoing efforts to acquire a solid defenseman to bolster their impressive lineup. “But we can’t start chasing rainbows because the Devils went out and made a deal. The Devils were a good team without Gilmour. He’ll help them, no question, but it certainly doesn’t guarantee them the Stanley Cup.”

The Flyers, even if they don’t make a deal, will be tough, though there are questions about goaltending and defensive depth. The Panthers should never be counted out, but their lineup cries out for a playmaker of Adam Oates’ caliber. Whether they can outbid the Vancouver Canucks for the available Boston Bruins’ center remains to be seen, but the Devils’ acquisition of Gilmour suggests they should spare no expense.

The Pittsburgh Penguins have fallen on hard times of late, what with Patrick Lalime’s return to earth and Jaromir Jagr’s groin pull. The Sabres will go as far as Dominator Dominik Hasek takes them.

Then there are the Devils, who had a 13-game unbeaten streak snapped just prior to the Gilmour-Ellett deal and posted consecutive wins in their first two games with them.

The Devils stack up well against every Eastern foe, including the favored Flyers. With the possible exception of The Dominator, Martin Brodeur is as good a goalie as there is in the East. The Devils’ defensive unit, comprised of Scott Stevens, Scott Niedermayer, Lyle Odelein, Ken Daneyko, Shawn Chambers, Ellett, and Kevin Dean, is big, strong, tough, and talented-arguably the best in the conference.

Up front, they have an impressive blend of speed and size-Bobby Holik is the poster boy-and pressure-treated experience that allows them to play four lines and not get overwhelmed by the Legion of Doom or anybody else. The only shortcoming was their inability to score goals.

Only Florida had a better goals-against average (2.27) than the Devils’ mark of 2.30. But the Devils’ offensive output was a miserly 2.70 goals per game, identical to the Islanders and better than only the San Jose Sharks (2.60).

Their patented team defense and good goaltending notwithstanding, the Devils would sorely be tempting fate to think that output is good enough to get to the Cup final.

Enter Gilmour.

“He’s the missing link,” said Devils’ winger Steve Thomas.

“We’ve been waiting for this all year,” added defenseman Lyle Odelein. “We’re excited. We can score some goals. The only real superstar this organization has ever had is Martin Brodeur, a goalie. Getting Dougie has us talking about the Cup, and that’s what it’s all about.”

Whoa there, big fella. Wash your mouth out with Jersey’s finest toxic waste. It is very un-Devil like to be talking like that, but damned if even low-key GM Lou Lamoriello isn’t a bit giddy himself these days.

“There’s a real sense of excitement with our team making this deal,” Lamoriello said. “We were a good team (without Gilmour and Ellett). We’re better now.”

By a long shot. Think about it. Prior to Gilmour’s arrival, the Devils’ leading scorer was Holik, with 14 goals and 47 points in 59 games. Gilmour walked into the dressing room prior to his first game against the Islanders and, before putting on his skates, became the team’s leading scorer with 15 goals and 60 points in 61 games. By the end of his first night on the job, the four-point effort, he had a 16-point lead on Holik. That gap will only increase.

“Doug has what I like to call sheer ability,” Lamoriello said. “He makes the other players around him so much better, and he does it without sacrificing defense. He’s exceptional on faceoffs. He’s terrific on the power play and can kill penalties. He competes, he leads, and now he’ll be doing all that on a team that competes right along with him. We’ve filled a hole on our team, and we did it without disrupting our roster.”

If Lamoriello can barely contain his anticipation of what Gilmour will mean to the team, it’s nothing compared to how Gilmour himself feels.

He’s on a Cup contender, not a messed-up Leaf team that has been in a death spiral. He’s in a market where anonymity is virtually guaranteed and out of the fishbowl existence in Toronto that finally took its toll on him emotionally. He’s out of the spotlight off the ice, directly into it on the ice.

In fact, his one request to Leafs’ GM Cliff Fletcher was to not be traded to a Canadian team for that very reason.

“I’m really excited,” Gilmour said the day after his home-ice debut (when he scored an empty-net goal in a 4-1 win over Buffalo). “I want to be an impact player here. I want to make a difference. I know there’s going to be a lot of talk about contending for the Cup, but we can’t get ahead of ourselves. It’s going to take some time to get comfortable. The rest will take care of itself, but I will say this. This is a confident team, a big team, a strong team, and a fast team.”

Gilmour was on a roll when he left the Leafs-five goals and 22 points in 15 games-and there’s no reason for him not to continue in Jersey. What he lacks in natural goal-scoring ability, he more than makes up for in creating scoring chances for others.

Devils’ coach Jacques Lemaire wasn’t sure with whom Gilmour would line up on a regular basis, but he knows he wants balance. In Gilmour’s debut, he started with Bill Guerin but ended up with old linemate Dave Andreychuk. In his second outing, he was with John MacLean. Many are waiting to see how Lemaire reacts to having a player of Gilmour’s offensive abilities. As solid as No. 93 is defensively, he likes to improvise on offense, and that doesn’t always lend itself to Lemaire’s famous/infamous rigidity.

Mind you, the Devils don’t play the trap nearly as much as has been suggested they forecheck hard when the opportunity is there, and Gilmour was quick to realize it.

“My defensive role here is more aggressive here than it was (in Toronto),” Gilmour said. “And because the defense here is so good, I don’t have to come back to the net to get the puck on a breakout. My spot is out by the blue line. That’s great.”

Even Gretzky marvels at that aspect of the Devils. “They’re a really defensive team,” Gretzky said,” but on their breakouts, the forwards are all high, and the defenseman makes the long pass (from behind the goal line). It’s not what you’d expect.”

If Gilmour’s debut was any indication, Lemaire actually likes the idea of having a player who thinks the game offensively on a whole other level.

“Guys who are open are going to get the puck when he’s on the ice,” Lemaire said. “We haven’t had a player like that on this team. We’re not changing our style, but when he’s on the ice, he’s in control. He controls the game. He made a pass to Bill Guerin, there were, what, three players between them, and still, he made the pass. I said to the guys, ‘I haven’t seen this. It’s nice to see.’”

It is, Lamoriello said of Gilmour’s vision, a “God-given talent.” And to think he plays on the Devils.

Ellett may be the forgotten man in the deal, forgotten by all but Lamoriello and the Devil players. He, too, made an early impact, setting up one power-play goal in his first game and scoring one in his second.

“I’m really big on Dave Ellett and what he’ll mean to our power play,” Lamoriello said. “What we’ll be able to do better than Toronto could is slot him better. He doesn’t have to be a top-three defenseman on this team. He can play No. 4, 5, or 6, and because he’ll be asked to do less, there’ll be nights where he steps up and is the best defenseman on the ice.”

The key, however, is Gilmour, who gives the Devils a creative dimension the likes of which they’ve never had.

The skeptics suggest it will somehow get stifled by Lemaire, but the coach maintains he has but one concern.

“We’ll pay the price if other guys start to play like that,” Lemaire said.

Other teams will no doubt make moves. They’ll get better, too.

But you have to give the Devils their due. They were good before. They’re better now. Much better, and with a Killer instinct to boot.