There's never been anyone quite like the New York Islanders godfather whose official title is President of Hockey Operations and General Manager -- just in case you were wondering.
Lou Lamoriello is not your typical general manager.
As a matter of fact, there's never been anyone quite like the New York Islanders godfather whose official title is President of Hockey Operations and General Manager -- just in case you were wondering.
He also is the reason why the Islanders are in the playoffs ready to challenge the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday in Raleigh.
"Lou is like Bill Torrey," said an NHL scout, "he knows players and sees the game like none other."
To his peers in the business of managing, Lamoriello is regarded as the most respected of the clan and nobody is in second place.
"Lou is a model for our business," Brian Burke wrote in his book, Burke's Law. "He turned the New Jersey Devils into the best run franchise of all pro sports."
Lamoriello went to Toronto and took a moribund franchise with only a vague idea about winning and turned the Maple Leafs into a perennial contender.
And now he is with us on Long Island, totally energetic at age 80, and as dedicated and rah-rah as he was running the Providence College sports program before he ever had an NHL gig.
Nobody knows Lou better than Mister Devil, Ken Daneyko who played his hockey lifetime on the New Jersey defense and now is the club's tv analyst for MSG Networks.
"The keys to Lou's success," Daneyko asserted, "is his winning attitude, his discipline, and dedication. Nobody in the business works harder than Lou."
Funny; after Devils owner Dr. John McMullen gave Lamoriello his first NHL job, to revive the perennial non-playoff sextet, Doc Mac told me: "I got the best bargain in sports with Lou; he works 24 hours a day!"
In his first season (1987-88) orchestrating the New Jersey franchise, The Lamoriello Effect converted the Devils to a playoff club -- they beat the Rangers out of the postseason -- and went all the way to the seventh game of the third round.
"It was all Lou," said Sean Burke, the goalie Lamoriello pulled out of the 1988 Olympics and thrust between the New Jersey pipes. The rookie Burke became an overnight sensation and made Lou look like a genius. Which he still is.
The Maven knows a lot about Lou since I was there covering the Devils when he took command in the summer of 1987. Since Lamoriello knew I had been around for a while, he took me to lunch and his first question was simple enough: "What should I do to fix this team?"
It doesn't matter what I told him; what matters is that he turned the Garden Staters into an elite NHL franchise. New Jersey won Stanley Cups in 1995, 2000, and 2003 and the 2000-01 club went to the Cup Final.
But that was then, and this is now, and if you're wondering why the Islanders made it and the Penguins did not, it's worth noting what Josh Yohe of the Athletic said about recently-fired GM Ron Hextall: "He was soft."
Lamoriello is tough; but tough in the very best sense of the word.
For whatever reasons, Lou made one of the toughest, most unpopular decisions of his young life; he fired Barry Trotz. Then he hired Lane Lambert and, guess what? The Isles are in the playoffs.
As one of Lou's longtime employee told me, "Working for Lou is very easy. He has a set of rules to follow. The rules are very clear and very simple. All you have to do is follow those rules and everything is just fine."
Those rules were imported to Long Island when Lou succeeded Garth Snow, and they were immediately implemented. It's what's known in the business as "a tight ship." Any reporter who ever has covered the team -- 'way back when or right now -- knows what that's all about.
Or, as one veteran newsman put it, "If Lou had a theme song it would be Frank Sinatra's version of 'I'll Do It My Way.'"
That helps explain why the Islanders are in the playoffs, and the Met Division teams -- Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, and Columbus -- are not.
He didn't need a superstar like Sidney Crosby, Evgeny Malkin or Johnny Gaudreau to reach the playoffs. He didn't need a headline-grabbing coach like John Tortorella.
As a matter of fact, Lou did it without having a single player who is listed in The Hockey News' "Top 50 Players In The NHL."
Which begs the question: How did he do it?
For starters, compare his club with the one that had to be beaten out by the Islanders -- Pittsburgh; and what's the difference? The Islanders boast two first-rate goaltenders in Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov. The Penguins did not.
Despite the critics who claimed the Islanders were "too old and too slow," Lamoriello ignored the naysayers and put his money on such veterans as Brock Nelson, Kyle Palmieri, Zach Parise, Cal Clutterbuck, Matt Martin, Casey Cizikas and Josh Bailey, among others.
They formed a unit that had been through the wars. They respected each other and played for each other despite a spate of injuries that would have torpedoed other rivals.
"I think of my players as family," said Lou, espousing one of his key philosophical themes. "And I like to think that success over the years shows that the players value that as much as they do Stanley Cups; knowing that the two go hand in hand."
His points are rooted in a long and varied career that began in his native Rhode Island. He broke in as a high school math teacher, eventually moving on to Providence College where, among other things, he turned the Friar's hockey team into champions.
He helped create Hockey East and then became its first commissioner before attracting the attention of Dr. McMullen who lured him to New Jersey. At the time, the Devils were floundering; far out of the playoffs by January 1988.
Lou imported Jim Schoenfeld as coach, signed Sean Burke as his goalie, and with a goal by current Isles associate coach, John MacLean on the final night of the season, his Devils made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.
His litany of brilliant moves -- making a deal that enabled Lou to draft goalie Martin Brodeur -- were what helped turn the Devils into titlists. That along with hiring the right Cup coaches at the right time -- Jacques Lemaire, Larry Robinson, Pat Burns.
Through it all Lou remained true to his principles and that included player negotiations. Disagreements with the likes of Claude Lemieux, et. al. caused them to leave the team but invariably they'd return if Lou beckoned.
This season, despite media criticism, Lou insisted that he liked his team. Not even in the most dire circumstances did he ever waver from that theme no matter how intensely he was pressed by reporters.
Time and again, he was proven right, especially when the club's most creative forward Mathew Barzal went down with a serious injury. Everybody and his Uncle Dudley figured the Islanders had become a dead, non-playoff team.
Except Lou and his head coach Lane Lambert disagreed. The boss promoted replacements from his Bridgeport farm team and ignited a blockbuster deal for Vancouver's reliable Bo Horvat.
Instead of fading into the NHL sunset the Islanders went 14-7-2 without Barzal and made the playoffs in the most breathtaking manner imaginable.
Granted, the players did it on the ice, but they couldn't have done it without Lou importing Hudson Fasching, Pierre Engvall, Samuel Bolduc, and Simon Holmstrom.
They made it because Lou did it his way!
And that's why he remains the one and only!