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Wednesday, November 8, 2000
Changes affect Devils' chances
By Rob Parent
Special to ESPN.com
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They've barely had time to wipe the grime off the gilded chalice they paraded around the world over the summer. They haven't played a real game yet and have barely had time for as much as a hello to their new corporate owners.
That can't change the obvious notion that something has changed about the New Jersey Devils. They're the champs now.
But they're no less hungry. Not less so than anyone else, anyway. Who could seem ravished by the thoughts of an 82-game season ahead? The Devils looked solid in the preseason, a team determined to play the role of defending champion as well, if not better, than the last. Or at least do so much better than the last team that won a Cup in New Jersey did -- missing the playoffs.
|  | | Arnott proved his value to the Devils, fighting off the Stars in the Stanley Cup finals. |
"I think the bottom line for us this year is just knowing that teams are going to play harder against you," said warhorse defenseman Ken Daneyko, who was on a Devils championship team of 1995 that failed to make the playoffs one year later. "We're on the top. We're the defending champs. Teams every night, when you go into their building, are going to give you their A-game. So we can't take any nights off as far as work ethic. We know we're talented in this room, and if we work at it, we're going to win a lot of hockey games. But if we think it's easy; if we just put our sticks out there and skate around then we're going to be in for a rude awakening."
However, just listen -- ever so carefully -- to the quiet of this Meadowlands home office after a recent exhibition victory, and perhaps you can detect just the slightest hint of an alarm. If not heard from Daneyko directly, maybe it's just in the air. But it's something. Something different. Something changed.
"There certainly was a lot of enjoyment with the players each having the Cup for a day," Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello said. "But I think that they have maintained their focus more this year than 1995. That was one complete holiday, but this team has a seriousness and a commitment."
It also has a problem. Not much different from a lot of teams, of course. A problem with money, or the proliferation thereof.
See, the Devils aren't a family any longer. It's not Uncle Lou carefully handling the affairs of the patriarch Papa John McMullen, while loyal children like Daneyko and Scott Stevens quietly and happily plug through another work year.
This team from the swampy suburbs of New Jersey has gone New York -- big time.
Teary, huggy owner John McMullen is out, YankeesNets -- doesn't that name just sound disturbing for some reason? -- is in as corporate overseer. But this isn't as bad as it could be because although a crazy uncle named George Steinbrenner is now in charge, he supposedly is going to take a back seat in the day-to-day affairs.
So Sweet Uncle Lou was retained, the hockey executive who has long been known as the best in his business. And he retained head coach Larry Robinson, who doesn't seem as reluctant in his job as he was when he replaced Robbie Ftorek last season. On the ice the team looks pretty much the same ... but maybe not as close as it was three months ago, no matter what spin the players put on it.
"We've turned over a lot of players since our first Cup," said Daneyko. "But Lou just seems to keep key veterans and along the way, he's brought in a lot of young guys. Now we have a lot of depth in our organization, where guys just keep coming from the minors. So they know what they're doing. All the older guys around here know their roles and the young guys keep stepping in and doing a great job."
Claude Lemieux left after the '95 Cup, but his departure wasn't considered such a big deal. This time, the Devils responded to his absence by replacing him with Canadiens veteran Turner Stevenson, who is coming off the most productive season of his career ... 10 goals.
That's a big deal.
Then there's the financial factor with the players. Patrik Elias, one of the league's best and most underpaid players -- reflected on how Lamoriello has created a bit of a mess with the fat contracts John Madden and Brian Rafalski maneuvered for this summer, and how they have affected the holdouts of Jason Arnott, and defenseman Scott Niedermayer, two of the team's best players.
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I don't enjoy having to fight for every contract. (But) how can you ask for a trade when you win the Stanley Cup? I've been through a lot in New Jersey, and now is not a situation where you ask for a trade. ” |
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— Scott Niedermayer on his cotract status. |
"They haven't treated us fair," Elias concluded. "And they're not being fair to (Arnott and Niedermayer) right now. They (Rafalski and Madden) got an extension because of a mistake. They played one year here. Nider's got eight years. Arnie's played (seven)."
Madden and Rafalski found loopholes in their contracts and muscled Devils management into giving them multimillion-dollar deals, while Elias, who scored 35 goals last season, earns less than $700,000.
Typically, Lamoriello has taken a hard-line stance with star holdouts, holding a hammer that he's so carefully constructed. He issued what he called "final offers" to Niedermayer -- three years, $10.8 million -- and Arnott -- two years, $5.1 million. Both players rejected them, although Niedermayer has scoffed at the notion of demanding a trade.
"I don't enjoy having to fight for every contract," Niedermayer said. "(But) how can you ask for a trade when you win the Stanley Cup? I've been through a lot in New Jersey, and now is not a situation where you ask for a trade."
He has a point. One that Lamoriello doesn't have to drill home.
"This is not new to us or the league," said Lamoriello. "It's part of the business, and it will not be a disruption on our end."
We shall see about that.
Although Niedermayer's demands might be a million per season over his GM's final offer, and Arnott's probably farther off than that, you get the feeling that they understand Lamoriello is too experienced and stubborn at the rules of contract combat to relent. A dual compromise might be worked out.
"I just hope that they'll be fair," Elias said, "and appreciate what we do for this team."
Even if their valued top-line centerpiece returns with a happier outlook, both Elias and Sykora will be thinking in such bottom-line terms, if not outright talking about them in the locker room this year. And what if Arnott holds his ground and sits rather than compromises? What then?
What if Scott Gomez starts getting misty eyed over how much more money his young peers make than he does? Perhaps Niedermayer will only settle for another one-year non-contract and prepare for his third straight holdout, and ...
"It really isn't an issue here," Daneyko said of all this contract business. "Everybody knows it's part of the game now, big business. We certainly need those two guys (Arnott and Niedermayer), but thank God for our depth. We're a team of depth that can get by until they get back, and I'm sure they're going to be back eventually."
People like Lemieux and Vladimir Malakhov, who signed a free-agent contract with the Rangers, won't be back. With Stevenson and rookie Willie Mitchell lining up as replacements, that's a two-ply power play punch the Devils won't be able to replace. But they do have former 76-goal scorer Alex Mogilny on hand, who came in last year to help spark Gomez in the playoffs, and now is being called on to find some of that old scoring magic himself.
In the wake of a preseason victory over Philadelphia in which he scored a hat trick, Mogilny -- who scored just 18, 14 and 21 goals in his last three seasons in Vancouver -- was asked if that performance was indicative of what he'd have to bring to the Devils this season.
"Throughout my career, I never had a problem, being a selfish hockey player," said Mogilny. "Maybe too unselfish, because instead of taking a shot I've always looked to pass it and that's cost me a lot of goals. A lot of people have told me, 'You have to be selfish out there. You've got to start shooting more.' I know some people trying shooting from all over the place, but I'm just not that kind of a hockey player."
In the hardly-changing, always successful system of the New Jersey Devils, Mogilny wouldn't have to be that kind of player. He'd be but another piece, applying neutral-zone pressure, forcing mistakes, capitalizing on them.
That hasn't changed.
What is different with these Devils is what's taking place around them. Changes in the owner's box and in the air of the downstairs locker room. The difference is real, and not particularly well suited to a team that has enjoyed the fruits of victory and now must suffer the consequences of every champion.
"A letdown?" Daneyko said. "We've got a good core of (veterans) and I don't think they're going to let that happen. And we have young guys with enthusiasm. They're just getting their careers going. They want to have a good strong first few seasons to prove you belong here. So, I think we have a real good mixture of people here that will avoid that."
Stay tuned.
Rob Parent covers the NHL for the Delaware County (Pa.) Times. His NHL East column appears every week on ESPN.com.
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