Twitter: @MiikeLuci

For a general manager in the latter stages of his career, Lou Lamoriello has recently experienced a lot of first time instances. The most noteworthy, New Jersey missing the playoffs for three consecutive seasons under his watch. Management and coaching, over this stretch, committed to the same general core group of players (particularly from the 2012 playoff run) going into each of the past three seasons, only to witness them repeatedly fail to fulfill expectations. In his final two years with the team, Martin Brodeur’s declining play factored into the Devils’ quality of competitiveness to accommodate his desire for getting ample playing time. In addition to the exodus-like departure of key forwards over successive years (whose names should be embedded in our minds), the quality of the Devils’ forward prospect pool leaves a lot to be desired. Throw in the barrage of player acquisitions intended to address these astronomical losses, which blew up in Lamoriello’s face, the primary source of blame for everything mentioned that put the Devils in the position they’re entering this offseason in, can be attributed to no one other than him.

According to some New Jersey media outlets, Devils’ ownership hasn’t addressed the media to reflect on their team’s disastrous season. While there is a hefty checklist to tackle in the coming months, the delayed media availability of ownership has led some writers to speculate. Is it due to an internally-kept evaluation on Lamoriello’s status as general manager? Is ownership unsure they can continue to confide in the longtime general manager’s decision-making abilities?

If Lamoriello intends on trying to improve the Devils using the same approach from the past two summers, ownership’s reasons for concern are justified.

Losing key players to free agency or (unforeseen) retirement is an inevitable business aspect of the sport. The ramifications vary from team-to-team, particularly determinant on how each organization addresses those losses. It’s practically an offseason tradition Lamoriello has experienced every summer. It’s never affected the Devils however, to the degree it has now. When core players left in the past, Lamoriello would supplement the voids left from their departure by acquiring subpar to medial-quality players or utilizing roster and prospect depth within the organization, resources that have since been exhausted. Over the years, Lamoriello’s passively apathetic policy on refraining core talent has drawn a lot of concern that these substantial losses would eventually catch up to him and the organization’s long term stability…a concern that’s materialized on today’s team.

As we all know, the forwards Lamoriello acquired in the wake of the Parise, Kovalchuk, and Clarkson departures weren’t as promising as they appeared on paper. There have been pleasantries like Mike Cammalleri, Jordin Tootoo, and Scott Gomez, but those gains are grossly overshadowed by the parade of defective acquisitions like Bobby Butler, Ryane Clowe, Michael Ryder, Damien Brunner, Martin Havlat, and Tuomo Ruutu. Jagr’s play prior to being traded counteracted his 2013-2014 performance, and while the mentioned players occasionally exhibited flashes of skill and expectation-reaching capability, they ultimately failed to provide the necessary offense to equate their predecessors they were brought in to succeed.

In addition to the flurry of unsuccessful player acquisitions, it only makes sense to bring into question, the players Lamoriello retained. Stephen Gionta, Steve Bernier, Dainius Zubrus, Patrik Elias, and Travis Zajac are among the notable core veteran forwards that re-signed with the Devils since 2012. If their inability to consistently score goals (based on individual expectations) hasn’t made them contributory factors to the Devils’ misfortunes; their escalating age, deteriorating speed, while having nothing to show for the regular minutes they play on a nightly basis, surely did. His handling of New Jersey’s long term veterans is a testament to Lamoriello’s loyalty for his “character” and “depth” players. It also makes apparent, how Lamoriello desperately tried preserving as much of the 2012 team as possible. Despite the players cited above turning another year older (some already old to begin with), a little more slower, and posting stagnating or declining numbers; Lou believed his team was always just one or two key additions away from returning to the playoffs.

Lamoriello would defend these re-signings because of the player’s having successfully implemented the organization’s playing philosophy and style to propel them to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2012, and the playoffs many years before that. He tried to keep this offensive core in tact because he believed these same players could continually implement his organization’s long time unchanged philosophy to succeed, in an ever-evolving league where speed and identifiable star-caliber talent are imperative for a team to be competitive.

Maybe the Devils’ situation wouldn’t have been like this if their last few drafts produced more fruitful forwards outside of just Adam Henrique. At the conclusion of the season, the forwards that comprised the Devils’ roster featured only five homegrown players. Only two of those five will be younger than 30 when next season begins. Out of the nine teams still in playoff contention, an average of 6.5 homegrown forwards make up their rosters. Most of these players were drafted within the past five years.

In Lou’s defense however, his lack of attention to drafting forwards was in part to his focus on rebuilding the Devils’ blue line after successively losing core talents like Scott Stevens, Scott Niedermayer, Brian Rafalski, and Paul Martin, something he deserves full credit for. As Lamoriello gets scrutinized for the depleted depth of his forward prospects, nobody’s considered how, over the years it took for the right pieces to come into place on the blue line, the longevity of Parise, Kovalchuk, and Clarkson as Devils was taken for granted; along with the top-game play of Elias and Zajac, who piggybacked from playing with these former scoring talents.

The dire reality surrounding the quality of New Jersey’s prospect pool became apparent after seeing a barrage of drafted forwards fail to amply produce and in turn, attain a regular lineup spot. Players like Petr Vrana, Niclas Bergfors, Vladimir Zharkov, Alexander Vasyunov, Nick Palmieri, Matt Halischuk, and Mattias Tedenby, came and went after brief (for some perhaps inopportune) stints with the big team, many of which failed to stick to Devils offenses that were (at the time) almost as goal-starved as this year’s.

In the midst of the worst stretch of his illustrious career, Lamoriello enters a pivotal summer where his legacy and the long term future of the team he once turned into a championship organization, are on the line. The new owners are disgruntled enough as it is to see their new investment fail to qualify for the playoffs in the first two years since their purchase. Despite everything he’s achieved as the NHL’s longest serving general manager, there are very few people in his position that survived missing the playoffs four consecutive years, something that Lou and ownership undoubtedly have a mutual desire in avoiding.