There was a tweet going around that read something along the lines of, “Men can just sit around and name random athletes to each other for hours.” Can confirm, that is 100% true.
It also inspired us to start thinking of random Devils players we have seen and probably forgotten over the years. Remember P.A. Paranteau, Brad Lukowich, and Mike Commodore? Well, here is one forgotten player that has played for New Jersey from each team around the league.
Then we started thinking of the random players who played for the Devils and different teams. That’s how the idea for this list was born. We decided to find a random player, who might have been forgotten or overlooked, who played both for the Devils and for each team in the NHL. Here is our Eastern Conference edition.
The Criteria
During this exercise, we tried to stick to players who appeared in more than a handful of games with a team. So a player who played for one team and then maybe had a quick stint with another as a minor league call up is the type of situation we tried to stay away from.
Relocations were only considered as one franchise. For example, the Winnipeg Jets/Arizona Coyotes/Utah Mammoth franchise is considered one team while the Atlanta Thrashers/Winnipeg Jets is considered an entirely other one. Each current NHL franchise has an entry and not former franchises. So there is only one entry for the Carolina Hurricanes, not the Carolina Hurricanes and then a separate entry for the Hartford Whalers.
On the New Jersey Devils side, we picked players who only played for the Devils. Players who played for the Kansas City Scouts or Colorado Rockies but not when the team relocated to New Jersey were not considered. Also, players are only listed once, and the same player can’t be listed for multiple teams.
Atlantic Division
Boston Bruins
This one was a bit hard so we landed on Sean O’Donnell. The defenseman played over 1,220 games, including half of a season with New Jersey during the 2000-201 season. After that he spent the next three seasons in Boston.
Buffalo Sabres
Remember Jacob Josefson? His biggest moment in a Devils jersey was scoring one of the only shootout goals the team scored during the 2013-14 season when they infamously did not win a single shootout. After seven years as a Devils he would play one year in Buffalo during the 2017-2018 season before heading to play overseas.
Detroit Red Wings
We went with Marek Zidlicky for this one, perhaps out of recency bias. The Devils shipped him off to Detroit at the 2015 trade deadline for a conditional pick. This was after the Devils acquired him midway through their Eastern Conference-winning 2011-12 season from the Minnesota Wild.
Florida Panthers
Can you believe the Panthers had a small army of former New Jersey players helping them win their second consecutive Stanley cup last season? We were up for a challenge, so we didn’t go with any of those easy answers like Vitek Vanecek. Remember Kirk Muller played for the Panthers? The former captain spent two-and-a-half seasons in the late 1990s following a trade from the Maple Leafs.
Montreal Canadiens
Not the greatest choice, but for the fun trivia aspect part of it we went with Jocelyn Lemieux. Jocelyn is the brother of the Devils’ first Conn Smythe winner in franchise history Claude Lemieux. Lemieux played for the Devils in two separate stints. Jocelyn was in New Jersey for 18 games in the 1995-1996 season. By then, his Conn Smythe winning brother had been shipped off to the Colorado Avalanche.
Ottawa Senators
Another hard team to find a pick for because they’re younger than the Devils. We landed on Tom Chorske. The 1995 Stanley Cup champion spent the two years after that playing in Canada’s capital city.
Tampa Bay Lightning
Speaking of 1995 Stanley Cup champions, you remember Chris McAlpine? Maybe not since he was a midseason trade acquisition in the shortened season. We may have broken our rule of “having to play many games,” since he only suited up for 10 games in Tampa. He was a member who came to the 2015 20 year anniversary so we’ll give him a pass this time.
Toronto Maple Leafs
This was another team that was harder than we thought it would be. Current Chicago Blackhawks player Joey Anderson is the pick here. He spent parts of the 2018-19 and 2019-20 season with New Jersey and then the next two-and-a-half in Toronto. He was a part of the Andreas Johnsson trade that offseason.
Metropolitan Division
Carolina Hurricanes
We decided to go with Andrei Loktionov. On a 2013-14 Devils squad that was aging and struggling to score, Loktionov was a rare young player with a scoring touch. In that year’s attempt to qualify for the playoffs he was traded for an aging Tuumu Ruutu.
Columbus Blue Jackets
The “Polish Hammer” known as Krzysztof Oliwa spent the late 1990s and won the 2000 Stanley Cup as a member of the New Jersey Devils. Then he was traded to the Blue Jackets as a member of their inaugural team. He only played 10 games there before injury and later a trade to the Pittsburgh Penguins to finish the season.
New York Islanders
We chose Jay Pandolfo for a purely personal anecdote. Randomly a few years ago I ran into Jay Pandolfo’s cousin in the Tampa Bay area. When we started discussing how his cousin played for my favorite team his brother mentioned he called him right away when he was traded to the Islanders to laugh about the move. Pandolfo might not be the most random, but I did want another excuse to tell that story.
New York Rangers
Choosing Michael Grabner might have a bit of recency bias. We also wanted to avoid the big name free agents who have become part of the “Hudson River Rivalry” such as Scott Gomez and Bobby Holik. That mid-2018 season trade where Grabner was exchanged for prospects and a second-round pick was the first between the two rivals.
Philadelphia Flyers
Chico Resch is a franchise treasure. It’s hard to imagine any player outside of the retired number players being as universally loved by the fanbase. Halfway through the 1985-1986 season in those dark, early, and losing days in East Rutherford saw Resch get traded to the Flyers. He played a few games there the following season as well before retiring.
Pittsburgh Penguins
When former general manager Ray Shero was running the show in New Jersey a few notable ex-Penguins joined the club. Remember the likes of Beau Bennett and Jean-Sebastian Dea? We wanted to challenge ourselves so we went a little further back to Tom Kostopolous.
He spent three years before the 2005 lockout in Pittsburgh before Sidney Crosby turned the franchise around. He finished his career with a short stint in New Jersey during the lockout shortened 2012-13 season.
Washington Capitals
Scott Stevens was way too obvious. Instead, Devante Smith-Pelley is the choice because he got lost in playing for a very unsuccessful time in New Jersey Devils history. After he was bought out by the team he won the 2018 Stanley Cup with the Washington Capitals and is currently an analyst for NHL network.