Devils Fire John MacLean

[RGM81]

The New Jersey Devils have fired head coach John MacLean and replaced him on an interim basis with Jacques Lemaire, who will be behind the bench for tonight's game against the New York Islanders.
This will be the third time Lemaire has been head coach of the team. He retired last April after the Devils were eliminated in first round of the playoffs and had since been working with the club as a special assignment coach.
The Devils have struggled this season and are currently an NHL-worst 9-22-2. In their last ten games, they are 2-8. They have also been outscored 15-3 in their last three games alone, all of which have been losses.
The 65-year-old Lemaire coached 16 seasons in the NHL with the Montreal Canadiens, the Devils and the Minnesota Wild, posting a 588-441 record. His teams also played to 124 ties and lost 60 games in overtime or shootouts.
Lemaire won the Jack Adams Award as the league's top coach in 1994 and 2003, and he was an assistant on Canada's gold medal-winning team at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
Lemaire, who is in the Hockey Hall of Fame as a player, coached the Devils to the Stanley Cup in 1995.
MacLean had come under fire from some hockey pundits earlier in the season when star player Ilya Kovalchuk was made a healthy scratch for a game against the Buffalo Sabres. The reason for Kovalchuk's benching was never disclosed by the team, but the removal of a player with a 15-year, $100 million contract put the team under scrutiny from its fans and hockey observers.

MacLean played for New Jersey from 1983-1997 and is still among the franchise leaders in most offensive categories. He scored 40 or more goals three times for the team, and was part of the club's first Stanley Cup title in 1994-95.

Can't fire the players. I'm sure there's one in particular he wouldn't have minded firing.

[mikecole141]

Ooooh! I can't wait for the Devils to get back to playing Jacques Lemaire style hockey again.

Boring Unimagined Defensive Hockey. Of course we all know this is a style that Kovie is just going to excel at.

A rookie coach had no chance with this team, after spending all those years in one style of hockey, mandated to try and bring them out of a defensive style into a more offensive style with a depleted roster. I give him credit for having a set big enough to bench Kovalchuk. Maybe the Islanders should give him a try, they need a coach with a set.

[CSSports]

It was only a matter of time....with a start like they had, what else can they do but fire the coach - easiest thing they could do....but I dont think it will help much...as they own the bottom 3 in the +/- catagory in the entire NHL...and Zubrus is also in that area....

757 Henrik Tallinder NJD D 34 1 3 4 -21 2 1 1 2 2 0 4 .12
758 Andy Greene NJD D 34 2 8 10 -23 6 0 4 8 2 0 10 .29
759 Ilya Kovalchuk NJD L 33 8 10 18 -25 9 0 9 9 9 2 16 .55