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So who should coach the Devils?

Earlier today, Brandon posted about how there’s some seemingly logical scuttlebutt about how Ken Hitchcock makes sense as the successor to Jacques Lemaire in New Jersey as head coach. The comparisons are easy to make as Hitchcock’s defense-oriented system mimics that of what we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in New Jersey the last 15 years or so.

Larry Brooks, while not antagonizing John Tortorella, took some time out to make the case for former Devils player John MacLean.

Lamoriello should reach into another winning organization for the Devils’ next head coach.

And that would be his own.

For the timing is right and the time is now to promote John MacLean, who guided the AHL Lowell Devils to the playoffs in his first year running the show behind the bench after seven seasons as an assistant in New Jersey.

In strangely impassioned words, Brooks makes a nice speech for MacLean lauding him as one of the greatest forwards in Devils history (along with Patrik Elias). Luckily for Lamoriello, there’s already precedent for success in making a move that’s bold like this. If you take a look at what Joe Sacco did in Denver after being a coach in the AHL for only a short tenure and leading an Avalanche team that everyone expected to be awful into the playoffs this year.

Rich Chere of the Star-Ledger compiled a short list of coaches to look at who also might be a good fit with the Devils outside of MacLean. Aside from Hitchcock and MacLean, Chere mentions Scott Stevens as a possibility and he could be the scariest head coach in the league. After all, would you cross Scott Stevens when he gives out an order? No way. I’d also be terrified to be on the ice with him at practice.

The other names are yawn-inducing and beyond questionable: Former Habs head coach Mario Tremblay and former Devils head coaches Larry Robinson and Robbie Ftorek. If other re-tread coaches are your thing, the name Michel Therrien has been halfheartedly thrown around as a dark horse possibility and given what Dan Bylsma has done in Pittsburgh, you could say that Therrien was more of a road block to success than a builder of it.

Of course, given the amount of burgeoning offensive talent on the Devils, one has to wonder if looking for a coach to plug in and continue playing the same system is the right move. After all, it wasn’t defense and goaltending that lead to the downfall of the Devils this year.