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Devils coach Jacques Lemaire retires from coaching

Image (1) Lemaire-thumb-150x225-10244.jpg for post 1241

The New Jersey Devils have announced that Jacques Lemaire will retire from coaching. This was the second time around for Lemaire as the Devils coach, after first coaching the team from 1993 to 1998 and won the Stanley Cup with the team in 1995.

Lemaire then spent eight seasons with the Minnesota Wild, and while the team was mostly successful the Wild made it out of the first just once.

This announcement immediately turns one’s mind to last week’s press conference by GM Lou Lamoriello, when he said this:

So there is no question Jacques will be back next year?

“There is no question that he will be back, unless you know something I don’t know. There’s no question in my mind.”

His statement “unless you know something I don’t know” is certainly a bit eyebrow raising now, as it’s not something you hear often. It was an emphatic statement that Lemaire “would be back"; turns out Lamoriello wasn’t exactly off-base here. Lemaire will stay with the organization in some form, in a front office position. So..he’ll “be back”, just not as a coach.

There was some thought this past season, and especially after the first round loss by the Devils, that Lemaire’s defensive-minded, neutral zone trap style system was outdated in this post-lockout NHL. With Ken Hitchcock and now Lemaire retiring and/or fired, we’re slowly starting to see the ‘old school’ coaches get passed by.

We’ll have more on this later today.