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Anxious to find out who will coach the Devils? You won’t find out this week

New Jersey Devils Introduce John MacLean As Head Coach

during the press conference naming John MacLean as the new head coach of the New Jersey Devils at the Prudential Center on June 17, 2010 in Newark, New Jersey.

Andy Marlin

Aside from Lindy Ruff in Buffalo or Barry Trotz in Nashville, there aren’t many coaches who can say they’ve enjoyed genuine long-term job security in the NHL. Even keeping that general atmosphere of instability in mind, New Jersey Devils GM Lou Lamoriello has developed a reputation for being an especially reactionary executive when it comes to firing coaches.

(It’s not bad luck alone that explains why he will hire his seventh coach in seven seasons, after all.)

Perhaps that checkered past explains why Lamoriello is taking his sweet time to name a new bench boss this time around, then. The Devils are the only team in the league that is without a head coach, leading to plenty of speculation (some if it even reasonable) during the last few months.

Some thought that Kirk Muller or Guy Carbonneau might inject some new life into the Devils scheme. Others wondered if the team might go with a safer “retread” such as former Pittsburgh Penguins coach Michel Therrien or former Devils foe Ken Hitchcock. All kinds of interesting names have been bandied about, but nothing has come to fruition so far.

Lamoriello told assembled media members that the rumor mill will be able to keep generating hot air for at least the rest of this week, too.

“We will have a coach in the very near future, but not this week,” Lamoriello said.

Lamoriello was also asked if any of the coaches running the team’s camp, including Larry Robinson, Scott Stevens, Adam Oates, Chris Terreri, Jacques Caron, former Trenton (ECHL) coach Kevin Dean or Albany coach Rick Kowalski, would be in line for the position.

“I’m not going to get into discussions with reference to the coaching staff or anything of that nature,” he said. “There’s (no coach) that has been named, so you can interpret it any way you want.”

As usual, Lamoriello is doing things his own way. The most torturous part for impatient types is that he didn’t even commit to making a decision next week, either. That being said, he might want to make that choice soon with Zach Parise’s potential arbitration hearing on the horizon. We’ll keep you informed whether he makes that choice this week, next week or in a month or three.