Welcome to the House of Pain, where a once-proud National Hockey League franchise endures trial after tribulation on its way to…wherever.
We're talking about the New Jersey Devils here, a team that couldn’t make its loan payments before selling the franchise to new ownership. The same team that eschewed The Meadowlands and the Metro New York market for…wait for it…Newark. It may be a nice facility, but it is in Newark. Sorry, Mayor (Senator?) Booker, it’s Newark. It just is.
On the ice, it could be argued that general-manager-for-life Lou Lamiorello has lost his touch. Perhaps that ridiculous 17-year contract that he gave to Ilya Kovalchuk was the old owner’s idea, perhaps not. What’s important is that it got the team in hot water with the league, who voided it and made them rewrite the deal in a manner that more resembled reality. And cost them a first-round draft choice as a penalty. And put the team into a fiscal bind that made it attractive for Zach Parise to consider other options (he went to Minnesota)…and attractive for David Clarkson to play the market (he went to Toronto).
