We know there are so many stories that will never be told about the early years of the New Jersey Devils. It's just how teams operated back then. We never heard about the in-fighting or the problems with management. Well, not never. We did hear about drama involving Scott Stevens when he joined the Devils (a move he wasn't a fan of at first), drama with Claude Lemieux's contract after the Devils won the 1995 Stanley Cup, issues with John MacLean, disputes between Lou Lamoriello and former Team USA coach Herb Brooks that led to his resignation, and more.
Honestly, '90s hockey was just dramatic, but that tells us there are hundreds of stories we've never heard about. There was so much going on in the 1990s that it opened the door for just a wild decade in sports.
Luckily for Devils fans, the team won its first Stanley Cup in that decade, and they went on to win two more early in the 21st century. However, before winning those Cups, it turns out there was some in-fighting between Devils teammates. We learned this from current NHL.com reporter and former Devils beat reporter Tom Gulitti.
Whenever I see stories about teammates not getting along, I think of Scott Stevens and Claude Lemieux.
— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) January 10, 2025
Shawn Chambers told the story at 1995 Cup team reunion about walking into locker room after being acquired by the Devils and seeing Stevens and Lemieux physically fighting.
Scott Stevens and Claude Lemieux were caught fighting in the season where the Devils won its first Stanley Cup.
That's wild that a new player walked into his new locker room, and two of the best players on the team are in a physical altercation. The Devils sent Ben Hankinson and Alexander Semak to the Dallas Stars for Shawn Chambers and Danton Cole in March of 1995. This is in the middle of the regular season, a regular season that was truncated due to a lockout.
If we can put the pieces together, Tom is likely referencing the issues that most of the hockey world is talking about. There is beef, or whatever you want to call it, between Vancouver Canucks forwards Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller.
Clearly, something worked out with the Devils. The team won it all that season, with Lemieux winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP. Stevens was incredible that season and in the playoffs. Of course, that offseason, the Devils traded Lemieux to the Colorado Avalanche, where he immediately won his third Stanley Cup. The Devils once again acquired Lemieux later in the decade, and he helped the Devils win the 2000 Stanley Cup, where Stevens won the Conn Smythe.
It's fun to hear stories of yore, and we'll need to scrape more out of Gulitti in the future. Maybe he should be a guest on the Let's Go Devils Podcast in the future to tell those Devils stories.