On Monday, the New Jersey Devils announced their next Ring of Honor inductee will be former coach Jacques Lemaire. Regarding all the coaches in New Jersey Devils history, Lemaire is perhaps the best coach this franchise has ever had, winning 276 regular season games and leading the Devils to their first Stanley Cup in 1995.
Lemaire was known in the NHL for his coaching style, which involved the famous and controversial neutral zone trap. We must return to the 1992-93 season to understand Lemaire's legacy with the Devils.
The 1992-93 season saw the Devils with a 40-37-7 record under Herb Brooks. While the Devils did sneak into the playoffs, they would lose in the first round to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Lou Lamoriello saw that with the style of the Devils' defense, they were capable of much more, so he ended up breaking up with Brooks and hiring Lemaire, who helped transform Montreal into a contender.
In Lemaire’s first season in NJ, he improved the team incredibly with a 47-25-12 record with 106 points, finishing second in the Atlantic, just behind the New York Rangers, who would, of course, end up eliminating the Devils in the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals.
The following year was a shortened season, and thanks to Lemaire’s coaching style, which matched well with the best defense that year, the team headed into the 1995 playoffs with a chip on their shoulder. Lemaire’s coaching helped the Devils beat some of the top teams in the league, including the Bruins, Flyers, and Penguins and then swept the best team in the NHL in the Stanley Cup Final, the Detroit Red Wings.
The next three seasons were tough for Lemaire, as the 1995-96 season saw his team miss the playoffs entirely, while the next two seasons saw him lead his team with 104 and 107-point seasons and being one of the best teams in the NHL, only to end up losing to the Rangers in the second round of the 1997 playoffs, and the Ottawa Senators in the first round in the 1998 playoffs. Lamoriello was unhappy, so after the loss to the Senators, he fired Lemaire and hired Robbie Ftorek as his replacement.
However, this wasn’t the end of Lemaire’s time in New Jersey. After spending 8 seasons with the Minnesota Wild, Lemaire would return to NJ for the 2009-10 season. While he never used his trap system in his return, he still led the Devils to 1st place in the Atlantic Division, but once again, he would lose in the first round to the Philadelphia Flyers.
The New Jersey Devils had a great head coach in Jacques Lemaire.
Lemaire would end up retiring, but here is where it gets interesting. Lou hired John MacLean to be the coach for the 2010-11 season for the Devils; however, it would be the worst start in franchise history, going 9-22-2 in 33 games, and after losing 5-1 to the Washington Capitals, Lou would end up firing MacLean and re-hiring Lemaire once more. Once Lemaire returned, the team bounced back to go 29-17-3 the rest of the season but would still miss the playoffs with 81 points. Lemaire would end up retiring again after the season ended, and he finished his Devils career as a coach with 276-166-57, with one Stanley Cup, which will always be remembered by fans young and old. Lemaire rightfully deserves the Ring of Honor, and I'm sure he cannot wait until the night of the game to celebrate it.