A New Regime Begins For the Devils
The Devils made quite a number of changes over the summer. From Lou Lamoriello stepping down as President and General Manager of the New Jersey Devils and giving the role to Ray Shero to completely revamping the roster and signing a new coach, the Devils of old are now a story of the past. A new dynasty has begun.
On the eve of training camp, the Devils announced late in the day that they had signed former Carolina Hurricane Jiri Tlusty to a one-year, one-way contract for $800,000. They had also invited Lee Stempniak and Tyler Kennedy to a professional tryout (“PTO”) at training camp.
Tlusty was rumored to be pursued by five different NHL clubs, but they were only willing to give him a PTO. He was holding out for an actual contract and the Devils offered him one. Rumor was if he didn’t receive a contract, he’d head overseas.
There are a lot of new, young faces with the club. The average age for the current roster is 25 years old. Last season, the average age was 29.237 with Jaromir Jagr, the oldest player in the NHL, tipping the scales in his age bracket. Now, Patrik Elias is the oldest Devil on the roster at 39 years old.
“It’s a refresh button,” Adam Henrique said of the new younger core of players. “With a lot of young guys, there are spots open on the roster that a young guy can come in and earn. I think that’s going to benefit us this year, next year and for years to come. It’s good. We’re going to want to play that fast paced game.”
There have also been several policy changes with the club that are unlike the policies Lamoriello had in place. For instance, the Devils players are now allowed to use social media. In the past, there were a few who had Twitter and Instagram accounts, but those accounts were strictly monitored, and oftentimes no tweets were sent during the season. The Devils main Twitter account also did not tweet out the account names. This season, with new management, that has all changed.
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