14 replies to this topic

[sheeps]

What do I mean by "worse"? Several things... primarily, did Stevenson betray the team as much as Holik did? And several ancillary things, like which loss hurts the team more?

[sheeps]

Hell, now that I think of it I could have added even more... MacLean signing with the Rangers, etc.

[MantaRay]

or Driver.

This one is a no-brainer. Holik WAS part of something special and the Devils structure made his career.

[CRASHER]

Stevenson cause I expected some kinda arrogant prick kinda thing like that from Holik

[Don]

MacLean would have stayed with the Devils if Lou didn't jerk him around. Early in that fateful season John requested to the coach that he get more time on the powerplay. He didn't get it. His role was diminished to checking forward killing penalties. John felt that he was a goal scorer and could help the teams offense, but the coaching staff didn't see it that way. So John went to Lou and said he was unhappy with the way the team was treating him. Lou said that he would talk it over with the coaching staff and if their opinion was that he couldn't help the PP, they would find a way to trade him to a team that would use him in more of an offensive role.

Months passed. John goes to see Lou again to see if there is any progress. Lou says "just hold in there John, we're trying to get something done". Another month passes. Nothing. John tried to deal with it quietly. He tried to keep it hush hush. For 5 months he waited for Lou and/or the coaching staff to rectify the situation. So in the end he did what he had to do.

If he couldn't score goals, perhaps the Devils would have a beef. But I knew he could get goals. I knew the spark of the old John MacLean was still in there. So in his first year with the Rangers I bet CRASHER $10 US (which I have now relinquishd to Triumph) that John would get at least 20 goals that year. And he proved me right.

BTW - Lou's banishment methods might be used in the Niedermayer case if they can't come to an equitable solution. He always trades the players that piss him off to non-contenders.

[NJayDevil]

Any truth to that story?

[SueNJ97]

Any truth to that story?

I think Don's timing is a little off since Johnny Mac was traded before Christmas of that season. Since the season started in October, if it all happened in that single season, it didn't happen in the timetable he's laying out.

I do know that Lemaire did not believe that MacLean was an offensive force anymore. He said as much after MacLean was traded. It may have been that Lou wasn't direct with MacLean about the fact that Lemaire wasn't going to use him and took his sweet time about trading him. But he was traded before Christmas, so it didn't take as long as Don was saying.

[El Diablo]

He always trades the players that piss him off to non-contenders.

Sykora to Ducks ?

[Don]

Sue is right.. my timing of the story was off, the rest I believe to be true. My mailing list archive doesn't go back to December of 97, but it does go back as far as the summer of 98, so I do have these:

" From:  Don Whiting <dwhiting@c...>
Date:  Sat Jul 11, 1998  9:34 am
Subject:  Re: Rangers Sign Mr. Devil

This is my basic contention: Rather than talk to him and see if they could
compromise on what John foresaw as his career aspirations and the roles the
Devils needed filled and come to some sort of compromise, they told John
what his assignment was, and if he didn't like it, "Tough!".

John went public only because Lou did sit around for months making him wait
for a trade. MacLean asked for a trade, and was promised a trade LONG before
he publicly asked to be traded. Since Lou was dilly-dallying, John had no
choice but to go public or the trade may never have been done and John would
have spent a year in a role that he just didn't want to play - or at least a
role he didn't want to ONLY play (ie I don't think he minded playing the
penalty-kill, just that he minded that was the only specialty team he was on).

By the fact that the Devils cared not what direction John wanted to take his
career I claim the Devils turned their backs on him rather than the other
way around."

and:
"From:  Don Whiting <dwhiting@c...>
Date:  Sun Jul 12, 1998  10:27 am
Subject:  RE: Rangers Sign Mr. Devil
At 09:00 PM 7/11/98 -0400, you wrote:

>You have to carry the analogy a litte farther for it to be accurate. Say
>you are a computer programmer that knows BASIC & Pascal and are told that,
>sorry, you won't really be effective for us anymore programming with those
>languages. We can really use some more typists, though, and you've learned
>to be very good at that recently. You're going to have to swallow your
>pride and realize that you're a bigger asset to your company typing well
>than programming in a rediculously outdated language. This is a far more
>accurate representation of what happened to Johnny Mac. It's not entirely a
>question of loyalty, but the realization that every dog has his day, and
>yours has passed.

(1) This assumes that those skills are not desired elsewhere. There seemed
to be a number of other companies who desired those BASIC and Pascal skills.

(2) BASIC and Pascal are not ridiculously outdated - they've just become
Visual BASIC and Delphi. Extrapolating Johns data with the Sharks, had he
played the whole season there, where they played him on the offense lines,
he would have had 48 points - only Holik, Nieds and Gilmour would have had more.

I'm sorry, but if I got relegated to the typing pool and I knew there were
people out there that would love to have my programming skills, I would feel
insulted, degraded, and stabbed in the back by the company I gave my best
years to. I'd do everything in my power to get out of my contract.

I am holding a $20 bill in my hand. I am willing to bet that John gets 25
goals this year which would have put him second on the Devils. That's $20
Canadian so you'd only have to put up $14 American. First person to
challenge gets the bet."

So my bet with CRASHER was for $14US, so apparently I'm still up $4 on NJDEVS.COM members. And the bet was for 25 goals, not 20. I forget the little details, but the gut of the story is there.

Edited by Don, 07 July 2004 - 08:51 PM.

[sammyk]

My mailing list archive doesn't go back to December of 98, but it does go back as far as the summer of 98, so I do have these:

How does ones archive go back to the SUMMER of '98 and not December of '98?

[sykkie15]

My mailing list archive doesn't go back to December of 98, but it does go back as far as the summer of 98, so I do have these:

How does ones archive go back to the SUMMER of '98 and not December of '98?

He probably meant 97...

[NJayDevil]

My mailing list archive doesn't go back to December of 98, but it does go back as far as the summer of 98, so I do have these:

How does ones archive go back to the SUMMER of '98 and not December of '98?

Hmm that's an interesting note.

[sammyk]

My mailing list archive doesn't go back to December of 98, but it does go back as far as the summer of 98, so I do have these:

How does ones archive go back to the SUMMER of '98 and not December of '98?

He probably meant 97...

Probably, but it shows he edited, just not that!

[CRASHER]

that email list also had a habit of sending out flame wars that would lead to 110 emails in the course of 5 minutes ... so maybe some of it got lost in the spatting.. i sure miss that place

and it's ok.. I made $30 afterwards when Mike tried to bet me Holik would score 30 goals as a Ranger

[Don]

[quote name='sammyk' date='Jul 7 2004, 07:35 PM']
He probably meant 97... [/QUOTE]
Probably, but it shows he edited, just not that! [/quote]
Fixed. Picky, picky.

BTW - I know if you can get here without being a member:
http://groups.yahoo....up/devils-list/

CRASHER: Yeah, flame wars were fun. I'd come home from work and there would be 100 e-mails. Two hundred on trade deadline day.

-------------

Back to the topic at hand, I think that I was actually HAPPY to see Holik go. First, if he had accepted Lou's offer, it would have thrown our salary structure worse out of wack than it already is. Second, he was getting to be a big pain. It was like, Holik is gone? Good. Next.

Turner on the other hand, I can't see him going another 3 years. And how often will he be in the lineup of those 3 years? Loved him. One of the few to actually show up against Colorado. Played his heart out that series and most of the games he played - but even so, I wouldn't risk a 3 year contract.

Mogilny did sh!t for us in the playoffs. I didn't mind seeing him go. He was absolutly awesome during the meaningless regular season, but when we really needed him - he went into hibernation. Good ridance.

So I think the ones that bothered me of players that just up and left, I'd say Driver (we offered the same money, but without the no trade clause - I think that, like Dano, Lou wouldn't have traded Bruce - he just didn't like no trade clauses). I definitely missed having Bruce on the team. And John. I don't think that mess should have happened. More recently, I think we should have done more to keep Joe Nieuwendyk. I know he wanted to play in Toronto, but they left any and all negotiations until VERY late in the summer. We had a chance to bargain.