Quote:
Originally Posted by icarus
So NJ traded the 9th overall pick in the draft they hosted for Cory Schneider (which VAN then used to draft Bo Horvat)? Seems like a big FU to any Devils fans in attendance.
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The Devils were 1 year removed from losing the SCF in 6 games to the Kings (two of the losses were in OT). Then they were mediocre in the lockout year. Brodeur was 41. Elias was getting old too, but the rest of the core was in their prime, including Kovlachuk (though he 'retired' from the NHL like two weeks after the draft...apparently Lou knew he was considering it, but who knows if it would have changed his approach)
It made sense to keep pushing. Devils fans probably wanted to compete rather than rebuild.
The other thing is that the Devils had a draft pick penalty hanging over their heads...they had to surrender a 1st in either 2011 or 2012 or 2013 or 2014. Strangely, they didn't surrender it in 2012 when they were picking 29th overall (pick ended up a bust anyways), so they may have thought they weren't going to have a 1st in 2014, so they should try hard to be good regardless. The penalty ended up revised to the Devils dropping to the end of the 1st round in 2014 (instead of ~11th where they belonged). Which is interesting in itself...I wonder if Lou's plan was just to delay the penalty as long as possible and then just convince Bettman to drop it.