The old genius had finally gotten one move ahead of himself. That seemed clear. There were eight games left in the hockey season. The Devils, veteran team, were already inside the bracket, comfortably, on the way to 102 points. They’d been mailing it in lately, more a reflection of the time in the schedule than any lack of talent.
But the old genius couldn’t take any more.
So Lou Lamoriello fired Robbie Ftorek with eight games left in the 1999-2000 season. The Devils — then as now — weren’t exactly a primary subject of talk radio. There weren’t dozens of specialized podcasts deigned for Devils fans that would instantly cause brush fires of outrage, but there were still simple chat rooms and such, and many of them were on fire.
Lamoriello was “traveling” that day, but I gave the Long Island Marriott next to Nassau Coliseum a call, figuring that’s where he was traveling to, since that’s where Lamoriello’s choice to succeed Ftorek, Larry Robinson, would be making his debut (I was writing sports columns for the late, great Newark Star-Ledger at the time). He picked up on the first ring.
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