The Lou Lamoriello era has ended in New Jersey - sort of.
Lamoriello, the New Jersey Devils longtime GM, announced Monday via a conference call that he was stepping down as the head of player-personnel and that former Pittsburgh Penguins GM Ray Shero would be taking over, according to Greg Wyshynksi of Yahoo! Sports.
Lamoriello, who said the decision was "100 percent" his, won't be leaving the organization - he'll become president of hockey operations and will continue to work directly with Shero, though the former Pens GM now has final say on any and all personnel matters.
"It was a big attraction for me to have Lou stay on," said Shero, who was fired by the Penguins last summer. "It's a great situation for me. I'm really looking forward to it."
The 72-year-old Lamoriello cited his age as part of the reason for his ceding personnel control to Shero, but said that ultimately the chance to add such a highly regarded guy as Shero to the Devils organization was the biggest factor in making the change.
"Get maybe someone who's had experiences in different organization, but a background in winning," said Lamoriello.
"I would assume we'll have some types of changes than I do. So be it. That's progression."
Increasingly last season it seemed that Lamoriello's defensive-first philosophy was out of touch with the rest of the league and the NHL's growth toward a more explosive, scoring-friendly style.
After Lamoriello fired Pete DeBoer mid-season - the 19th coaching change the Devils had seen under Lamoriello, the only GM they'd had since 1987 - speculation began to mount that Lamoriello could be next, as many of New Jersey's issues seemed to be personnel-based.
Poor free agent additions like Ryan Clowe, Michael Ryder and Anton Volchenkov and the inability to keep stars like Ilya Kovalchuk and Zach Parise handcuffed his coaches and seemed to point to issues further up the food chain - specifically issues with Lamoriello.
Whether this was really Lamoriello's idea - and whether it signals the addition of Martin Brodeur to the Devils front office sometime in the future - is interesting to consider, but ultimately pointless.
What is important is that with the addition of Shero the Devils have seemingly taken a major step toward rejuvenating their once-proud franchise.
