Schwei's Devils Notebook: Little-Known Facts, Odd Stats And Strange Records

By John Schweibacher
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After a respectable 6-3-2 start to the season, the New Jersey Devils went just 6-14-5 over their next 25 games. That resulted in Lou Lamoriello making the club's 13th coaching change in the past 15 years.

Pete DeBoer was relieved of his coaching duties last Friday. DeBoer coached 248 regular-season games for New Jersey, the third-most in club history. His 114 wins rank second only to Jacques Lemaire for the most ever by a Devils head coach.

However, Deboer's points percentage (.542) is merely the ninth best all-time among New Jersey coaches, and sixth if you limit the list to those who were behind the Devils' bench for at least one full NHL season:

• Kevin Constantine: 20-8-3 (.694)

• Lou Lamoriello: 34-15-5 (.676)

• Claude Julien: 47-24-8 (.646)

• Robbie Ftorek: 88-44-24 (.641)

• Pat Burns: 89-45-30 (.634)

• Brent Sutter: 97-56-11 (.625)

• Jacques Lemaire: 276-166-67 (.608)

• Larry Robinson: 87-56-30 (.590)

• Pete DeBoer: 114-93-31 (.542)

• Herb Brooks: 40-37-7 (.518)

New Jersey's in-season coaching change was the 9th since Lamoriello became the Devils' president and general manager back in 1987. The new head coaches, including Lamoriello himself on two prior occasions, have a combined record of 6-3-0 in their debuts:

• 12/27/14: Lou Lamoriello, Lost 3-1 at NY Rangers

• 12/23/10: Jacques Lemaire, Lost 5-1 vs. NY Islanders

• 4/3/07: Lou Lamoriello, Won 2-2 (SO) vs. Ottawa

• 12/20/05: Lou Lamoriello, Won 3-1 at NY Rangers

• 1/29/02: Kevin Constantine, Won 3-1 at NY Islanders

• 3/24/00: Larry Robinson, Won 8-2 at NY Islanders

• 3/5/91: Tom McVie, Lost 4-3 at NY Islanders

• 11/8/89: John Cuniff, Won 6-3 vs. Quebec

• 1/28/88: Jim Schoenfeld, Won 6-3 vs. Pittsburgh

According to the NHL Network, the Devils have now made 13 coaching changes since 2000, the most in the NHL over that span.

• New Jersey: 13

• NY Islanders: 9

• Florida: 9

• Ottawa: 9

The Devils close out the 2014 portion of the 2014-15 schedule this week, hosting the Penguins on Monday night and facing the Red Wings on New Year's Eve in Detroit. With those two games remaining, New Jersey has gone 30-31-17 during the calendar year of 2014.

Here are the worst and best records in the NHL during the calendar year, through Sunday's games:

Worst NHL Records

• Buffalo: 24-45-9, 57 points

• Edmonton: 23-42-11, 57 points

• Carolina: 31-40-6, 68 points

• Florida: 30-34-10, 70 points

• Arizona: 30-38-10, 70 points

• Vancouver: 33-35-7, 73 points

• New Jersey: 30-31-17, 77 points

Best NHL Records 

• Anaheim: 49-21-9, 107 points

• Boston: 46-22-10, 102 points

• Pittsburgh: 44-20-11, 99 points

• Tampa Bay: 45-26-9, 99 points

• San Jose: 45-25-8, 98 points

• St. Louis: 46-7-5, 97 points

Derek Stepan had the hat trick as the New York Rangers beat the Devils, 3-1, Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. Stepan is the sixth Rangers player to score three goals or more in a regular-season game against the Devils:

• 12/27/14: NJD 1 at NYR 3 Derek Stepan (3) Cory Schneider

• 1/6/01: NJD 5 at NYR 5 Jan Hlavac (3) Martin Brodeur

• 3/22/92: NJD 3 at NYR 6 Mark Messier (4) Chad Erickson

• 12/26/86: NYR 7 at NJD 4 Kelly Kisio (3) Kirk McLean

• 10/25/84: NYR 11 at NJD 2 Anders Hedberg (3) Hannu Kamppuri

• 3/22/84: NYR 5 at NJD 3 Pierre Larouche (3) Chico Resch

The Devils' final game under DeBoer was a 2-1 shootout loss to the Carolina Hurricanes last Tuesday night at Prudential Center. New Jersey went 16-30 overall in shootouts under DeBoer, winning 12 of its first 16 before dropping 26 of the last 30 during his tenure.

The shootout was just the second-ever between the Devils and Hurricanes. New Jersey won the previous one back on November 7, 2006, when John Madden's goal in the sixth round gave the Devils a 3-2 victory over the defending Stanley Cup champions at the Meadowlands.

Schwei's Plus/Minus:

Plus: Scott Gomez -- Played in his 1,000th NHL game Saturday night against the Rangers. Gomez became the 12th player to play in his 1,000th career game while with the Devils, joining Neal Broten (1995), Dave Andreychuk (1996), Bob Carpenter (1996), Scott Stevens (1996), Ken Daneyko (1999), Claude Lemieux (2000), Martin Brodeur (2009), Brian Rolston (2009), Dainius Zubrus (2011), Patrik Elias (2012) and Petr Sykora (2012).

Minus: Michael Ryder -- Goal-scoring drought reached 21 games in loss to Carolina. Ryder has scored only six goals in his last 70 games after scoring 16 times in his first 46 games for New Jersey. And if things were not bad enough, he joined the list of players diagnosed with the mumps.

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