Devils rookie minicamp

Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello made yet another coaching change Friday. (John O'Boyle/The Star-Ledger)

Lou Lamoriello should not be fired as Devils general manager because of his age, as some have suggested. But he should be shown the door by ownership along with coach Pete DeBoer.

Lamoriello is 72, which may or may not have any relevance to the fact that he has assembled a mediocre hockey team that has a very good chance of becoming truly bad over the next few seasons.

DeBoer may not have done a brilliant job coaching this team the last 2 1/2 seasons, but he is not solely to blame for the fact that the Devils likely will miss the playoffs for a third straight season and for the fourth time in five years.

The blame should be directed at Lamoriello, who has made a series of bad decisions signing free agents, at the draft table and handling the organization’s few top prospects. He has also held back a progressive new ownership group that looks to create more revenue and bring the Devils into the 21st century when it comes to promoting and marketing the team.

Here are just a few of the questionable decisions Lamoriello has made in recent years:

By failing to sign Zach Parise before he reached free agency and was still open to staying in New Jersey, Lamoriello let a franchise player walk away for nothing.

When he refused to give David Clarkson more than the right winger was probably worth, a decision most people could accept, the GM turned around and gave Ryane Clowe a 5-year, $24.5 million contract despite his history of concussions.

Since the Devils last won the Stanley Cup in 2003, Lamoriello has allowed Parise, Clarkson, Scott Niedermayer, Brian Rafalski, Brian Gionta, Scott Gomez, Paul Martin and Alexander Mogilny to leave as free agents. And he was unable to prevent Ilya Kovalchuk from packing up and going home to play in Russia’s KHL.

Maybe he couldn’t have changed Kovalchuk’s mind. And perhaps former owner Jeff Vanderbeek didn’t have the money to give Lamoriello financial clout in recent years. But the overall pattern has been alarming.

Where has he spent his money? On Clowe, Michael Ryder (2 years, $7 million), Anton Volchenkov (6 years, $25.5 million), Henrik Tallinder (4 years, $13.5 million). Along the way, the Devils have gotten into periodic salary cap trouble, contributing to roster issues and the downfall of at least one coach.

Was giving Travis Zajac an 8-year, $46 million contract prudent? Will signing Cory Schneider to a 7-year, $42 million deal turn out to be a good move?

Some of Lamoriello’s coaching decisions have been as bad as his free agent signings.

Kevin Constantine? Okay, we’ll let that one slide even though Constantine got all of 31 games behind the bench and went 20-9-2.

Lamoriello hired and fired Claude Julien, who got one season. All Julien has done since being fired is become the winningest coach in Boston Bruins history (328) while winning a Stanley Cup and the Jack Adams Award as NHL coach of the year. He also took the Bruins to the Final in 2013.

Brent Sutter looked like a strong choice and perhaps even the next GM at some point but, like so many players, Sutter couldn’t deal with working for Lamoriello and bolted.

Critics have ripped DeBoer for some of his faults, like the way he handled Eric Gelinas and Adam Larsson and his affinity for sticking with veterans such as Steve Bernier. But every coach, including Jacques Lemaire, relies on those players he thinks can get the job done and is overly hard on others. Lemaire had better players (Scott Stevens, Niedermayer and Martin Brodeur in his prime).

Perhaps it was time for a coaching change, despite the fact that Lamoriello has assembled the oldest team in the NHL (an average age of over 30) with too many injury-prone players. But exactly what transpired between Tuesday and Friday that prompted Lamoriello to fire DeBoer on the final day of the NHL Christmas break?

Why didn’t Lamoriello wait until Saturday, when the players were back to hear it from him instead of reading about it? Because, as one member of the organization who did not want to be identified suggested, Lamoriello has never been comfortable with the down time of holidays.

As Lamoriello himself once said: “There are no holidays in sports.”

As for the current team, there are a few good projects, but we will be looking all too soon at a team without Jaromir Jagr, Patrik Elias, Marek Zidlicky and quite a few others. Are Adam Henrique, Mike Cammalleri, Andy Greene, Zajac, Schneider and the young D-men a deep enough foundation?

To be fair, it was Lamoriello who acquired the key pieces to the Devils’ three Stanley Cups. He drafted Brodeur, traded Tom Kurvers to get the pick used for Niedermayer, and demanded Stevens as compensation from the St. Louis Blues for signing Brendan Shanahan in 1991, although some have claimed Max McNab did much of the preparation and work in the Stevens case.

Lamoriello has won three Stanley Cups and taken the Devils to the Final two other times. He’s a Hall of Famer, and deservedly so.

But his track record hasn’t been very good in recent years. His assessment of talent and salary cap dealings haven’t kept pace with other organizations. The trades that used to bring the missing piece to a championship team no longer happen, maybe because the Devils don’t have enough top players so that role players make such a big difference.

The Devils haven’t been good enough at the draft table, either, and those decisions are ultimately Lamoriello’s responsibility. But that could be viewed much differently if Parise (1st pick in 2003) was still here and Steven Santini, Damon Severson, Jon Merrill, Eric Gelinas and Adam Larsson pan out.

Lamoriello's decision to fire DeBoer now, and not at the end of this season, was done with the hope of saving his own job. But it's time for him to go.

Owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer should acknowledge Lamoriello as one of the greatest GMs in NHL history and one of the worst in recent years. They should thank him and then show him the door.

Lamoriello 11 Gallery: Lamoriello

Rich Chere may be reached at rchere@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Ledger_NJDevils. Find NJ.com on Facebook.