Do you remember your really annoying college roommate who was a psychology major and wouldn’t shut up about it? This is most likely not your experience—unless you’re Abed or Annie. Point is, your fictional roommate probably had some interesting things to say and you shouldn’t have just dismissed them so callously. Sure, they weren’t an expert and probably were over-privileged, but then again I would hazard that most of here are in the same boat. Well, one night when you were consuming large quantities of grain alcohol and listening to MGMT’s “Kids” for the tenth time in a row, you missed out on some interesting stuff. Stuff I will attempt to connect—and likely fail to do so in any compelling way—to Lou Lamoriello’s departure as the General Manager of the New Jersey Devils.

The concept of man’s hierarchy of needs comes from Abraham Maslow’s 1943 paper titled “A Theory of Human Motivation” which was published in the Psychological Review. Bear with me while I summarize the contents of that paper. It won’t take long. The needs that Maslow identifies start (from the bottom—no really, the hierarchy is shaped like a pyramid) with basic physiological needs necessary for survival. If these needs are not met, the body literally cannot survive. Continuing up the pyramidal structure, the next most essential need is that of safety. Followed by love and survival. Then to Esteem. And finally to Self-Actualization. It’s all very fascinating and worth digging into if you’re at all intellectually curious about this stuff. A common misconception about the hierarchy is that it is rigid. This is not the case as there are seven exceptions to the hierarchy:

For some, self-esteem triumphs love. (Those likely to be loved are strong/have good self-esteem.) For some, creativeness is most important. Levels of aspiration tend to lower based on past performance. (For the perpetually unemployed person, just getting enough food will suffice.) The “psychopathic personality” has been starved of love needs. If a need has been satisfied for a long time, it becomes under-evaluated. A person will “want” the more basic of two needs; however they may not act on this desire. (There are other determinants of behavior besides needs and desires.) People achieve “increased frustration-tolerance” through early gratification.

I want to focus on number 3 for a brief moment and posit that this is the sort-of thing that has been happening with the New York Rangers for quite some time. Just getting to the finals last year was a big enough accomplishment because they hadn’t been that far in so long. Cheap joke aside, that last exception listed is the one I will be focusing on. So keep that in mind, but let’s first set the table a bit.

The purpose of this post, as you—the learned reader—might have figured out by now is to both lament the loss of, and celebrate the career of Louis A. Lamoriello in the wake of the news that he is no longer the GM of my beloved Devils. That’s right: the New Jersey Devils have a new General Manager for the first time since 1987. For a team who just last year said good-bye to one of the all-time great “franchise” players—and the greatest goaltender to even lace up the skates, in yr humble blogger’s ultra-biased opinion—this is just another turning of the page. A reminder that the Scott Stevens powerhouses of yesteryear are in the past. To paraphrase the great Walter Sobchak: 30 years of beautiful tradition, from Daneyko to Scott Niedermayer, you’re nicolas cage damn right we’re living in the past. Lou Lamoriello, for anyone worth their salt in the hockey community, is one of the greatest executives the sport has ever seen. John K. Samson didn’t need any songs urging the electorate to put Lou’s picture up in the halls of Toronto. He was a shoe-in induction in 2009.

Lamoriello’s management style brought the Devils from being a “Micky Mouse” organization to being one of the most feared teams year-after-year. Running a hockey team is both very similar and very different from running a normal business. For one thing, hockey organizations exist to maximize profits. On the other hand, on-ice success in hockey is very different than any area of business. Wins and losses are tangible results—while businesses might rely on more obtuse measures of success. Businesses often times rely on external stakeholders in order to become successful. In running a hockey team perhaps the most important stakeholders are the fans. Even with a successful team, if the fans are not coming to games, the team is likely not making any money. Despite years of continued success, the Devils were never really able to capture a market dominated by two other franchises in close-proximity. With the Flyers running South Jersey and the evil Rangers occupying most of the northern section of the state. When you look at it this way, it’s a small miracle that the Devils are still around in Newark. That said, the team’s attendance struggles are oft-noted by more reputable sources who have a better grasp on the economics of the game. Rumors swirled of the team’s potential relocation before the Devil’s 2013 sale to the Josh Harris-lead group, who have made it clear their intent to stay in the Garden State.

Being sandwiched between two major markets tends to bring fans a sort-of inferiority complex—if I may psychoanalyze and pretend the region is a homogeneous entity. We’re used to being disrespected by fans of other (lesser) teams. It’s in our DNA as natives of the state of New Jersey to be criticized by those who don’t understand us. For a team that has won three Stanley Cups in the past 20 years, the Devil’s still get no respect. But Lou Lamoriello allowed us to laugh at those other (lesser) fan-bases who criticized our club. Now the job that he held for for nearly 30 years belongs to former GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Ray Shero. Hockey message boards by-and-large have adopted the narrative that Shero is a dud. While he might not have the best track record, what GM in this league does? Well, besides Lou himself, of course. He of the aforementioned three Stanley Cups, five Cup appearances, nine first-place division finishes, and twenty-two playoff appearances.

And but so this brings me back to Abraham Maslow and the hierarchy; or rather the exception to said hierarchy in which successful people achieve “increased frustration-tolerance” through early gratification. Maslow writes, “…people who have been made secure and strong in the earliest years, tend to remain secure and strong thereafter in the face of whatever threatens.” Lamoriello parlayed his early success with the Devils into an executive tenure unprecedented in modern professional sports. He did this by not being as knee-jerk and reactionary as his counterparts. The Devils, under Lou’s tutelage, have rarely changed course. Even as I write this, the team is loaded with young defensive talent and a franchise goalie. How exactly is that different from the make-up of the team nearly two decades ago?

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that Lamoriello is perfect. No one is perfect. He mortgaged the team’s future payroll for a robust contract to superstar with questionable knees. Or that’s one narrative you’ll hear. It’s often left out that during the Devil’s 2011-2012 Cup run (which followed the contract extension) Ilya Kovalchuk was probably the second best hockey player in the entire world. He actually still might be. So I’m willing to give Lou a pass for the contract. With the benefit of hindsight and Kovy’s departure, it’s easy to criticize him for not going after Zach Parise instead. But really, if you think the skill-sets of those two players are comparable then I have a beach house I can sell you in Idaho. The counterpoint here is that the Kovalchuk contract directly contradicts my thesis that Lamoriello consistently stayed the course. The move was unlike anything the franchise had done to that point. This is true to an extent, but simultaneously the Devils were targeting defensemen in the NHL Draft. Gelinas, Merrill, Larsson, and Severson were all drafted either pre- or during Kovy’s stint with the team. The man obviously had a plan. A plan in which Kovalchuk was a major part. And yet still Lamoriello refused to get reactionary even after the Russian superstar’s departure. That style defined Lou’s run and is at least partially responsible for his tremendous success.

This is not to say that the Devil’s are doomed now that they don’t have their cool and collected leader. With Lou still acting as Shero’s de facto boss and the team’s President, he will likely maintain a similar organizational culture. For example, I don’t expect the players using Twitter, or doing non-team-approved interviews. Lou runs a tight ship in New Jersey and I don’t expect things to change drastically in that regard; however, I’m afraid Lou’s sanguine and consistent management style will be replaced with erratic decision-making that is all too common among NHL executives. In that sense, this truly is the end of an era.