New Jersey Devils Next Coach: Lou Lamoriello Keeping Fans, Media Guessing

In what has the makings of a very interesting offseason, GM Lou Lamoriello continues to keep people guessing. 

With rumors swirling around that the coaching search is down to Mike Haviland and Michel Therrien courtesy of the Newark Star-Ledger, there are reports now out, courtesy of Tom Gulitti's Fire & Ice Blog , that as of Monday, the Devils had yet to contact Haviland.  This, after all the reports that had circulated previously about Therrien being imminent to be named Devils head coach.

In fact, if you read into the comments of the Fire & Ice Blog (specifically pg. 9), Gulitti goes into great detail about how it appears GM Lou Lamoriello likes to keep everyone guessing.

Back in 1993, Lamoriello shocked everyone at the press conference when he announced Jacques Lemaire as head coach.  No one had seen that one coming. According to Gulitti, he feels if he could, Lamoriello would prefer to surprise everybody when he has to announce a new coach.

In 2002, no one even knew that Kevin Constantine wasn't returning as head coach, let alone that Pat Burns was about to be named head coach.  Lamoriello came close to surprising everyone was when he named Claude Julien as coach in 2006, as there were no leaks and the media found out when they were handed the press release. 

When Brent Sutter was named head coach in 2008, that was also a bit of a surprise, but some of it became apparent when he resigned as head coach of his Red Deer junior team. 

In this day and age, you would think it would be hard to do, considering you now have the likes of Twitter, Facebook and all other Internet media outlets that allow essentially instantaneous information to be passed around quickly to a wide-scale audience. 

But it certainly doesn't or won't keep the old school Lamoriello from trying to be as secretive as possible and keep the fans and media guessing as to what their next move might be.

There are plenty of theories out there about what people think GM Lou Lamoriello should do.  For instance, former goalie Kevin Weeks is quoted as saying the Devils should hire an up-tempo coach .  Others think the Devils should hire an offensive coach, and some others think the Devils should stay with a defensive-first coach. 

All in all, it's fun to guess, but in the end, until the announcement is made, anything you hear reported is most likely just a guess.