Chris Lamoriello Leaves Devils Organization

In another sign of the times for the Devils, Chris Lamoriello, son of former team General Manager and himself the senior vice president of hockey operations, scout and GM of the Albany Devils, has left the team.

According to Tom Gulitti at his Fire and Ice blog, Lamoriello does not have plans to join the Toronto Maple Leafs with his dad, or any other team at the moment.

Current Devils GM Ray Shero told Gulitti that he “brought in Tom (Fitzgerald) as assistant general manager (on July 24), so some of the duties for Chris would be changing.” After giving the situation “a lot of consideration” he decided to “step back and go from there.”

Gulitti said that Lamoriello has been “a member of the Devils’ scouting staff for 19 seasons and was the GM of their AHL team for 14 seasons.” He also mentioned that when Fitzgerald was brought in, one of his roles would be to oversee the Albany Devils, essentially making one of Lamoriello’s responsibilities obsolete.

Gulitti also stated that it is unknown what Chris Lamoriello’s revamped role would have entailed.

Lamoriello “respectfully declined comment” to Gulitti, but did tell him that “he has no future employment plans with any team at this time.”

The Devils have yet to make an announcement on their official website, but the Albany Devils did post a small press release by writer Kevin Zalaznik stating that he was no longer with the organization.

This was probably to be expected. With Ray Shero bringing in his own people to operate the team, a lot of front office guys from the old regime were bound to be leaving. Chris Lamoriello is just the most recent in a string of departures from the old Devils regime.

Even though change is hard to swallow for a lot of fans, we are just going to have to see how everything shakes down over the next few seasons. With Shero having all of his own hires in the office, it is really sink or swim for them with very little bit of leeway. Should the Devils continue to struggle down the line, it will be completely on him and no one else. There is no doubt that this is fully Ray Shero’s team now.