Jacques Lemaire gives a wry chuckle at the question. How do you respond to the people who say your 1995 Devils team and its neutral-zone trap ruined hockey?
"Those people don't know what they're talking about," Lemaire says, "and they never did know what they were talking about."
It's been two decades of this now for him.
Lemaire does know what he's talking about. This is a man who has more Stanley Cup rings than fingers. He won eight with the Canadiens during his Hall of Fame playing career, won two more with the Canadiens as a front office executive and won one as coach of the Devils in 1995. At 69, he's still in hockey, working as a consultant for the Devils.
But even with his legendary name attached to it, and even with 20 years passed since the Devils swept the Red Wings to win the Cup that year, the team still receives more than its share of disrespect, even disdain.
When Yahoo's Greg Wyshynski asked former ESPN columnist and 30 for 30 producer Bill Simmons about one of the documentaries he considered, then rejected—about the mid-'90s Devils and th ...
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Article written by Adrian Dater
The ’95 Devils, 20 Years Later: How a Team and Its Infamous Trap Changed the NHL
June 7th, 2015 by Adrian Dater Leave a reply »
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