Beware of Doug

Beware of Doug
By Dave Feete, Playoff Prophet

The trade the Devils made for Doug Gilmour is not just the trade of the year, it might also turn out to be the biggest trade in the mostly ho-hum history of the franchise. Okay, maybe Shanahan-for-Stevens comes close, but that wasn't nearly the one-sided grand theft they pulled off with this trade. They gave up a lot and got a lot in the Stevens deal. This deal puts them dead smack on top of the Cup race overnight.
"No, Dave, you're overstating the case," I can hear you all say. NO, I AM NOT. See, I happen to be a lot older than most of the rest of you (yeah, it has its drawbacks, but those senior citizen discounts at the movies are great!), so I have recollections of events that happened long, long ago, when most of you punks reading this were in diapers. Now, trades like this just didn't happen in the old days, when teams would hang onto their stars tighter than Roseanne to a pork chop. But the timing of this trade is just as critical as Big Doug himself. Let me tell ya slow and careful-like:
You see, way back in 1980, just about this time of year, the Islanders were lolly-gagging through the regular season. Now, this team had won the President's Trophy the year before, then got spanked by the Rangers in the semi-finals. Tore the hearts right out of 'em... 'Till Butch Goring came to town.
Little Butchy was a gritty veteran center, a little ball o' fire who came from LA, where he had about as much of a shot at winning the Cup as he did at sproutin' an extra head. Well, when he joined the Islanders, somethin' just happened. Those lolly-gaggin' underachievers just lit the opposition up for the remainder of the season, and tore up everybody in the playoffs until Bobby Nystrom put the puck past a paralyzed Pete Peeters in Game Six of the finals. Lo and behold, the team that couldn't get it straight till the end of the season had won it all.
Now, I ain't so senile as to say the Butch Goring was half the player "Killer" Gilmour is. I also ain't sayin' the Devils got four straight Cups in 'em either. But Goring was just what those Isles needed, just like Gilmour is just what the Devs need. How many years now have folks been saying that New Jersey has it all, and all they need is a center? A long time. And who better than Gilmour? Certainly plays good enough defense to fit into their system. He brings a little more to the table than the so-called first-line centers the Devils have had in the past few years. More of a force than Kevin Todd, Alexander Semak, and Neal Broten put together.
One pessimistic and bitter Devils fan friend o' mine was whinin' that they should have gotten Oates instead, and that giving up Sullivan is gonna hurt 'em in the long run, but that's just plain silly in my opinion. Gilmour's the grittiest player around -- no disrespect to Oates -- and that is desperately needed in this division. Sullivan? Well, as skilled as he might be, he's never gonna be a Doug Gilmour. Not to mention, this is an old team, and by the time Sullivan's in his prime, the core players on this team are gonna be in the broadcast booth.
Gilmour also brightens up a team that has become much like "The Borg" from Star Trek - Colin Campbell called them "an interchangeable flock." (Even Stevens has been assimilated in the last couple o' years). You can see this by the way they can change around their lines constantly during games. They're like a collective being most of the time. Now, I ain't knocking it, any team that can score 2.64 goals per game and be that high in the standings is doing something right. But maybe they need one individual, who can supply that offensive punch without damaging the collective defense one bit.
Doug brings something to this team that they never really had before - an offensive player who scares the opposing team every time he wanders into their zone with the puck. I witnessed his first game as a Devil against the Islanders recently. I recall sitting there watching him rack up a goal and three assists, dishing out passes to teammates who were amazed to see that such offensive opportunities actually existed. By the end of the third, all I remember is a desperate Islander fan yelling to his team's broken and failing defense, with words that coaches will be screaming at their teams in the locker room until the Devils hoist the Cup again this June: "Beware of Doug! Don't you get it? Beware of Doug!"