According to Tom Gulitti of the Bergen Record, the New Jersey Devils all-time leader in goals, John MacLean, was named today the 15th head coach in the history of the franchise since it moved to North Jersey from Colorado in 1982.
MacLean previously spent a year as the head coach of New Jersey's AHL affiliate in Lowell (where he went 39-31-4-6, leading the Devils AHL affiliate to their first playoff birth in a decade) and prior to that he was an assistant coach under Pat Burns, Larry Robinson, Lou Lamoriello (twice, where it was usually him running the day-to-day operations of the team on the ice), Claude Julien and Brent Sutter dating back to 2002.
MacLean, 45, spent nearly 14 seasons as a Devils player, scoring 347 goals, still a franchise record. He also had 354 assists, and was a member of the Devils 1995 Stanley Cup Championship team, the franchise's first. He left the Devils after requesting a trade on December 7, 1997 to the San Jose Sharks. He played five more seasons in the NHL where he was a member of the Sharks, Rangers, and the Dallas Stars.
The only other members of the Devil coaching staff known are Chris Terreri, who will return as the regular goalie coach, as well as - in a bit of a surprise move - Larry Robinson re-joining the team full time as MacLean's top assistant. Robinson has been a head coach with the team twice before, leading the team to their Stanley Cup Championship in 2000. This will also be his fourth stint as an assistant coach with the team. He was an assistant to Jacques Lemaire in 1995 and with Pat Burns in 2003, and was assisting Robbie Ftorek when he was fired in 2000 to make way for Robinson with 7 games left in the 2000 season.