With NHL news coming by the bushel today after the long-anticipated release of the schedule and rubber-stamping of Olympic participation, the Devils made news of their own today filling out their coaching staff with former NHL’er Mike Foglino.  Foglino played fifteen seasons in the NHL, most notably with the Sabres (’81-90) and Leafs (’90-93), tallying 355 goals and 2,049 penalty minutes in 1,018 NHL games.  I never really saw him play but clearly those numbers suggest someone with talent who was also a scrapper.  As a coach, most of his experience is in the minors, spending seven seasons in Sudbury of the OHL from ’03-10 as well as significant time in the AHL with Hershey in the prior five years from ’98-03, making the Calder Cup playoffs every time.  He’s also been behind the bench in the NHL as an assistant for Toronto (’95-96), Colorado (’97-98) and Anaheim (’11-12) before serving as an AHL assistant in Chicago this season.  Having sons Nick (Columbus) and Marcus (Buffalo) play for Eastern Conference teams will make some nights a lot more interesting for the Foglino family this year.

As far as the other news of the day, I’m still scratching my head how the NHL could switch a division name from one set of teams to the next.  I guess the NHL boxed themselves in a little bit, by keeping the Eastern and Western Conference names you couldn’t really use East-West as division names.  With a Pacific you need an Atlantic, and it’s hard to give the other East division (with Florida/Tampa bunking in with a bunch of Northeast teams) a geographical name that makes sense aside from East.  What would really make me laugh is if under this new system the ‘Metropolitan’ division gets five teams, and the fifth team winds up winning the Atlantic playoff.  Be that as it may, the NHL division and playoff structure has undergone many renovations over the years, this is just another one we’ll have to get used to.  At least they didn’t name the divisions after legends, which would invariably have annoyed too many people.  Could you imagine the Devils trying to win a Messier or Clarke division title?  Me neither.

After the Olympics and division names were announced, the schedule was finally released this afternoon.  Like with any schedule there are good and bad things for the Devils.  One of the pluses in my mind is getting the team’s westernmost jaunt (Edmonton-Calgary-Vancouver-Winnipeg with Ottawa on the way back) out of the way in the season’s first two weeks while everyone’s still fresh.  A plus for fans is a myriad of Friday and Saturday night home games with nine Friday 7 PM starts (plus one 7:30 start) and eight Saturday 7 PM starts.  Clearly the biggest minus is the league-leading 22 sets of back-to-backs, although if there was ever a season to be loading up on back-to-backs, it’s this one with goalies Cory Schnieder and Martin Brodeur each hungry to work.  Another personal negative is the New Year’s Eve afternoon game against the Penguins at 1 PM on a Tuesday.  I mean really?  People get off early on New Year’s Eve but not that early, other than kids and college students home from break, most us working folk ain’t making one of the ‘two’ home games against Pittsburgh unless we take an off day.

All in all though, seeing the schedule unveiled is like opening presents almost.  Now sth’s like me finally get to plan what games we want to go, and jot down when.  The NHL season opens on Tuesday, October 1 with three games, starting with a CBC special – Toronto at Montreal.  Our season opener is in Pittsburgh on the 3rd with our home opener the next night against the Islanders, though because of our West trip right after we won’t have another home game till the 19th, a Saturday night tilt against the Rangers (when’s the last time that happened?  Seems like a waste of a weekend date to put an automatic sellout as one, but whatever).  Schnieder will have an opportunity to get a pound of flesh against his former team with both Devils-Canucks games taking place in the first three weeks of the season.  LA makes their first trip into the Prudential Center since beating us for the Cup on November 15, part of a marquee back-to-back weekend that’ll see the Pens come in the next night.  We’ll have to wait a while longer than that to see boo ex-Devils Zach Parise and David Clarkson, both of whom make their first trip back to NJ in late March, in what can only be dubbed ‘Devil fan booing week’ with the Wild on the 20th, a Ranger showdown on the 22nd and then the Leafs coming in on the 23rd.