* * *
Mogilny joined a loaded Devils team that featured Martin Brodeur in net, Scott Stevens and Scott Niedermayer on defense, the ‘A Line’ of Patrik Elias, Petr Sykora and Jason Arnott, plus Gomez, Claude Lemieux and Bobby Holik up front.
They were 40-17-5 (eight ties) when Mogilny arrived March 14.
He played on a line with Gomez and Lemieux.
“I don’t know if I was just being a rookie, but I was like, ‘Hey, where do you want the puck?'” Gomez said. “You know, me passing the puck, ‘Where do you want me to put it?’ And he kind of looked at me, and the guy is so cool, and he said, ‘Just put it wherever.’ And he could tell I was kind of nervous talking to him, and I was like, ‘No, seriously. If we have a 2-on-1, where do you want it?’ That’s just how much pride I took in passing. And he looked at me again and was like, ‘No, seriously. Throw it wherever.’ And I’m like, ‘OK.’
“So we started practice, and I started feeding him one-timers or whatever and he was like, ‘Throw it wherever you want.’ And I was throwing it behind him, in front of him, and every shot was just, like, perfect. Then afterward he said to me, ‘See, I told you. Just throw it anywhere.’ I was like, ‘Holy cow, this is awesome.’ So I got a lot of assists just throwing it to ‘Almo.'”
It helped, Lamoriello said, that Mogilny knew how Russian players like Slava Fetisov and Alexei Kasatonov had been treated by the Devils. Sergei Brylin and Sergei Nemchinov were on the Devils when Mogilny got to New Jersey.
There was an instant comfort that he felt.
“He just fit like a glove, but that was a tough team not to fit,” Lamoriello said. “We couldn’t have asked for any more out of him. He was just a pleasure to have on the team and in the organization. Boy, he could score.”
The Devils won the Stanley Cup in 2000. Mogilny didn’t dominate, with six points (three goals, three assists) in 12 regular-season games and seven points (four goals, three assists) in 23 Stanley Cup Playoff games. But he was a part of it, so dangerous that it made others around him better.
The next season, playing with Gomez and Brylin, he had 83 points (43 goals, 40 assists) in 75 games. New Jersey again reached the Stanley Cup Final, losing to the Colorado Avalanche in seven games.
“One of the most skilled players I ever played with,” Stevens said of Mogilny.
