Great Scott

In the parlance of PTI, happy trails to Scott Stevens, who announced his retirement today after 22 years in the NHL, the last 13 with the Devils. Stevens came over from St. Louis as compensation for Brendan Shanahan's departure, and while the Devils really haven't had a scorer of Shanahan's stature since, Stevens formed, along with Scott Niedermayer and Ken Daneyko, the core of a strong defense that won Stanley Cups in 1995, 2000, and 2003 and was consistently one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference for a decade. With Stevens and Daneyko retired and Niedermayer joining his brother Rob in Anaheim, the Devils are going to have to re-up on defense big-time, though hopefully their offensive will be given a boost by the return of Alexander Mogilny. Stevens apparently will stay with the team in another capacity (presumably front-office, but perhaps as an assistant coach), which is good; even though he wasn't an original Devil like many of the team's best players over the years (Daneyko, Niedermayer, Elias, Gomez, and many others), he was as identifiable with the team's image as anyone, and wore the captain's C from 1992 on for a reason. Thanks for the memories, Scott.

Trivia question for my dad, who might actually know the answer: who preceded Scott Stevens as Devils captain?