New Jersey Devils

New Jersey Devils

The New Jersey Devils are a professional ice hockey team based in Newark, New Jersey. The club was founded as the Kansas City Scouts in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1974. The Scouts moved to Denver, Colorado in 1976 and became the Colorado Rockies. In 1982, they moved to East Rutherford and took their current name. They have won the Atlantic Division regular season title nine times, most recently in 2009–10. The Devils have reached the Stanley Cup Finals five times, winning in 1994–95, 1999–2000 and 2002–03, and losing in 2000–01 and 2011–12. They were one of the teams credited with popularizing the neutral zone trap in the mid-1990s.

About New Jersey Devils in brief

Summary New Jersey DevilsThe New Jersey Devils are a professional ice hockey team based in Newark, New Jersey. The club was founded as the Kansas City Scouts in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1974. The Scouts moved to Denver, Colorado in 1976 and became the Colorado Rockies. In 1982, they moved to East Rutherford and took their current name. They have won the Atlantic Division regular season title nine times, most recently in 2009–10. The Devils have reached the Stanley Cup Finals five times, winning in 1994–95, 1999–2000 and 2002–03, and losing in 2000–01 and 2011–12. They were one of the teams credited with popularizing the neutral zone trap in the mid-1990s. Since the move of the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn in 2012, the franchise has been the only major league team in any sport that explicitly identifies itself as a New Jersey team. The team has a rivalry with their cross-Hudson River neighbor, the New York Rangers, as well as the Philadelphia Flyers. They are one of three major professional sports teams that play their homes games in New Jersey; the other two are the National Football League’s New York Giants and New York Jets. The franchise was sold to trucking tycoon Arthur Imperatore, who intended to move the team to his home state of New Jersey in 1978–79. Prior to the move, the team was known as the Denver Rockies and played its home games at the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver. The Rockies were in position to qualify for the playoffs 60 games into the 1976–77 season, but a streak of 18 games without a win caused them to fall from contention.

They ended the campaign last in the division with a 20–46–14 54 points, and improved and gained a playoff berth the next season. Despite having the sixth-worst record, the Rockies were eliminated by the Vancouver Canucks for the Preliminary Round Round of the NHL playoffs in the 1978-79 season. In their first eight years, the Scouts went through ten coaches, none of whom won more than 22 games and did not return to the playoffs after 1977–78 in its six seasons in Colorado. After the move to New Jersey, the Devils moved to Prudential Center in Newark before the 2007–08 season, and played their home games there until the 2010-11 season. The Devils moved to Prudential Center in Newark after the 2007-08 season and played at Brendan Byrne Arena until the 2012-13 season. Since moving to Newark, the club has won the Metropolitan Division title three times, including the 2009-10 season when they finished second in the Division. They moved to the newly created Metropolitan Division in 2013 as part of NHL’s realignment in 2013, and are now a member of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League’s Eastern Division. In the team’s inaugural season, 1974–75, the scouts were forced to wait until the ninth game to play in Kansas city’s Kemper Arena, and do not post a win until beating the Washington Capitals, their expansion brethren, in their tenth contest.