Now in his 20th season as the Devils’ GM, Lou Lamoriello has taken some drastic measures through the years to ensure his club’s continued success. But yesterday’s move might have been the most drastic of them all, when it was announced that the head coach, Claude Julien, had been fired and that Lamoriello would take over behind the team’s bench.

“I don’t think we’re at a point of being ready both mentally and [physically] to play the way that is necessary going into the playoffs,” Lamoriello said yesterday. “I am not saying that is going to change. But I think there has to be better focus going forward.”

The announcement comes with the Devils (47–24–8) second in the Eastern Conference and first in the Atlantic Division, one point ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins. They have won four of their last five games, including Sunday’s 3–1 win over Boston. And goaltender Martin Brodeur, with 46 victories this season, has three games left to tie and/or surpass Bernie Parent’s NHL record (47 wins).

Although the team went a somewhat disappointing 6–6–2 in March, injuries to Brian Gionta, John Madden, and Patrik Elias provided an obvious explanation for the struggles. But there are some troubling signs in New Jersey as well, and they were perhaps the reason Lamoriello was spurred to make this aggressive move.

Most critically, Julien hasn’t been able to get the most out of his top line of Gionta, Elias, and Scott Gomez at any point this season, even when all three players have been in the lineup and healthy. Elias missed the first half of the 2005–06 season, but when he returned to the lineup, the Devils’ top line was one of the NHL’s most dominant.

In the team’s final 30 games of 2005–06, Gionta (39 points, plus-17), Gomez (37 points, plus-13), and Elias (29 points, plus-7) were nothing short of dominant, and a key reason the Devils surged to the top of the Atlantic Division in the season’s final days. This season, the three players have combined for only 172 points (in 202 combined games played).

Looking at the larger picture, the Devils’ play at even strength is also cause for serious concern. Back in 2002–03, the last time New Jersey won the Stanley Cup, the team finished the regular season with a plus-46 rating, fifth best in the entire NHL. This season, the Devils are a minus-11, only 20th best in the league and a clear sign that monumental improvement is needed if they’re to compete for the Cup this spring.

Now, there is, of course, also some historical evidence to suggest that Lamoriello has made the right move. Back on March 23, 2000, he fired head coach Robbie Ftorek on March 23 and replaced him with Larry Robinson. Although Ftorek also had the Devils in first place in the Atlantic Division, his meltdown in a game against the Detroit Red Wings — during which he tossed a bench onto the ice out of frustration with the officials — spurred Lamoriello to make what was also at the time a very controversial coaching change.

But with Robinson at the helm, the reeling Devils quickly got back on track and went on to win the Stanley Cup, defeating the Dallas Stars in a six-game series. Lamoriello was vindicated, with the move to fire Ftorek going down as one of the finest of his reign. But in evaluating the decision to fire Julien, Lamoriello said the success of the Ftorek/Robinson switch didn’t play a factor.

“You don’t think of those things,” he said. “Nothing makes it any easier, believe me. The day anything like this becomes easy, or when it’s trading a player or when you have make these decisions and it becomes easy, that’s the day you look for a different position.”

Tonight’s game against the Ottawa Senators marks the start of Lamoriello’s third stint as the team’s head coach. During the 1988 playoffs, he coached one game for New Jersey while Jim Schoenfeld served a suspension for verbally abusing NHL official Don Koharski in the infamous “Doughnut Incident.”

And last season, Lamoriello took over behind the bench in late December, after Robinson resigned from the post. He led the Devils to the top of the Atlantic Division and a first-round sweep of the Rangers, but they fell in the next round to the eventual Cup champion, Carolina Hurricanes.

“The decision came down to what is right for this organization, and what is right for this hockey team,” Lamoriello said in a late afternoon interview aired on WFAN. “You make that decision, and whatever falls from there — whether it be good, bad or indifferent — it’s better to make a decision than to make no decision and later regret it.”

Indeed, one of the most dominant characteristics of Lamoriello’s reign has been his willingness to take bold steps to improve his team, even when those maneuverings fly in the face of conventional wisdom. Yesterday, when he let Julien go despite his having led the Devils to a 102-point (and counting) season, was just another such example of this boundless commitment to excellence.

Most likely, Lamoriello sees something in his team that he believes he can fix, an adjustment to the Devils’ on-ice execution that could make the difference between a first-round ouster and a Cup victory. If he’s right, this surprising maneuver will go down as yet another brilliant move by one of the NHL’s most prescient GMs.

Mr. Greenstein is the editor in chief of InsideHockey.com.