Devils Fire Constantine, Hire Burns

Hanging around with George Steinbrenner is starting to rub off on Lou Lamoriello.

The boss of the New Jersey Devils is now just as quick on the draw as Steinbrenner when it comes to dumping coaches who don’t succeed.

Kevin Constantine became Lamoriello’s latest victim on Thursday, when he was fired and replaced by Pat Burns, just over a month after the team was eliminated in the first round of the NHL playoffs.

“The personality of our organization is not to wait,” said Lamoriello, who hired Constantine to replace Larry Robinson in January. “We have raised the bar. We expect to win, and that’s on everyone.”

The coaching switch is the fourth in four years for the Devils, who won the Stanley Cup in 2000 and came within a game of repeating the following season.

Lamoriello said the six-game loss to Carolina in the first round of the playoffs this year was just one factor in his decision to make the change. He indicated Constantine did not get enough out of the talent on the Devil roster.

It’s the same type of justification Steinbrenner used with the New York Yankees when he had a managerial merry-go-round in the 1970s and ‘80s.

As the chief executive for YankeeNets, the corporation that runs the Devils and New Jersey Nets of the NBA, Lamoriello and Steinbrenner work together.

A three-time NHL coach of the year, Burns has not been behind the bench since being fired by the Boston Bruins eight games into the 2000-01 season.

He takes over a club that finished sixth in the Eastern Conference at 41-28-9-4.

“I don’t think there is a whole lot to clean up here,” said Burns.

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It looks like Ron Francis will be back for another season as the captain of the Carolina Hurricanes.

Francis scored 77 points in leading the Hurricanes to their first Stanley Cup finals, but next season is the option year of a five-year deal he signed in 1998.

The 39-year-old center is in line to get $2 million to play, or $1 million if he retires.

“Yeah, I have to talk to Jimmy, but I would like to,” Francis said Thursday night when asked if he will be back for the 2002-03 season, which would be his 22nd.

Jim Rutherford, the team’s general manager, said the two would get together next week to begin contract talks.

“He said as soon as the games were done we would sit down and talk, so that’s good news, I’m glad to hear that,” Rutherford said.