One night after Lou Lamoriello said Mike Rupp’s roster spot is assured, Pat Burns benched and ripped the Stanley Cup winning goal-scorer.
“Rupp has to understand that if he doesn’t come play, he’s not going to get a shift,” Burns fumed after the Devils (3-5-0-1) completed preseason by falling 5-1 to the Isles at Nassau last night.
“I sat him the whole second period. [Making the team] is going to be a serious question. It’s going to be a question that gets tossed around [among the brass].”
Lamoriello had said Friday that Rupp would remain since he’d have to clear waivers to be sent to Albany. And really, the Devils have little option at center, where they’ve lost Bobby Holik and Joe Nieuwendyk the past two years. One job was Rupp’s to lose.
Burns and Lamoriello have made a regular topic of the 23-year-old’s consistency, and he was the only Devil to play all nine exhibitions. At 6-5 and 230 pounds, he gives the Devils the size they lost in the middle in Nieuwendyk and Holik, although he has far to go to measure up them in other areas.
“I’m not going to say anything about it. Whatever I say, either way it will come back and bite me,” said Rupp, initially drafted in the first round, ninth overall, by the Islanders in 1998.
Rupp refused to sign with Mike Milbury and re-entered the draft, chosen in 2000’s third round by the Devils. He played 26 games last season, his third as a pro, but did not appear in the playoffs until Game 4 of the Finals, playing the final four with Nieuwendyk idled. He went 1-2-3 in Game 7, scoring the opening goal of the 3-0 decisive triumph.
“Michael will certainly stay with the team,” Lamoriello said Friday. “To play, he has to play the way he played in the last game [of the playoffs].”
Apparently, even to play in games when he’s dressed.
* Of his exhibition slate, Burns said, “The preseason games were so-so. Getting back into the swing up things took us . . . I hope it doesn’t take us much longer than that.” . . . Burns used all five of his candidates for three spots on the backline, and the results were not stellar.
Asked Friday if he wished more of his defensemen were right-handers, Burns said, “I wish they were meaner, too. If we leave everything up to Scotty [Stevens] all the time to do all the mean stuff, it’s kind of tough.”
Devils open regular season in Boston Wednesday night, then go to Carolina Saturday.