Louis P. Lamoriello (; born October 21, 1942) is an American professional ice hockey executive who most recently served as the President of Hockey Operations and General Manager for the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was formerly the long-time general manager of the New Jersey Devils and also served in the position with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Lamoriello's tenure as president and general manager of the New Jersey Devils from 1987 to 2015 was the third-longest tenure by an NHL general manager with a single team, following those of Conn Smythe and Art Ross. Lamoriello resigned from New Jersey on May 4, 2015, and became the 16th general manager of the Maple Leafs on July 23 of the same year. After three years with the Maple Leafs, Lamoriello joined the Islanders with whom he served until 2025.
Under Lamoriello's management, the Devils, who had been barely competitive for their first five years in New Jersey, became one of the most successful teams in the NHL. The Devils made the Stanley Cup playoffs all but three times between 1988 and 2012, qualified for five Stanley Cup Final (in 1995, 2000, 2001, 2003, and 2012) and won the Stanley Cup three times (in 1995, 2000, and 2003). Lamoriello also was general manager for Team USA in the 1996 World Cup of Hockey, in which the U.S. won the championship, as well as for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. Lamoriello also played a key role in negotiating the settlement of the 2004–05 NHL lockout to resume play for the 2005–06 season.
In 2009, Lamoriello was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in the builders category, while in 2012, Lamoriello was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame.
From 2001 to 2004, Lamoriello also was CEO of the New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association.
Lamoriello was born in Johnston, Rhode Island. After attending La Salle Academy in Providence, Rhode Island, Lamoriello graduated from Providence College in 1963. He received varsity letters in baseball and hockey and served each team as captain during his senior year. He played collegiate summer baseball in the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) for the Harwich Mariners (1961–62), Orleans Cardinals (1963), and in 1964 as the player-manager of the Bourne Canalmen. A star player, he remained in the league after his playing days, capturing the league championship in 1965 as field manager of the Sagamore Clouters, and in 1967 managing the Yarmouth Indians. In 2009, Lamoriello was inducted into the CCBL Hall of Fame.
Lamoriello was a math teacher at Johnston Senior High School in Johnston, Rhode Island, for several years ending in the early 1970s.
Lamoriello became head coach of the Providence College Friars men's ice hockey team in 1968 and became athletic director in July 1982. During the 1982–83 season, the Friars were 33–10–0, the best record in the nation that year, and appeared in the Frozen Four for the first time since 1964. Lamoriello resigned as head coach in 1983. As athletic director, he hired Rick Pitino as the head coach of the men's basketball team; Pitino would go on to take Providence to the Final Four in 1987.
In July 1983, Lamoriello joined his fellow athletic directors at Boston College, Boston University, the University of New Hampshire and Northeastern University in forming the Hockey East Association. He helped produce an interlocking schedule agreement with the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) and negotiate the first television package in college ice hockey.
Lamoriello was the first commissioner of Hockey East. The conference's executive committee voted on March 7, 1988, to name the conference championship trophy in his honor, as the Lamoriello Trophy. A permanent trophy was commissioned and was presented at the 1999 championship.
On April 30, 1987, Lamoriello resigned as Hockey East commissioner and as athletic director at Providence to become president of the NHL's New Jersey Devils.
In April 1987, Devils then-owner John McMullen appointed Lamoriello team president. Lamoriello named himself general manager just before the start of the 1987–88 season, a move that surprised many NHL observers. He had never played, coached or managed in the NHL, and was virtually unknown outside the American college hockey community.
Over the next 28 years, Lamoriello presided over one of the most successful rebuilding projects in North American professional sports history. In his first season as general manager, the Devils notched their first winning season in franchise history (dating back to their time as the Kansas City Scouts [1974–76] and Colorado Rockies [1976–82]) and reached the Wales Conference Finals. The Devils made the playoffs in all but five of his 27 seasons as general manager, and appeared in the Stanley Cup Final in 1995 (won), 2000 (won), 2001 (lost), 2003 (won) and 2012 (lost).
Lamoriello said he studied the game for a long time before starting to manage at the NHL level. The former high school math teacher says that during his two-decade long tenure at Providence College, and later when commissioner of Hockey East, he followed professional hockey closely. When he started with the Devils in 1987, he says he took what he considered to be the best parts of the great teams — the Green Bay Packers, the New York Yankees and the Montreal Canadiens — and using his analytical background, applied them to managing the Devils.
"Lou's a model for our business. This is not just the best run franchise in the NHL, it’s the best-run franchise in pro sports," says long-time NHL executive and former Calgary Flames president of hockey operations, Brian Burke.
Lamoriello has been lauded by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman for his key role in bringing Soviet hockey stars, such as Viacheslav Fetisov and Sergei Starikov, to the NHL in the late 1980s. "Clearly he was one of the visionaries that understood there were highly talented hockey players in the former Soviet Union that could have a place in this League," said Bettman. It was one of the reasons cited by Bettman for Lamiorello's 2009 induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Lamoriello, backed by Scouting Director David Conte, is known as a master drafter, showing consistent shrewdness in identifying and signing top talent that other teams were passing over. For example, Hall-of-Famer goaltender Martin Brodeur was a 20th overall pick, while Czech star left winger Patrik Eliáš was drafted 51st. Players drafted in the first 20 picks have been the rare exception rather than the rule. "He hasn't been able to money-whip everybody the way the Yankees do, outspending the world every year. Lamoriello has done what he has done mostly by being smart and tough and holding the whole thing together by himself sometimes," says sports journalist Mike Lupica.
Lamoriello is well known in NHL circles for his hard-nosed approach to contract negotiations. Pat Verbeek, Kirk Muller and Bill Guerin, among others, have been traded out of town after losing contract negotiations. Lamoriello chose to let Bobby Holik become a free agent after the 2001-02 season; the New York Rangers' Glen Sather signed Holik to a five year deal totaling $45 million only for the Rangers to buy out the contract two years later and admit that Holik was overpaid. Lamoriello nearly traded Ken Daneyko, the Devils' all-time leader in games played, in 1989. According to Daneyko, Lamoriello believes in paying a third-line player as much as a first-line player if he feels they have the same value to the team.
Besides being thriftly in negotiations, Lamoriello has also fostered a "unique corporate culture" that has encouraged player loyalty, which in turn enabled him to assemble competitive teams at a considerably lower payroll, compared to the big-spending Atlantic Division rivals New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers, before the salary cap was implemented as a result of the 2004–05 NHL lockout. For example, Martin Brodeur frequently accepted below market contracts and stayed with the Devils for nearly his entire career, while defenseman Ken Daneyko played all 1,283 of his NHL games with the team.