New Jersey Devils: Tom Fitzgerald Points To Boring NHL Trade Deadline

New Jersey Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald spoke to The Athletic’s Pierre Lebrun on Monday to talk all things NHL Trade Deadline. Fitzgerald has always been a candid interview and doesn’t seem to care much about warping the media narrative. He is unabashedly truthful. That was no different in this The Athletic article.

LeBrun went over everything. He talked about P.K. Subban, and we learned that Subban has already been told he’s going to be shopped. Fitzgerald told him he didn’t have plans to re-sign him after the season, and he would try to find the best fit for both sides. That’s not terribly surprising. What is surprising is how little Fitzgerald says teams are calling him despite so much smoke around other players.

There have been rumors about Jesper Bratt, Damon Severson, Pavel Zacha, and others. Despite this, Fitzgerald says his phone has been quiet.

“It’s been really quiet, to be quite honest, lately. It’s been extremely quiet,” Fitzgerald told Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic. “But I still make my calls and just check in with teams and see if things have changed from what they were thinking.

So Fitzgerald is the guy with the assets right now, but nobody is calling him. It’s still really early, and there are two weeks until the actual trade deadline, but it sounds like the Devils might be holding onto those pieces who are signed beyond this season. All those worries about a Bratt trade or the fighting about Severson’s value might be moot.

Tom Fitzgerald talks to The Athletic about the NHL Trade Deadline. Based on his quotes, it’s going to be a boring two weeks for the New Jersey Devils.

He actually spoke on Severson specifically. He said Severson had a lot of value to the Devils. They are already thinking about what his next contract might look like. The Devils’ current time-on-ice leader is signed through next season, and Fitzgerald says it would take a really good package to take him away from the Devils.

Another intriguing part of the interview was saying he had to “go back to the drawing board” on goalies. Could that be a target at the deadline? Based on his quotes, it sounds like something he’ll address in the summer. The reason it’s surprising is not that it’s not an issue. It obviously is. The surprising thing is both Jonathan Bernier and Mackenzie Blackwood are signed through next season.

There was a lot more to talk about in the interview. You can read it all here from The Athletic.