The New Jersey Devils are looking to do a few things this season. They obviously want to stay in contention all season long. They want to get some of their younger players, like Luke Hughes, Simon Nemec, and Dawson Mercer, getting closer to their prime abilities. However, one thing that might come sooner rather than later is a trade to upgrade the roster.
We know that GM Tom Fitzgerald has been trying to make moves to upgrade this roster, but the right pieces didn’t become available. He also doesn’t have the cap space to make certain moves work. Luke Hughes signed for $9 million when the Devils don’t have $9 million in cap space.
Luckily, the Devils have Johnny Kocacevic to put on LTIR, which gives them roster flexibility. Yet, to make this work long-term, they need to make a bigger move. The most obvious move is to trade Ondrej Palat, but they’ve had trouble finding a partner.
On Thursday afternoon, a small rumor has grown into a furor for Devils’ fans and media personalities alike.
So Joe Vitale just told the guys on @101espn that Jordan Kyrou looks like a healthy scratch tonight. #stlblues
— Lou Korac (@lkorac10) November 6, 2025
We are incredibly high on St. Louis Blues forward Jordan Kyrou. Why wouldn’t we be? He’s a perennial 30-goal scorer who is cost-controlled until 2031. He comes with a cap hit of $8.125 million according to Puck Pedia. The Devils would have to move heaven and earth (or Dougie Hamilton) to make this deal work and not have to worry about things down the line.
Yet, the rumor mill has been buzzing ever since this news came out. Many Devils fans have been convinced that Fitzgerald has something cooking. Other media personalities think the Devils make sense here, as well.
He’s gonna end up in New Jersey isn’t he https://t.co/iZ18PI0yY4
— Jonny Lazarus (@JLazzy23) November 6, 2025
While the Devils' defense has been the issue as of late, adding Kyrou would completely change this team’s fortune. He fills an immediate hole in their lineup, and he does it about as well as anyone in the league. Putting Kyrou next to Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt might get all three of those players to 100 points by the end of the season. It also takes even more offensive pressure off the second line centered by Nico Hischier.
If the price is Ondrej Palat and prospects/picks, the Devils would do backflips at getting this done. It also makes future trades easier, as they could focus on moving their young defensemen for more established players on the back end (cough, cough, Quinn Hughes).
Of course, this is all incredibly early. The Devils haven’t been legitimately tied to Kyrou, yet. On top of that, this might be disciplinary or for other reasons other than a trade. We might look back at this in two months as a huge overreaction, or we could see Kyrou trade his blue jersey for a red one.