The New Jersey Devils have won two of three games since the NHL Trade Deadline on March 7th. New Jersey continues to fight for their playoff lives holding a six-point lead for third in the Metro Division.
The new additions of Cody Glass and Daniel Sprong continue to produce for the Devils over this stretch as the Devils continue to tinker with their lineup. However, the Devils needed more than just depth pieces. Now it is easy to Monday Morning Quarterback or Monday Morning General Manager, but Tom Fitzgerald continues to say one thing and do the other.
New Jersey Devils Had To Change Trade Deadline Plans
If you look at the moves for Brian Dumoulin, Dennis Cholowski, Sprong and Glass, those are moves for a team that is healthy and ready for a playoff push. What makes things even more head-scratching is the retention by the Anaheim Ducks on Domoulin’s salary when the Devils had plenty of room to add his contract. What playoff team does not like more depth? That is all they ever talk about. But there is a glaring hole still in the top six because the offense has been inconsistently consistent all year.
Despite reports and rumors about their deadline plans changing, the Devils deadline plans changed. With $13 million in cap space, Jack Hughes and Jonas Siegenthaler on LTIR due to injuries, and defenseman Dougie Hamilton out for an extended time, the Devils pivoted to make smaller moves.
Acquiring Centers Was The Devils Goal
Entering the trade deadline, GM Tom Fitzgerald was looking for center depth, especially in the bottom six. But once Hughes got hurt, the goal was to add a second-line center. Fitzgerald admitted that center depth was always the goal, but he ended up coming up second for a second-line center.
“With or without Jack, I was trying to add to the center-depth of our team. I went at centers hard. They take up some time, when you’re on one and just keep pushing. The things on the side may fall. But you stay in the fight,” Fitzgerald said. “(A player) with term, someone who would have been here next year. We came in second on it. When you lose the decision, that’s heartbreaking. We were in that fight. My goal from the get-go, healthy team or non-healthy team, my goal was to go out and get certain pieces that we tried to get today. At the end of the day, we created more depth.”
The question is who the center was, Scott Laughton, Dylan Cozens, and Casey Mittelstadt being on the move. New Jersey was a team that was rumored to have two of those players. In addition, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reported the Devils called the St. Louis Blues about Brayden Schenn, but the asking price was way too high, and the Devils did not want to include defenseman Simon Nemec in the deal for a 33-year-old center.
NHL Rumors: New Jersey Devils Need a Center, and the Price for Brayden Schenn and Others is High
Devils Needed More Than Depth Players
While depth down the middle is important because you win with center depth in the playoffs, there was a higher expectation at the NHL Trade Deadline, considering the needs the Devils had to fill.
“We had a goal to try to add to the team, certain positions. We tried hard on certain players. Some players were traded for big-time assets and some re-signed with their teams, especially on the wing,” Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald said. “You readjust and look at what we can do to help this team improve. We thought that the bottom-6 area was something we could try to add some speed, some size and a little more depth.”
However, considering the needs the Devils had to fill, it seems that there were high expectations at the NHL Trade Deadline. Apparently, the goal was always bottom-depth help. However, sometimes a team does not have the assets to make a deal work. Sometimes a team does not want to move certain assets because there isn’t a belief of “All-In.”
“We had a goal to try and add, tried hard on certain players. Some traded for big time assets, so you have to readjust. Our staff felt the bottom six areas are where we could add with more depth,” Fitzgerald continued. “We tried, but when you look at cap space and assets we thought we had, sometimes you don’t have enough for certain teams….we wanted to be strategic about it. We had a lot of assets, but not that many.”
NHL Rumors: New Jersey Devils Looking to Add Scoring and Defense
New Jersey Did Try To Fill A Scoring Need
Fitzgerald admitted they were in on scoring wingers, but those players decided to stay with their teams. The staff decided to go the route they chose to do what was best for the team now.
“And then we were in on scoring wingers who decided to sign with their teams. Can’t control that. My staff did what we thought we had to do, we tried. With opportunity, these guys can help us.”
