With the Devils recent skid, it is obvious that they don’t have the options internally to plug holes on the NHL roster. Because of this, Tom Fitzgerald needs to make a trade.
One of my biggest critiques of Tom Fitzgerald has been the amount of patience he has shown in the past.
The Devils were too patient last year on a variety of matters, a list that includes, but isn’t limited to, sticking with an ineffective Lindy Ruff as long as they did, not making any changes to the defensive structure last year, sticking with an ineffective Vitek Vanecek as long as they did, waiting until it was too late in the season to pull the trigger on a goaltender trade, and an overreliance on other ineffective veterans from John Marino to Jonas Siegenthaler to Timo Meier.
It’s one thing to have the big picture in mind and not panic the first time you lose four out of five games, and the truth of the matter is that there might not have been one singular move Fitz could’ve done to alter the course of last season. He assembled a poorly coached, soft team and the majority of the work that needed to be done to fix that needed to wait until the summer. But in an Eastern Conference where all a team needed to do was not trip over their own two feet to claim a playoff spot, Tom Fitzgerald’s Devils were unable to do their part, in part because the general manager sat on his hands throughout most of last season. It was annoying in moment and infuriating seeing the Devils throw a season away for no good reason.
Fast forward a year later and despite the Devils recent skid, things aren’t nearly as dire. The Devils built themselves a cushion for a playoff spot and despite their 5-7-3 record since the Christmas break, they still hold on to a Top 3 playoff spot in the Metropolitan Division. But just because they still hold on to a playoff spot at the moment doesn’t mean things are trending in the right direction.
The team defense hasn’t been as sharp as it was prior to the break. The offense has dried up as several notable players are on prolonged scoring droughts. And the backbone of the team’s success this season has been compromised with Jacob Markstrom recently hitting the injured list.
I get that its easy to look at the Devils situation at the moment and think they’ll ultimately be fine. Shooting percentages will bounce back closer to what they normally are. The defense will have better nights, as will Jake Allen as he holds the fort down for Markstrom. They’re not THAT far off from putting together a solid 60 minute performance, and once they string a few together, things will ultimately be fine.
But that ignores one key element at play here, which is that the roster still has its flaws.
The bottom six is not good enough for a team that fancies themselves as one that could potentially make noise in the playoffs. A large part of the reason why the bottom six isn’t good enough is because they lack quality centers down the lineup. And their center depth has only been further compromised by Erik Haula’s recent IR stint, Nico Hischier missing Monday’s game in Philadelphia and Jack Hughes playing through stitches on one of his fingers.
The Devils have needed a center for some time. They have needed a little more scoring oomph for some time.
Why wait any longer?
It’s time for Tom Fitzgerald to pick up the phone and make a trade.
“Oh, trading is hard, it takes two to tango, you can’t just snap your fingers and make a deal happen. You don’t know what the market looks like and you can’t expect Fitz to make something happen six weeks before the trade deadline.”
Is that the case? Or am I asking too much for the general manager of this team to have his finger on the pulse of what has now been a month of mediocre at best hockey?
Am I asking too much for a GM who said two months ago what this team needed to, you know, go out and do something to address it?
Am I asking too much for a trade to happen in a league where 25 trades have already happened since Opening Night?
Ultimately, am I asking too much for the GM of the team to do his job and fix an issue?
We don’t need to carry water for Fitzgerald here. We can hold him accountable and ask him to do his job. I promise its ok.
I get that deadlines spur action, the cap is a factor, and you’re not looking to make a panic move. But that doesn’t mean Fitzgerald can’t be proactive to try to fix what has been a glaring issue for some time. Even if Hischier and Haula return to the lineup tonight and Jack Hughes’s finger is no longer an issue, guess what. They STILL need to go make a trade.
I mentioned the flurry of moves around the league already this season, and I get that not all trades are created equal. Some are actually fairly minor. That said, you don’t have to look far to see the Rangers get out of their Jacob Trouba problem relatively pain-free. You don’t have to look far to see the Avalanche supposedly solve their goaltending woes in-season with multiple trades involving ex-Devils goaltenders. Which is weird, because I was told last year that you can’t possibly get a goaltender midseason when the goaltending is a sieve, let alone two of them. You don’t have to look far to see that same Avalanche team solve their impending “Mikko Rantanen is going to leave in UFA” problem, with one of the Devils biggest rivals acquiring him as a result. Heck, you don’t have to look very far to see an Islanders team, with no answers when it comes to puck-moving defensemen, turn to Tony DeAngelo and Scott Perunovich for help.
I’m not saying the Devils should’ve necessarily been in on Rantanen or Taylor Hall or Jacob Trouba or Tony DeAngelo or whoever. I’m not saying they should trade for JT Miller right now. But the Devils center issues have been apparent for quite awhile now. They were apparent before Erik Haula got hurt. Am I asking too much for the Devils to swing a deal with Chicago for Ryan Donato? Or Seattle for Yanni Gourde (before he got hurt)? Or Utah for Nick Bjugstad? Or the Sharks for Mikael Granlund? Or Pittsburgh for Lars Eller. Actually, scratch that last one, Washington already made that move. Guess you could say their GM foresaw a lack of center depth being an issue and was proactive instead of reactive.
The Eastern Conference is a bit of a jumbled mess right now in terms of the standings. And I get that as a result, teams that normally would be clearly cut and defined sellers haven’t really emerged as such yet. I also get that the Devils don’t have a ton of cap space with which to work with at the moment. But these are excuses, not actual impediments or roadblocks, when it comes to getting something done.
It is apparent that the solutions for the Devils aren’t going to come from within. Justin Dowling is not the answer. Nathan Bastian is not the answer. Tomas Tatar is not the answer. Kurtis MacDermid is certainly not the answer, not unless the question is “Who can we put out there for five minutes to lumber around and do nothing but maybe punch someone”. Curtis Lazar probably isn’t the answer at this point. I hope Brian Halonen can be an answer, but that would involve Sheldon Keefe trusting him enough to get some run here.
I won’t dispute that the answers need to come from the room, and typically, that means the team’s best players need to be better. There’s some truth to that. But it can also be true that they could use a little external help, and waiting until the trade deadline might not be the smartest move as the Devils lead over the rest of the Metropolitan Division shrinks. If you know you’re going to be adding at the deadline, be proactive, get out in front of it, and get the guys you want before the market beats you to it. Stay a step or two ahead of the competition and keep them at arms length so they never actually catch you.
But forget about the rest of the Metro for a second. Let’s look at Carolina and Washington because if the Devils wind up making the playoffs, they’re more than likely going to see one of those teams in the first round (most likely Carolina). How exactly are the Devils planning on matching up against those teams so they can be successful in a seven-game series? We know this Devils team can play with Carolina as they split the season series. We know they can play with Washington as both teams won two games apiece. But those teams are trending in the right direction at the moment. The Devils are not. Those teams can roll at least three lines deep at the moment and probably can roll four once the playoffs get here. The Devils at the moment can roll one, maybe two lines, and a whole lot of question marks. Carolina has already made two big additions with Rantanen and Hall, and you know Washington isn’t going to stand pat with the type of season they’ve had to this point. So again, I ask, how are the Devils planning on matching up against these teams? I get its not necessarily an arms race, but you do need to keep up with the Joneses to some extent.
It would take some creativity, but Fitzgerald owes it to the fanbase and he owes it to the room to go get reinforcements and lengthen the lineup. The Devils have done enough good through the first half of the season to let that slip away now, and if there were any answers in Utica with regards to how the Devils can address their lack of forward depth, they probably would’ve turned to them by now. Those answers don’t exist, at least in terms of at forward, so the Devils need to look outside the organization and they’d be smart to do so sooner rather than later.