The New Jersey Devils have announced that Assistant GM Tom Fitzgerald has taken over as GM of the Albany Devils.
Some thoughts on that and other Devils tidbits:
- It's not at all surprising that Fitzgerald has been put in charge of the A-Devs. That was Chris Lamoriello's job but he's no longer with the team so it made sense to hand the reigns to Fitzgerald as Assistant GMs regularly overlook the AHL team.
Lamoriello's primary role while a member of the Devils organization was running the team Albany. Ray Shero had talked about Lamoriello taking on a lesser role within the organization so it seems likely Fitzgerald would have had at least some say with what happened in Albany whether Lamoriello stayed on or not. Now he'll run the whole operation.
- On Tuesday the Devils brought back Pierre Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond as they signed him to a one-year, two-way contract worth $575,000 at the NHL level.
PL3 was a member of the organization from 2004-2011 and spent the last couple seasons in Wilkes-Barre so he's familiar with the Devils as well as John Hynes and Tom Fitzgerald.
I very much doubt he will make the team but he could play a couple games with the big club here and there should Shero, Hynes and co. decide they need his physical presence.
- I'm really interested to see how Pavel Zacha, Reid Boucher and Joseph Blandisi fare in the upcoming rookie tournament. They will all compete for roster spots in main camp but if they don't show well against prospects they certainly can't be relied on (this season) to produce at the NHL level. Obviously preseason games will be the bigger test but, again, if they struggle it will be very discouraging.
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