Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period was on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio with Gord Stellick and Scott Laughlin and was asked about what the New Jersey Devils and St. Louis Blues will do ahead of the trade deadline.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Gord Stellick: “So we just mentioned different kinds of moving pieces heading down to Friday, and Scott and I were talking about before, like the St Louis Blues that really were viewed as being really open for business. How much do you think that has changed? Because they’re very much in the thick of things, and then, boy, let’s hope Jack Hughes isn’t a serious injury. But if it is, all of a sudden, you I mean New Jersey has to be a buyer. Do you think?”
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Dave Pagnotta: “Yeah, they do, yeah. And just starting there, they absolutely do with how last season played out. Unfortunately, they battled injuries then, and they were out of the mix, but this year, with how they’re playing, yeah, I think, without question Tom Fitzgerald is going to continue to approach this as buyers mode, even without Jack Hughes, if he is out an extended period of time. It was a rough crash into the boards that he had to deal with yesterday (Sunday night), they’ll get better, a better indication today (Monday) as to his his status, and even if it is long term, if he is out, yeah, they’re going To continue to look to add.
No secret, they wanted to bring in somebody at the center position for the bottom six. If Jack’s out for an extended period, it’s going to give them a little bit of flexibility in terms of where they can add to it. But even if he is done for a while, I can’t imagine New Jersey is going to shift their focus and just kind of extend things, or expand things, I should say, with regards to adding to that group.
Looking around the league, there’s going to be teams that over these next four or five days, are going to have to evaluate exactly what they want to do and where they want to add, and I suspect we’re going to see a number of teams that are going to look to do that. The Blues are definitely in an interesting position, because they’ve gone on a bit of a heater, and they’re just one point back of a wild card position, even though both Vancouver and Calgary, right above them, have two games in hand.
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I still think they’re going to look to be creative here ahead of the deadline, but the need to make a big impact type move, they don’t necessarily have to do that now. They can still wait till the off-season to reshape their roster a little bit, but I still think that they’re going to continue to look to be aggressive. I just think the sense of urgency to make something impactful isn’t as pertinent as it was maybe a week, even two weeks ago.”
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