Devils’ Fitzgerald talks skate cuts with fellow GMs at annual meetings

MANALAPAN, Fla. -- For a few minutes on Tuesday, Tom Fitzgerald put aside his duties as the general manager of the New Jersey Devils to speak to his colleagues as a hockey parent who was close to experiencing the worst kind of nightmare.

Fitzgerald's son Casey, a defenseman with Hartford of the American Hockey League, sustained a vicious cut to his neck from a skate blade in a game against Providence on Dec. 28.

Casey Fitzgerald was wearing a cut-resistant neck guard, which is mandated in the AHL, but the skate sliced him above the guard to the point where his father said that even if he had been wearing a turtleneck he would not have had protection.

The injury was mere inches away from being a life-threatening cut to his jugular.

Tom Fitzgerald addressed his fellow general managers as part of their annual meetings, during NHL group vice president of hockey operations Rod Pasma's larger presentation on cut-resistant materials.

"They asked me to share my experience as a parent, not Tom Fitzgerald the general manager who is on the cut-resistant equipment committee," Fitzgerald told NHL.com. "That's what I wanted to do and I got choked up doing it."

Before Fitzgerald spoke, Pasma showed the GMs pictures of Casey Fitzgerald's gruesome cut, what the wound looked like both when he arrived at the hospital that night and after it was closed by stiches.

Fitzgerald gave Pasma the go-ahead to show the pictures because he wanted the GMs to see what these cuts can do.

"Honestly, we should post these pictures in locker rooms," Fitzgerald said. "I can't look at Casey's neck, but if people see that maybe they go, 'This is serious' or 'I don't want to be this.'"

Pasma said he wanted Fitzgerald to talk to the GMs about his personal experience as a way of continuing the education on the impact of these types of cuts can have and why it is important to continue to inform the players of the benefits of wearing cut-resistant materials.

"I told him, 'Tom, you have this unique ability to speak to it as a general manager and the dad of a son that's received a pretty serious cut,'" Pasma said. "I said, ‘I think the guys would like to hear about it and add a personal component to these injuries.’ It's hit one of the guys in the room now, right? He was happy to do it and he spoke very eloquently about it."

There are mandates to wear cut-resistant equipment on the neck, wrists and Achilles tendons in the AHL and ECHL. Pasma said junior leagues in the United States and Canada as well as USA Hockey and Hockey Canada all have some mandates for the equipment.

However, the NHL does not have any mandates on the usage of cut-resistant equipment, but the hope is that further education will lead to more and more players taking advantage of what is available to them and what could be available down the road.

That is already happening, largely in the wake of the on-ice death of former NHL player Adam Johnson during an Elite Ice Hockey League game in England on Oct. 28, 2023, but Fitzgerald doesn't think enough players are utilizing the protection available.

"I spoke at the 4 Nations (Face-Off) on a cut-resistant committee call and I basically poured my heart into the fact that no parent should have to watch their son play the sport they love knowing it's dangerous but not realizing that that could happen to them," Fitzgerald said. "I said if the players realized how passionate their parents are watching them play and had to watch this and look at this maybe they'd think differently. Maybe they would think of their parents or their loved ones or their kids, their wife and say, ‘I could do more to protect myself long term.’ If more players understand that there is equipment out there that can protect you, why not take advantage of it? Your career is this short, the rest of your life is a lifetime."

There could be more cut-resistant options coming for players.

As a result of Casey Fitzgerald's injury and the realization that the neck guard did not offer him protection from the cut, Pasma said he went to two equipment manufacturers that the NHL works with to see if they can design a Kevlar chin strap. Prototypes are in the works.

The chin strap will be wider than normal. It will still hang low, not pressed against the neck, but could offer some type of protection against the kind of cut Casey Fitzgerald experienced.

"I don't know that it would have prevented the cut, but it might have minimized it or taken off the brunt of it," Pasma said.

Pasma also said NHL players have had some cuts through the tops of their skates, so he is also talking to equipment manufacturers about cut-resistant skate laces. There are some prototypes already available.

"If you give them options (to not wear protection), they're going to take it,” Fitzgerald said. “They're going to say, 'I haven't worn it my whole life so I'm not going to wear it now,' so don't give them options. We can't do that because that's a collective bargaining issue, but we can show them real-life examples."