WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — New Jersey Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald was out for dinner with his wife when they experienced every parent’s worst nightmare.

It was December 28, 2024, and Fitzgerald’s son Casey was playing for the American Hockey League’s Hartford Wolfpack against Providence. Fitzgerald was streaming the game on his phone at the restaurant. During the second period, he saw Casey go into a corner, get tied up in the play and then start gesturing repeatedly to his neck. That alone concerned Fitzgerald.

The reality of what happened to Casey was much worse than he imagined.

Casey remained on the ice for another 15 seconds or so after the initial contact. He waited until then to ask a referee, “Am I cut?” And the ref, who couldn’t see underneath Casey’s neck guard, said no. It wasn’t until Casey was skating to the bench that a Providence player told him, “Dude, your [expletive] neck is cut.'”

“They rushed him right into the locker room. All we got was, ‘the bleeding is under control and he’s on his way to the hospital,'” Fitzgerald said. “And they had a team of 12 or 14 people waiting for him when he got there. My wife was a mess. But I was cautiously optimistic because he had stayed on the ice. I don’t wish that on any parent.”

It would take 25 stitches to close the wound in Casey’s neck that came from a Providence skater’s blade. He was able to make a full — and speedy — recovery, returning to the ice just days after that scary incident with a new protector on to cover the area.

The ordeal put plenty in perspective for Fitzgerald and furthered his passion for seeing more NHL players doing everything possible to protect themselves from a similar injury. That’s why, when the NHL’s VP of hockey operations Rod Pasma asked Fitzgerald to talk about Casey’s situation at the league’s annual GM meetings on Tuesday, he couldn’t turn down the opportunity — even if he did have to briefly turn away from the presentation.

His emotions in the moment though weren’t so easy to ignore.

“They were showing [the play] and there was another angle I was told. I didn’t want to see that angle,” Fitzgerald said. “The only angle I saw was the one I [previously] watched and you couldn’t really see [the cutting]. The more I talked, the more I started getting choked up a bit just thinking how lucky we are. I’m getting choked up now. It’s tough. I don’t want any parent to go through it. You just don’t understand. You can’t understand.”

That message — of how Casey’s “near-miss” could have been catastrophic — is one Fitzgerald is desperate to impart on players at every level. The AHL is the highest men’s pro league to mandate equipment to protect against skate blades — including socks, wrist guards and neck guards — but those items remain optional for NHL skaters.

“We’re very lucky,” said Fitzgerald. “But why the players don’t think big picture versus just, it’s about [their] career today? If they ever thought of their parents watching what we watched, they’d think differently.”

The topic of devastating skate blade cuts has been ongoing since former NHLer Adam Johnson died following a cut to the neck during a game with England’s Nottingham Panthers in October 2023. Winnipeg Jets‘ forward Neal Pionk was good friends with Johnson, and Jets’ GM Kevin Cheveldayoff saw firsthand how much Johnson’s death affected Pionk. Hearing Fitzgerald’s story on Tuesday further underscored for Cheveldayoff the need to start players early on the protective equipment front.

“It’s very emotional,” said Cheveldayoff. “When it happens closer to you, it hits home. Like [Fitzgerald] said, it’s a one-percent situation and you never think you’re going to be the one-percent. And then you are. Those are things that you just hope you can learn from and educate other people.”

Tampa’s GM Julien BriseBois is a father to two hockey-playing boys himself. He’s “super sensitive” to what Fitzgerald went through and has been an advocate for more skaters loading up on gear since he was GM of the Montreal Canadiens‘ AHL affiliate back in 2006.

“I’m a huge believer and have been for a long time that players should protect themselves as much as possible,” he said. “Yes, they’re young men in the prime of their health. But they want to have a long, post-playing career healthy life as well. It can literally be cut short — pardon the pun — with one freak accident. [Fitzgerald] was preaching to the choir. Everyone is in favor of the players protecting themselves as much as possible to avoid injuries. Selfishly, we want our best players on the ice, but we care about them as human beings. We want them to be healthy and to have long, healthy lives.”

Fitzgerald is going to do his part to see that’s the case. He’s the only GM on the league’s cut resistant committee that includes senior VP of hockey operations Kris King, Pasma, members of the NHL players association and team equipment managers.

In his capacity with the group, Fitzgerald has brainstormed ways the NHL can get more players on board with added equipment.

“The first thing I thought about was the chin guard,” he said. “If you can mandate players to at least have the two-finger rule [of coverage below their chins], would a Kevlar chin guard have stopped [the worst of it for Casey]? I don’t know if it would have prevented all of it, but just ideas like that. And there’s a prototype being made as we speak.”

Several GMs said their players are almost all wearing protective socks. It’s wrist and neck guards that have had fewer takers. Athletes are, as a collective, creatures of habit. Any change to their routines could be seen as damaging their on-ice performance.

The key then to implementing new habits is timing.

“Neck guards at the NHL level are a little more challenging. Most of the argument is heat,” said BriseBois. “But I think part of the solution is by making it mandatory at the grassroots level, so players grow up with that [neck guard] and that’s what they’re used to and then it’s not an adjustment when they get to the pro level.”

Grier is a 14-year NHL veteran and sympathetic from that standpoint to players not embracing alterations. But it’s also imperative NHLers understand the impact of their choices, too.

“When you see the close calls and hear someone like [Fitzgerald] talk about it passionately, it’s something that’s difficult,” said Grier. “We have to move in the direction that we’re protecting our players the best we can. I know when I played, I wanted to wear what I wanted to wear; I didn’t wear a visor and I got some cuts along the way but nothing too serious. That’s the hard part. We have to encourage our players to protect themselves.”

That’s what Fitzgerald hopes Grier and the other GMs will do when they return to their teams. His goal in accepting Pasma’s invitation to talk about Casey was to spread awareness about how meaningful protective equipment is and what it stands to save players from. If that hits home for anyone in earshot, it’s a win for the Devils’ GM.

“My message was just, ‘tell the players you don’t want your parents potentially going through something like this,” he said. “[It’s] scary. Put as much protection on as you possibly can because you’re going to stop playing at some point, and you’re going to have to live the rest of your life. So live it.”