Fitzgerald Recounts Florida Panthers Days | BLOG

As the General Manager of the New Jersey Devils, Tom Fitzgerald is focused on building the future of his current franchise. But for Fitzgerald, he's still a hockey fan and former player himself.

"I'm a hockey fan too," Fitzgerald said Wednesday. "I'm proud to be an ex (player), I had seven teams so I was proud to play on all those teams."

One of Fitzgerald's former teams, the Florida Panthers, is facing the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final starting Thursday night. Fitzgerald was selected by the Panthers in their expansion draft and played 380 games for Florida starting in the 1993-94 season. In addition to being a part of the first ever season in South Florida, Fitzgerald's son Casey now plays for them.

"I'm very proud of being an original Panther," Fitzgerald shared Wednesday. "Those are the best of my life. Two of my boys were there. One of them is actually on the team."

This year is the first time the Panthers have returned to the Eastern Conference Final since the 1996 playoffs, when Fitzgerald was on the team and scored the Game 7 game winning goal to advance the Panthers to the Stanley Cup Final.

"Florida really holds a special place. That was a special year for us for sure. A special year for the fans, the organization. It's been a long time. I think they've worked their way to that, it looks like a special group down there that had to scratch and claw at the end of the year to get a place in the playoffs. So that's been fun to watch and I kind of live vicariously through my son who's a part of that team."

Fitzgerald has been back to South Florida plenty of times, but has plans to go watch his former team play when they host their first game of the 2023 Eastern Conference Final on May 22.

"I'm actually going down there, I'm going to Game 3," Fitzgerald explained. "(Casey) wants us to come down … he may play, who knows after Game 1 or 2 but I'm going to go enjoy it with him."