A Front Row Seat

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve written about Nico Hischier.

Nine years. That's how long its been since Nico has been part of the Devils organization. 

I was there that first day he walked into the locker room, and sometimes have to shake my head, where has the time gone? 

I can't believe I've been so fortunate to have a front-row seat to his story.

A front-row seat to telling his story. 

Over that span, it’s been hundreds of stories. Interviews after wins and losses, after milestones and injuries, after playoff clinchers and playoff heartbreaks, morning skates, practice days, road trips, training camps—repeated versions of the same rhythm, year after year.

At some point, the number of conversations has to be in the thousands. For nearly a decade, I’ve had the privilege of telling Nico’s story, day after day. And now, with a new contract in hand, that journey—for him and the Devils—continues for at least five more seasons.

When I first met Nico, he was 18 years old. Technically, a kid. But even then, there was something different about him.

He carried himself with a maturity well beyond his age. His answers were thoughtful. His perspective measured. He understood responsibility in a way most teenagers simply don’t. There was a steadiness to him that made it easy to forget just how young he really was.

The funny thing is, now that he’s 27, I don’t think Nico has changed all that much.

Back then, he was an 18-year-old carrying the expectations of being a first-overall pick—the face of a franchise trying to turn a corner. Today, he’s the captain, the leader, and one of the most respected voices in the room.

So much has changed, and yet, in many ways, so little has.

Nico still walks into a room with that same presence. Calm. Poised. Quietly confident. Never looking for attention but somehow commanding it anyway.

When I think about the people in my life that I’ve spent the most time around over the last nine years, Nico is right near the top of the list.

That’s the funny thing about working in hockey.

From September through mid-April, you’re around the same people every day. Morning skates. Practices. Games. Flights. Bus rides. Hotel lobbies. Postgame scrums. The calendar changes, but the faces don’t.

I’ve always aligned my tenure with the Devils to that first day—Nico’s first day. When people ask how long I’ve been with the team, I don’t give a year. I say, “Nico’s rookie season.” And here we are, nine years later. It’s remarkable how fast it goes.

In so many ways, that first day still feels close. Like a core memory you can pull into focus instantly.

Nine years alongside Nico Hischier.

Having a front-row seat to it all has been one of the true privileges of my career.

And only now, looking back, do I realize how remarkably consistent he has remained at his core.

At 27, his age has finally caught up to the maturity he had at 18.

I remember it well.

It was the first on-ice session of the 2017 Development Camp, and I was walking into the locker room knowing I was about to start telling one of the most important stories this franchise had seen in years. It was my first day.

It was also Nico’s.

He walked in a minute later, this baby-faced young man just days removed from becoming the first Swiss player ever selected first overall.

We shook hands.

“Hi, I’m Nico,” he said, his Swiss German accent thick, the way it still is at the start of training camps when he returns from summers in Switzerland. If he was nervous, he hid it remarkably well.

Looking back, that's probably the first thing I learned about Nico.

He has always had this quiet steadiness about him. He isn't loud. He doesn't command attention by trying to be the biggest personality in the room. Instead, people naturally gravitate toward him because of how composed he is.

I asked what he wanted to get out of his first camp.

“I just want to get to be a better hockey player,” he said. “I want to take everything I can out of this camp.”

Not about expectations. Not about being first overall. Just about getting better.

That answer has stayed with me because, nine years later, it's still his same answer. And its not a cliché. It’s his truth.

The goals have changed, sure. The expectations have grown, most definitely. The responsibilities have multiplied, naturally.

But his approach never has, since the beginning.

And then there was the roar.

You know the type of roar that gives you goosebumps. The one that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up before you’ve even realized why.

“Number 13... Nico Hischier!”

The building erupted.

It was Opening Night of the 2017-18 season, and 16,000-plus people were welcoming not just a rookie, but the future they had been waiting for.

I remember feeling a little choked up.

Maybe it was because I knew I was witnessing a moment that we’d all look back on someday.

Maybe it was because there was something poetic about it. A teenager from a small village in Switzerland, skating into an NHL arena thousands of miles from home, carrying the hopes of a franchise eager to turn the page.

Or maybe it was simply understanding this was the beginning of something none of us could fully define yet.

We didn’t know he would become captain.

We didn’t know he would become a premier two-way center.

We didn’t know there would be hundreds of goals, countless milestones, playoff moments, Olympic appearances and memories that would span nearly a decade.

Standing there that night, all we knew was that a young man with extraordinary potential had just taken his first stride onto NHL ice in front of his home fans.

Looking back now, knowing everything that followed, that roar somehow means even more.

Because it wasn’t just welcoming Nico Hischier to New Jersey.

It was a changing of the guard.

There’s an attention that follows you when you’re the first-overall pick.

Especially in that first year. Every city. Every rink. Every media room. The questions, the curiosity, the repetition of it all. Every new city was a new experience, every new city brought new media wanting to ask questions to the first-overall pick. It happens to them all. I cannot tell you on how many occasions I was either asked, jokingly, if Nico was really 18, by other media members meeting him for the first time, or if he’s “always so calm and collected.”

The answer was always, yes.

And it still is.

That first NHL goal. Nico handled it as you’d come to learn Nico handles most things. The quiet confidence.

Planted in front of the Ottawa net in his seventh NHL game, he was fed the puck from behind the net by Drew Stafford. Nico was alone in front and banged that puck home.

There was a celebration, sure, but it was so measured that there was no way you’d have thought it was his first NHL goal until Stafford headed to the net to pick up the puck.

Nico did let out a scream of excitement, but his teammates did more of the celebrating.

I was excited for him.

You’re not supposed to cheer in the press box. But I’m pretty sure I gave myself a fist pump.

He’s really hard not to cheer for.

And then there was Taylor Hall, who Nico rode shotgun with on a line in his rookie season. It provided some magical get-out-of-your-seats kind of moments, too. Hall had his magnificent Hart Trophy year. And when he was later asked about it, Hall said it couldn’t have happened without Nico and Nico’s play on his line. An extraordinary compliment, but one that was truly deserved.

If anyone understands the pressure of being first overall, it’s another first-overall pick.

Wherever Nico has gone, whoever he has met, the impression is the same: composed, thoughtful, steady.

We traveled to Switzerland in Year 2

We all knew why: Nico.

If the attention wasn’t big enough in Year 1, it grew again the moment we landed in Zurich and made our way to Bern.

There were fans outside the hotel when we arrived. We were all jet-lagged and groggy. 

It really hit me in Bern. A year of getting to know Nico reached a crescendo. 

The city had a bustle to it, but it was nowhere near the high intensity of a major North American city. It has a quiet confidence about it. All those intangibles that make up who Hischier is are present. Bern has a way of carrying itself that doesn’t demand attention but never goes unnoticed. There’s a kind of built-in restraint to the place, like everything important there has already decided it doesn’t need to prove itself.

The city mirrors him.

Bern was where it fully hit, I think. This wasn’t just where Nico had played before heading to North America. This was where his identity as a player and as a person had already been shaped, and where it clearly still mattered in a very real, very present way. 

Walking through Bern, you notice it in the details. The old stone streets, the flow of the river, the way the city moves at its own pace regardless of who’s passing through. Nothing feels rushed, but nothing feels uncertain either. There’s purpose in the slowness.

That’s the parallel that stuck with me.

Nico plays with that same kind of quiet confidence. He doesn’t chase the moment; he waits for the moments to come to him. And when it does, he’s ready.

A few days into our trip through Bern, we were readying to play Nico’s former team, HC Bern. There was a real buzz around. Fans were outside well before puck drop, lingering in clusters, jerseys visible everywhere. There were plenty of HC Bern jerseys, but there were a ton of Hischier Devils jerseys too. Halfway across the world. Even through the haze of jet lag, you could feel it immediately: this wasn’t just another visiting player story. This was their guy.

If Nico was in the process of becoming an NHL star in North America, he already was one in Switzerland. That part became impossible to ignore. Every movement he made on the ice seemed to pull a reaction from somewhere in the building.

When Nico’s name was announced in that arena, the building nearly imploded.

The whole stadium erupted in ‘Hischier!’ as Nico approached the boards to acknowledge the fans. The screams, the banging of the drums, it was something that you’ll never forget.

And even in that moment, talking to Nico afterward, he didn’t downplay it, but he spoke about being appreciative of just being there and that so many people who may never get to see an NHL game in person got, at least, to see this matchup.

Always about the others.

After spending so many years telling Nico’s hockey story, all the memories kind of mesh together. It’s hard to remember what happened when, which season, which city, whether it was a practice day or a game day.

But some, like that moment in Bern, really do stand out.

I will tell you this story.

On the day Nico Hischier was named captain in February 2021, I knew the news before him. Sometimes that happens; we get a heads-up so we can be there in the moment to capture it all for the fans in the most organic way possible.

Nico didn't know it was coming on that day, and along with my camera crew, we tucked away in the conference room attached to then-general manager Tom Fitzgerald's office. A text came through my phone that Nico was on his way up. 

I remember feeling so excited for him, and so curious what his reaction would be. I felt so lucky that I would be the first one to interview him about being named captain. 

It was another moment where you had to stop in your tracks, and it hits you how quickly time moves. He wasn’t that 18-year-old anymore.

As Nico was being told the news, I’d be lying if I said I didn't press my ear up against the door, just to hear the exact moment he was told. I didn’t actually hear anything other than muffled excitement from those who were in the room.

After calling his family to let them know, he was ushered through the short passage between the office and the conference room, where I was waiting for him. 

It felt like time flashed before my eyes, remembering that first interview at the 2017 Development Camp, now, sitting down with him as the captain of the team. 

And just as he did on that first day in 2017, he walked over calmly, almost as if nothing had happened, but he did have a big smile.

This time, instead of the handshake, I gave him a hug. 

I felt so proud of him. 

These moments stay with you. 

You knew from the first day he walked into the locker room in 2017 that he was destined for a moment like this. And maybe it came faster than we would have thought.

I imagine for Nico, it would never be something he’d even have thought about. He’s not built that way.

The big moments come to him.

Even in a monumental moment like this, he didn’t want to make a big deal about it.

“Nothing will change about me,” he said.

That’s because he really didn’t have to. Those qualities already existed in the 18-year-old who walked into Development Camp in 2017.

The accomplishments are easy to find.

First-overall pick. Captain. All-Star. International leader for Switzerland. Hundreds of games. Hundreds of points.

And yet, when I think about Nico's career, those aren't necessarily the moments that come to mind first.

Because those aren’t what define him.

Every milestone was quickly followed by a conversation about the team.

Every individual achievement became an opportunity to redirect credit elsewhere.  

He’s scored big goals, represented his country on global stages, and become one of the league’s premier two-way centers. But the most consistent thing about him is how he carries it all.

Quietly. And confidently.

In many ways, Nico's greatest accomplishment isn't any single milestone. It's that over nine years, while the spotlight around him grew brighter and the expectations became heavier, he never lost himself in any of it.

Somehow, he has remained remarkably unchanged.

And maybe that's why so many of those accomplishments feel inevitable when you look back on them now.

Because they weren't built on moments.

They were built on years of consistency, humility, accountability and an unwavering commitment to becoming a little bit better every day.

The people fortunate enough to witness the journey will remember the person behind them.

And now there's so much more... 

There are plenty of reasons to feel proud calling Nico Hischier a New Jersey Devil. Captain of the team, no less.

So, when the noise started, when the usual offseason speculation crept in about his future, as it does with any high-level player approaching a new contract, I couldn’t really picture this version of the Devils without him. Not because of sentiment alone, but because he’s become woven into the fabric of the organization. His team. His identity. Their foundation.

I never even let it become a real possibility in my mind. You don’t move on from someone like that. You build around him. You keep him close.

And now, he stays. Leading them into whatever the next chapter looks like.

Whatever that becomes, I hope to be along for the ride. Not just for what the team achieves, but for the moments still to come with him at the center of it.

Because over the years, I’ve watched him grow into exactly the kind of person you hoped he would become. 

We tend to frame our game around numbers, milestones, and highlights. Goals, assists, games played. But the truth is that sometimes the most meaningful story is the one underneath it all: the person who remains consistent while everything around them shifts.

For nine years, Nico has been one of the constants in my professional life. Different seasons, different rosters, different outcomes- I’ve been there through all of it.

And the privilege was never just about watching the milestones arrive.

It was about watching the person behind them evolve.

The best part?

It feels like there are still so many chapters left to write.

More games. More milestones. More memories. More moments that none of us can see coming yet.

No one knows what each new season will bring, the highs, the lows, the excitement and the struggles. 

But after nine years, I know one thing with certainty:

Whatever comes next, he'll handle it with the same humility, thoughtfulness and quiet strength that have defined him from the very beginning.