The New Jersey Devils are sinking fast. As of this writing, they’ve lost five straight games with no end in sight. Their fifth loss in a row, a 4-1 defeat at the hands of the Boston Bruins, was especially embarrassing. You could argue that the Devils were the better team in that game, but it’s not like they dominated. And the fact that they didn’t dominate an already lousy Bruins team that was also missing their only two skaters who move the needle (David Pastrnak and Charlie MacAvoy) was deeply troubling. Yes, New Jersey is missing Jack Hughes, not to mention Brett Pesce, Johnny Kovacevic, and Evgenii Dadonov. Those are important losses, especially Hughes and Pesce. But this team should not be floundering anywhere close to as bad as they are with those players on the shelf.
In an attempt to be positive for a moment, I will say that I don’t believe the process has been as bad as the results would indicate over the last five games. Specifically, the Columbus game on Monday and the Bruins game on Saturday are contests where New Jersey probably deserved a point or two. But they didn’t get the bounces, and they lost both games in regulation. Not to mention the fact that this is still the same team that rattled off an eight-game winning streak earlier this season. They sat atop the entire Eastern Conference amid a sea of injuries, which is a credit to the roster. I refuse to believe that was some wild fluke, the team that is capable of that is still in there somewhere. But of course, the NHL is a “What have you done for me lately?” business, and lately, the Devils are a terrible outfit. There’s still plenty of season left to go, but things need to change in a hurry.
That brings us to general manager Tom Fitzgerald. There are a TON of Devils fans online calling for Fitzgerald’s head recently, or at the very least, calling for Fitz to make a big trade to help his drowning team. Full disclosure, I am not on Team Fire Fitz at the moment. However, I am closer to wanting him gone right now than I ever have been. There are plenty of moves I can point to where Fitzgerald knocked it out of the park. But the misses are starting to pile up, with depth scoring being the biggest red mark against Fitzgerald over the last couple of seasons.
So while I might not be on Team Fire Fitz right now, I would like some answers. Fitzgerald rarely talks to the media in-season (unless it’s a puff piece or he wants to leak something to help fight off the angry mob), but I think this is one of the rare times when the fanbase deserves to hear from the architect.
So let’s do a hypothetical exercise today: Let’s pretend that All About The Jersey landed an exclusive interview with Tom Fitzgerald. Let’s also say there are no restrictions on questions or topics, and we can go as long as we want. I won’t pretend to “answer” for Fitzgerald (though I might speculate a little), but I will at least give a little explanation for why I think each question is important enough to be asked.
Let’s begin.
Q: How do you assess the current state of the roster? Do you believe that the issues currently plaguing the team are simply a product of injuries and/or bad luck? Or do you feel as though the roster is fundamentally flawed?
We have to start with the obvious one. While I’m pretty sure Fitzgerald’s answer will be something to the effect of “Yeah no it’s definitely all injuries and bad luck, our roster is great”, the question has to be asked just to get him on record saying it anyway.
Q: A lack of depth scoring was arguably the team’s biggest issue last year, and the problem is rearing it’s ugly head again this season. How do you fix it?
Again, he might just say “wait until everyone gets healthy”. But we need to hear what Fitzgerald thinks about the depth scoring issue.
Q: Do you believe in the current core of this team? Is it good enough to win a Stanley Cup with?
Another question where we all know what he’s going to say, but it should be asked anyway.
Q: How concerned are you with Jack Hughes’ ability to stay healthy?
See previous comment.
Q: The timing on the Jacob Markstrom extension was interesting, as he wasn’t playing well up to that point and there seemed to be no rush to get something done with him. Why did you make the decision to extend him when you did? And does Markstrom’s continued struggles since he signed the extension worry you about his long-term future in New Jersey?
We of course would have to ask about the curious Markstrom extension. I’d love to hear Fitzgerald’s thoughts now that we have more data on Markstrom this season.
Q: You have said in the past that you don’t believe a team should be built midseason, and that it should be built in the offseason. Do you still hold this belief? At what point does that philosophy cross over from patience to laziness and/or fear?
During his time at the controls in New Jersey, Fitzgerald has really only made one major in-season move: trading for Timo Meier at the 2023 trade deadline. Otherwise it’s been a lot of smaller moves to help fill out the depth. I think it’s reasonable to argue that both last season and this season were times when Fitzgerald absolutely should have tried to swing a big trade to help a flawed and injury-depleted roster. He didn’t do it last year, and he hasn’t done it yet this year. I would love to know if he still believes in this philosophy of his, and if he really believes that it’s the right thing to do even in the face of a failing roster.
Q: Many fans and media members around the NHL noted how quiet this past offseason was. Even now, two months into the season, there haven’t been any big moves thus far. Many Devils fans have been calling for major moves, but that of course requires another team to play ball. Have you found that other front offices around the league are more hesitant than usual to make trades? If so, is the rising cap the cause? Or is there something else at play?
In defense of Fitzgerald’s lack of action, we really haven’t seen any big moves since last season’s trade deadline. The speculation is that with the salary cap exploding, teams think they are more capable of holding onto their players, making moves unnecessary. There’s also the fact that there are only a handful of teams that are clear sellers at this point, so there might not be much to buy, which in turn could be causing the sellers to ask for way too much. But this is all just speculation on our part, I want to hear it directly from an NHL GM why there’s no movement around the league. Speaking of which…
Q: We’ve heard reports that the sellers around the league have very high asking prices. I think most Devils fans would understand that it’s not good to overpay, but at a certain point, do you think overpaying becomes a necessary evil? Los Angeles Dodgers executive Andrew Friedman once famously said, “If you’re always rational about every free agent, you will finish third on every free agent”, with the implication being that sometimes one must get a little uncomfortable to become a winner. Do you think that it might be time to take risks and overpay to a certain degree to acquire players that you believe can put this team over the top?
NHL GM’s are notoriously cowardly. They constantly play it safe and mistake fear of taking action with patience. That seems to be changing over the last few years, however. Take a look at the Stanley Cup winners since COVID-19: Tampa Bay Lightning (x2), Colorado Avalanche, Vegas Golden Knights, Florida Panthers (x2). Aside from maybe the Avalanche, the other three teams have been some of the boldest in the league in recent years. Yes, there are obviously salary cap shenanigans that played a role in those teams building such deep rosters (especially this past season’s Panthers, who got the most well-timed PED suspension in human history to help them get over the top). Still, boldness and calculated risks have been rewarded time and again since the COVID-19 pandemic. I would love an answer from Fitzgerald on whether he might start overpaying to get what he needs, instead of using high asking prices as an excuse to do nothing.
Q: Along those lines, is there any truth to the reports that you have been trying to acquire Ryan O’Reilly and/or Steven Stamkos from the Nashville Predators? What about the reports that you’ve inquired about acquiring Quinn Hughes from the Vancouver Canucks.
The obvious follow-up to all this. I’d love to ask Fitzgerald directly about this and make him answer.
Q: How important do you think having a cohesive identity is? Do you think there are certain identities that can work and certain identities that can’t work?
I want to ask this because the Devils put together the single greatest regular season in franchise history in 2022-23 as a team based almost entirely around rush offense and swarm defense. Tempo, tempo, tempo was that team’s identity. Then Fitzgerald went to work trying to add more grit and heaviness to that team over the subsequent years. I want to know if he believes the identity from 2022-23 absolutely cannot win in this league since he’s done everything in his power to get away from that identity since then (though to be fair, he seemed to recognize he overcorrected and added some speed this offseason). I also want to know if he thinks it’s a problem if half his team is built to be a run-and-gun outfit, and half his team is built to grind it out and slow it down, because it feels like that’s how the current forward corps is built. I personally am skeptical that a team like that can win, I feel as though it’s best to have the entire roster commit to one method or the other. So I want to ask him if he disagrees.
Q: What is your overall assessment of the organization’s ability to draft and develop players? During your tenure as general manager, you have drafted many players who have turned into solid contributors. But there have also been players that never lived up to their draft pedigree, such as Alexander Holtz and Chase Stillman. Meanwhile the jury is still out on players such as Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec. Do you feel as though this is an area in which the organization can be better? If so, what specifically do you feel needs to change?
Fitzgerald’s spotty draft record has been well-documented around these parts. I want to ask him about it directly, get him on the record about whether he thinks it’s a problem or not, and if he does think it’s a problem (I can’t imagine he would say that, though), I want to see if he has a tangible plan for getting better in this area.
Q: The Utica Comets have been one of the worst AHL teams over the last few seasons. What are the issues there? How do you fix the Comets? And how important is it to get the AHL club back in shape?
I genuinely don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but I do know that it feels like the Utica Comets’ struggles have had an adverse impact on the big club. When injuries have hit the Devils over the past few seasons, the Comets have largely been unable to provide the kind of organizational depth that New Jersey needs to continue to play well in the absence of NHL regulars. I want specifics on how Fitzgerald (and Comets general manager and Devils AGM Dan MacKinnon) plan to fix the AHL affiliate.
Q: Has ownership given you an internal salary cap to work with?
I don’t think he would actually answer this question. And honestly I don’t think there is an internal cap considering New Jersey is currently spending over the cap if you include the players on LTIR. But I want this question on the record anyway.
Q: Also in regards to ownership, how involved is the Devils’ ownership group in the day-to-day operation of the franchise?
Another area that I don’t necessarily think is an issue, but would love an on-the-record answer to anyway.
Q: Let’s circle back to the salary cap. If/when your team is fully healthy, your roster will be over the cap. What is the plan to make sure that when the roster is back to 100% healthy, you will be cap compliant?
I have to say, as a fan, I don’t think I’d even want him to answer this question. It really does feel like a trade needs to happen just for New Jersey to be able to ice a roster that fits under the cap. And if that’s the case, I’d want Fitzgerald to have as much leverage as possible. But if I’m playing the role of journalist here, this is a question that needs to be asked.
Q: What did you know about Michael McLeod’s status with both the league and with Ontario Police prior to the 2023-24 season? What about Cal Foote?
Let us set aside the morality aspect of re-signing McLeod and signing Foote for a moment. I have my opinion on the morality of it all, but I won’t open that can of worms here. The reason I want to ask this question isn’t about morality, it’s about doing one’s due diligence. The impending arrests of certain members of the 2018 Canadian WJC team was one of the worst-kept secrets in the league. Even fans could piece together which specific players were going to be in serious legal trouble soon. If all of us knew that McLeod was not long for the NHL, then how could Fitzgerald possibly have not known himself? Did he know it would happen and he decided anyway to milk McLeod (and Foote) for as much value as he could before they inevitably got arrested, ironically showing a willingness to take roster-building risks that he normally doesn’t? Or was he truly unaware that there was a strong possibility that they would either be arrested or otherwise removed from the league in the near future? Regardless of the answer, one could argue the Devils’ center depth has never been the same since McLeod left. Granted, I’m of the opinion that there’s a little bit of retconning going on with McLeod in that I don’t think he was nearly as valuable as some Devils fans seem to remember. I certainly don’t think he would be anywhere close to the 3C this team desperately needs, as I think Cody Glass provides a little more value than McLeod did and Glass himself is insufficient as a 3C. But the point is, McLeod’s arrest left the team in a horrible spot. And as a general manager, shouldn’t Fitzgerald have been able to foresee this and do something to protect his team better, whether that was not re-signing McLeod in the first place, or having stronger contingency plans in place for when he was arrested? If he is so short-sighted that he couldn’t see this coming, how can we trust him to be a competent general manager?
Q: Along those lines, what is your stance on signing any of those players now that they have been reinstated by the league?
I’m almost scared to know the answer to this one, but I’d like Fitzgerald on record here.
Q: Over the last calendar year, we’ve seen MLB players and NBA players and coaches suspended and investigated for various forms of match fixing accusations. In the NHL, Shane Pinto of the Ottawa Senators was recently suspended for violations relating to sports betting. Since the legalization of sports betting in the United States, gambling on professional sports has exploded, with leagues and individual teams lining up to partner with sports books everywhere. How concerned are you with the explosion of sports betting in North America, and the seeming correlation that has had with the increase in match fixing incidents? Do you feel as though leagues and teams have conflicts of interest that they should untangle themselves from in this regard? And most importantly to Devils fans, what steps are you taking to ensure that no members of your organization act improperly or illegally in relation to sports betting?
During any given Devils game, we are absolutely bombarded with commercials for sports betting, sponsored segments for sports betting, and various references to sports betting. In every sport, leagues and teams are proudly sponsored by betting markets. And while all this is going on, we have witnessed an uptick in sports betting scandals in all four of the major North American sports leagues. I would love to know Fitzgerald’s thoughts on this, if he’s concerned about his own team getting into trouble with this, and what he thinks about the present and future of the NHL and its partnership with various sports books.
There are a million questions that could be asked of general manager Tom Fitzgerald, but these are the most important ones that I can think of. As I stated before, I am not on the side of wanting to fire Fitzgerald…yet. But I’m closer now than I ever have been.
I take a look at some of the best organizations in the league and I see creativity and boldness. It’s not just boldness for the sake of boldness either, it’s calculated risks and a cohesive plan that guides the bold decision-making. Meanwhile I look at Fitzgerald and I see a GM that doesn’t stand out from the crowd at all. I used to think Fitzgerald was one of the best GM’s in the league in two areas: winning trades, and convincing players to sign team-friendly deals. I still think he’s a little above average at winning trades, but he’s starting to lose his touch there. Meanwhile, despite some genuinely incredible contract negotiations on his resume, he’s starting to pile up bad contracts as well. So if he’s coming back to the pack in the only two areas in which he stood out before, what surplus value is he actually providing to the club?
As of now, I still believe in Fitzgerald. But I think he should officially be on notice. Fitzgerald needs to start winning trades and contract negotiations again soon, not to mention drafting better. And if he can’t, then New Jersey might need to find someone who can.
What do you make of Tom Fitzgerald’s recent track record as general manager? How close are you to wanting to make a change? Of the questions I included, which one(s) are the most important ones to you? What questions did I miss that you would like to ask Fitzgerald in a hypothetical interview? As always, thanks for reading!