2026 Trade Deadline: Devils’ Inaction Showcases Tom Fitzgerald’s Failure as a General Manager

It goes without saying that Tom Fitzgerald’s tenure as a GM here has been a disaster.  We can go through all the players he missed out on, like Johnny Gaudreau, Jonathan Marchesseault, and Quinn Hughes.

We could also talk about the moves he thought would fix this team but would end up making them worse in the long run, like the panic signing of Palat, waiting to re-sign Jacob Markstrom only after the season started, only to sign him when he is starting to decline, and getting Evgenii Dadanov, who has produced 0 points in his time here, and putting him on waivers.

Seeing these results and how the 2025-26 season has been going for the Devils, the only thing we were hoping at this point was for Tom Fitzgerald to make some kind of move, any move, to save his job.  We didn’t know if he was going to be selling off pieces like Dougie Hamilton, who was most likely going to leave, but is now staying, as his talent is starting to heat up a bit. We might also have thought that Fitzgerald was going to make a shocking trade after hearing the rumor that Simon Nemec was being traded from reporters like Pierre Lebrun.

The day of the deadline came, and we were all wondering what Fitzgerald was going to do. The 3 p.m. deadline came, and Tom Fitzgerald did nothing, the first time the Devils have not made a move since the 2012 NHL Trade Deadline. In the Pucks and Pitchforks Trade Deadline preview piece, I predicted that this would be the worst thing for Fitzgerald to do, and this is exactly what he did.

While yes, he did not get anything that low for Simon Nemec, probably due to him switching agents, we still would’ve appreciated a top-6 forward like Jason Robertson, which would’ve been huge for our scoring boost for the rest of this season and next season. Even though we would’ve had to offer more, it’s a problem that Fitz decided not to continue talks with those teams.

It’s also frustrating that he could’ve done a trade for someone like Blake Coleman, which I also mentioned during the predictions piece, as it wouldn’t have been that expensive, and probably would’ve been nice to see back in a Devils jersey.

Afterwards, Fitzgerald had his press conference, and man, did he say some things that drew a negative reception from the fans. When asked about Dougie Hamilton, Fitzgerald says his name wasn’t out there for trade calls, despite teams reaching out about him, so it’s confusing as to why he didn’t at least talk to the teams that wanted him, especially since it seemed like he could’ve at least gotten something decent out of it.

Something else Fitzgerald was asked about was his job security. Now, any GM who has done as bad a job as he has done with the deadline, and everything that has happened with this season, both on and off the ice, deserves to be fired. But Fitzgerald to NJ.com reporter Ryan Novoinsky said that he is expected to come back next season, and explained that, along with a Nico Hischier contract extension, and pieces that could come up, he finished off the quote by saying “David Blitzer, and I are in sync.”

Talking about an owner who doesn’t seem to care about the team, and a GM who hands out NTCs and NMC’s to people like it’s candy, it is looking like we are about to enter another dark age of bad Devils hockey for the future.