Are we surprised that Tom Fitzgerald has no job right now?

The New Jersey Devils made the move nobody expected them to have the guts to make when yet another season went down the tubes without anything to show for it. After taking over the Devils in 2020, Fitzgerald has watched this team miss the playoffs in five of the last seven seasons. This is a team with Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes down the middle, but they cannot even make the playoffs.

And one of those playoff appearances was essentially taking a cow to slaughter as the Devils faced the overpowered Carolina Hurricanes in the first round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs. 

Fitzgerald was once a good GM. We truly think that, but something happened when the Devils lost in the second round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs. 

After that loss, which could have easily been blamed on a rest disparity (the Hurricanes got five full days of rest while the Devils got just one after a seven-game war with the New York Rangers), Fitzgerald went all in to beat the Hurricanes. He watched as a ton of players left the roster, including Damon Severson, Ryan Graves, Miles Wood, and Tomas Tatar. 

Tom Fitzgerald pushed for a top job, but now he has no job

Each year, Fitzgerald seemed to get worse. He underwhelmed with the return he got for Tyler Toffoli and let the goalie issue ruin the 2023-24 season. When Jack Hughes went down in 2025, he didn’t find a suitable replacement on the trade market and let the Devils waste a playoff opportunity. Then, of course, he fumbled the Quinn Hughes opportunity. 

However, Fitzgerald is a well-connected executive in this league. He was on Bill Guerin’s staff for Team USA, often considered his right-hand man for the gold medal-winning team. That alone should have him considered for jobs around the league.

Fitzgerald was reportedly a frontrunner for the Nashville Predators job, but we’re not surprised that Barry Trotz pulled the rug from him one last time before he retired. With friends like him, who needs enemies? 

Despite his issues, it’s still surprising that Fitzgerald has no job right now. Yes, there is an opening in Detroit that could go his way, but that seems incredibly unlikely. Maybe Fitzgerald gets a job as a consultant, but that’s clearly a huge step down. 

Still, it’s a job and keeps him in hockey. Maybe he will go to Minnesota with Guerin or it’s possible he will head home to Boston, where they’ve lost multiple members of their front office. We’ll see where Fitzgerald lands, but we’d be floored if he ended up outside of the sport entirely. 

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