The New Jersey Devils made huge waves on Monday with the dismissal of Tom Fitzgerald. Indeed, the writing was on the wall. With the way the season ended, there wasn’t much doubt that this change could have been on the horizon.
But there’s one interesting thing about this entire situation.
Generally speaking, organizations wait until the end of the season to make major shakeups like these. So, why do it with a week or so left in the season? Why not wait until the buzzer sounds on the final game?
That’s why the time of this entire move seems curious.
Over the last two weeks, we’ve seen significant late-season coaching/managerial changes. The wave started two Sundays ago with the Vegas Golden Knights ousting Bruce Cassidy as their coach.
Then, the Toronto Maple Leafs gave their GM the heave-ho. That move was followed by another coaching change, this time in Long Island. The Islanders moved out Patrick and brought in Peter DeBoer.
The speculation regarding the Islanders is that they made the move when they did because the organization felt that another team could scoop up DeBoer up before they had the chance to ink the veteran coach.
That’s where this whole ordeal could be going. The Devils have a candidate out there they’d like to bring in. It’s either a President or GM candidate. Hence, the timing for the move was now. The organization wanted something solid to offer a potential candidate.
Devils were going to split up roles anyway
One of the rumors going around was that the Devils were looking to split up the President and GM roles. In that case, Fitzgerald could have stayed on in the President’s role, while a new GM came in to run the club.
Often, such a move makes sense. The President’s role is more of an upper-management role that doesn’t necessarily involve the on-ice product. The GM role, on the other hand, has everything to do with the on-ice side of the equation.
And it’s not often that a single executive has the bandwidth to handle both roles. Under that assumption, it makes sense that the Devils decided to part ways with Fitzgerald. The club wanted to split the roles up, and, well, having Fitzgerald in the organization could have contaminated a new, incoming GM’s decision-making process.
The coming days will be interesting for the Devils as names should begin to emerge as potential candidates for the GM role.
There is a word of caution, however. The Devils will need to get someone in place sooner rather than later. The 2026 NHL Draft will be coming soon, with free agency and other roster decisions looming. That’s why delaying the search for Fitzgerald’s replacement could work against the organization.