What a wild day for the New Jersey Devils on Saturday. After returning to practice during a four-game road trip, the Devils announced that both Stefan Noesen and Zack MacEwen are getting knee surgery, Johnny Kovacevic and Evgenii Dadonov will return to the lineup, and Dougie Hamilton will be benched.
It’s all pretty big news, but the most headline-catching is Dougie Hamilton. That’s what’s going to be discussed on 32 Thoughts, and the majority of the chatter is going to be around what comes next for Hamilton.
The rumors around the Devils have already discussed Dougie Hamilton. We know that Tom Fitzgerald asked Hamilton to waive his no-trade clause, and he was denied. Hamilton’s agent J.P. Barry said that Hamilton would be willing to waive the clause for a team that would be “mutually acceptable.”
With Hamilton getting benched, the locker room appearing to be in turmoil, the Devils’ season going down the drain in January, and everyone’s job on the line, this situation couldn’t be worse. The drama continues in New Jersey.
Can they come back from this? Yes, and it won’t be as hard as it seems right now.
Hamilton is clearly playing with this on his mind all season. He’s having a good season in underlying statistics, but his mistakes have been awful, and his offense has been non-existent. He has 30 penalty minutes already, which is as many as he’s had all of last season. With how bad the Devils' penalty kill has been, this has really hurt the team.
He also has 10 points this season, and he has one goal and two assists since returning from injury 26 games ago. That’s just not acceptable from a guy making $9 million to be an offensive defenseman. He could be transitioning his game as he ages, but he can’t be making the defensive mistakes that have plagued his game.
After the drama of Saturday, which includes a response from Tom Fitzgerald , there is a way out of this that doesn’t involve a trade. It’s not pretty, but at some point, everyone has to understand the business of hockey can be messy. If everyone embraces the situation, agrees to move forward, and Hamilton knows his play will dictate what comes next, then that can get the Devils back their top defender.
Reached to Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald in wake of J.P. Barry’s comments.
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) January 10, 2026
Fitzgerald:
“As you know, we just put Nemec back in the lineup on Thursday. He’s a young guy who we want getting his game back, where he had been easily our best defensemen before his injury.
Pesce’s play…
The Devils have dug themselves a hole. Nobody is arguing that point, but we are arguing that this particular hole is impossible to get out of. The Devils would love to trade Dougie Hamilton. If it were easy, it would have happened already. Hamilton likes his situation in New Jersey. The team putting pressure on him might change it, but they can’t embarrass him more than they’ve done already.
We’ll see what comes next, but we’d be floored personally if this was the last time we’ve seen Hamilton in a Devils’ uniform. He’s far from their biggest problem. His absence from the lineup isn’t going to magically help the Devils start scoring. In fact, if the struggles continue, we could see him getting back in sooner rather than later.