[Gambatese] Quantifying How Poorly the Devils Have Drafted in the First Round Under Tom Fitzgerald
March 21, 2026
[Gambatese] Quantifying How Poorly the Devils Have Drafted in the First Round Under Tom Fitzgerald
12 comments
Alexander Holtz is gonna breakthrough any day now
It just keeps getting worse and worse under Fitz. Terrible drafting + poor development + players on the roster not improving much = the shit product on display.
fans need to stop saying Fitz is shit at drafting
the problem ACTUALLY is that players come to NJ, or the AHL and their production tanks after a season because our development here sucks ass
Fitz sucks at a lot of things, if anything blame him for hiring and keeping the same development team.
Quite insane to be doing WAR comparisons for two D men under 23 in their young careers so far as some way to justify a bad draft selection
Man forget the first round. He hasn’t gotten a single useful player outside of the first round. Ever.
Numbers aside, you’re completely glossing over the Devils development of players like Holtz and Nemec which I’m a little disappointed by JP.
And yes of course it would have been nice to have Stankoven, but 13 other teams also passed on him and given how Holtz and Nemec have been developed, do you trust that he would have the same impact or be the same player under New Jersey that he was for Dallas and Carolina?
10k foot view we have been injured two years in a row with half of our top line guys missing time. Add to that Mercer regressed and the goaltending took a shiz. The nmc/NTC is on Fitz though as well as his bottom 6 selections or lack thereof the past 3 years. Our cap situation kinda sucks as well handing Luke a 7 year 9 million deal to placate the Hughes was dumb.
Fans will perform all sorts of mental gymnastics to defend certain players or avoiding admitting they are the problem.
It isn’t that Holtz is bad and the Devils should have recognized the warning signs and not drafted him… it’s that we didn’t feed him the right food in Utica and stunted his development.
Nothing like a premature jump to judging draft picks 😗
I mean, I am not going to complain about Luke and Nemec.
Nemec was a ridiculous number two overall pick. There were so many great North American players yet he chose a Slovakian as the second Slovakian in a row. I don’t blame fits for the drift. I blame Brian Dennehy for terrible talent evaluation as the head Scout.. I do blame fits for trading for Meier who has been the huge disappointment
The Fitz defenders are going to be working overtime on this article
12 comments
Alexander Holtz is gonna breakthrough any day now
It just keeps getting worse and worse under Fitz. Terrible drafting + poor development + players on the roster not improving much = the shit product on display.
fans need to stop saying Fitz is shit at drafting
the problem ACTUALLY is that players come to NJ, or the AHL and their production tanks after a season because our development here sucks ass
Fitz sucks at a lot of things, if anything blame him for hiring and keeping the same development team.
Quite insane to be doing WAR comparisons for two D men under 23 in their young careers so far as some way to justify a bad draft selection
Man forget the first round. He hasn’t gotten a single useful player outside of the first round. Ever.
Numbers aside, you’re completely glossing over the Devils development of players like Holtz and Nemec which I’m a little disappointed by JP.
And yes of course it would have been nice to have Stankoven, but 13 other teams also passed on him and given how Holtz and Nemec have been developed, do you trust that he would have the same impact or be the same player under New Jersey that he was for Dallas and Carolina?
10k foot view we have been injured two years in a row with half of our top line guys missing time. Add to that Mercer regressed and the goaltending took a shiz. The nmc/NTC is on Fitz though as well as his bottom 6 selections or lack thereof the past 3 years. Our cap situation kinda sucks as well handing Luke a 7 year 9 million deal to placate the Hughes was dumb.
Fans will perform all sorts of mental gymnastics to defend certain players or avoiding admitting they are the problem.
It isn’t that Holtz is bad and the Devils should have recognized the warning signs and not drafted him… it’s that we didn’t feed him the right food in Utica and stunted his development.
Nothing like a premature jump to judging draft picks 😗
I mean, I am not going to complain about Luke and Nemec.
Nemec was a ridiculous number two overall pick. There were so many great North American players yet he chose a Slovakian as the second Slovakian in a row. I don’t blame fits for the drift. I blame Brian Dennehy for terrible talent evaluation as the head Scout.. I do blame fits for trading for Meier who has been the huge disappointment
The Fitz defenders are going to be working overtime on this article