Today was trade deadline day in the NHL. In the wake of an offense that has been nonexistent for months now, followed by the devastating injuries to Jack Hughes and Dougie Hamilton, everyone expected general manager Tom Fitzgerald to make some big moves today. Long story short, he never did. Then after the deadline passed, Fitzgerald’s team had an actual game to play, and they showed about as much life as their GM in a pathetic 6-1 loss to the league leading Winnipeg Jets.
One warning before we continue: I know there are some of you out there that are sick and tired of all the negativity that has been swirling around this blog (and the Devils fandom as a whole) over the past few months. I completely understand the sentiment, and in some ways I agree with this perspective. But that being said, this is going to be a very, very negative recap. I have just about nothing positive to say about both this game and about the overall state of the organization right now. So for those of you who want to avoid excessive negativity, this post will not be for you. I won’t take it personally if you exit now.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s commiserate.
While Fitzgerald didn’t make any significant moves, he did add around the edges. John wrote about the deadline moves in depth this afternoon, so I won’t spend too much time on it here. I’ll just add that Brian Dumoulin (more on him below), Cody Glass, and Daniel Sprong don’t move the needle much at all, and for a team that needed complete reconstructive surgery, a few cosmetic tweaks is far from acceptable.
As for the game itself, it was just more of the same. The defensive effort was reasonable, especially against a team as strong as the Jets. For most of the game, New Jersey did a solid job keeping Winnipeg to the outside and preventing a lot of high danger chances against. And when the Devils’ defense did crack, Jacob Markstrom was there to answer the call more often than not. So the defense was solid as usual, and the goaltending was solid as usual.
But as has been the case since Christmas, the complete lack of offense cost New Jersey any chance of winning this game.
I don’t know about you, but I find it very tough to enjoy Devils hockey these days. The offense being as absurdly broken as it is makes every game a complete chore to grind through. I’m happy the defense and goaltending keeps New Jersey in most games, but I never, ever, ever feel as though the Devils will actually score a goal. They don’t threaten goalies anymore, they don’t string together quality shifts in the offensive zone anymore, they don’t generate high danger chances anymore. When they do score goals, it almost feels like an accident. Even when Dawson Mercer scored the lone goal of the game for the Devils tonight, it was a wild outlier in a game filled with ineptitude on offense.
Devils games these days are just a series of shifts where New Jersey weathers the storm in the defensive zone, gets the puck out to the neutral zone, dumps the puck in deep, fails to win possession on said dump, let’s their opponent gain their zone again, and the cycle repeats until the other team scores. Do the Devils ever push back? It happens, but when it does you feel the need to take a video of it because you might never see it again.
There is absolutely no shame in losing to the Winnipeg Jets. This is an elite team with the best goaltender in the world on their roster. But they could’ve been replaced with the New York Jets tonight and I still think the Devils would’ve maxed out at one goal scored. They couldn’t generate offense when Hughes and Hamilton were actually in the lineup, so is anyone surprised that they only put up one goal on 23 shots this evening?
Natural Stat Trick had the Devils at a 45.83% Expected Goals For% at 5-on-5 tonight, but that is deeply flattering as Winnipeg took their foot off the gas in the third period…and even then they outscored New Jersey 3-1 in the frame! This is a broken team, and while they are still in playoff position, they are on the verge of losing their spot very soon.
There were no standout performances tonight, everyone in a Devils sweater was bad, especially the forwards. The loaded up top line of Nico Hischier, Timo Meier, and Jesper Bratt had their moments, but even they couldn’t do anything. The second line of Dawson Mercer, Ondrej Palat, and Tomas Tatar did produce the lone goal, but that was the exception in a terrible night. The fourth line of Curtis Lazar, Paul Cotter, and Nate Bastian is barely worth mentioning. If I really had to pick a “best” line tonight, I suppose I would choose the third line of Erik Haula, Justin Dowling, and Stefan Noesen, who did cause some chaos in front of the Winnipeg net at times. But they weren’t so much outright good as much as they were the best of a bad lot.
The defense might have been a little better, but they were bad tonight too. Don’t even get me started on Simon Nemec’s terrible, terrible, terrible third period in which he was directly responsible for two goals against. From my admittedly amateur eye test, I saw a lot of good from Nemec tonight. His puck moving ability and offensive instincts can be really, really good. The problem is he gives it all back with some truly heinous plays in the defensive zone, and I have officially reached the point where I’m starting to worry about his overall development.
This afternoon, I was angry. Angry that Fitzgerald did next to nothing to help this team. And what bothers me even more is that he got his toadies in the NHL media (redundant, I know) to go to bat for him in the days leading up to the trade deadline:
“(#NJDevils) Tom Fitzgerald had been one of the most active general managers.
– Elliotte Friedman on 32 Thoughts: The Podcast.
— Kristy Flannery (@InStilettos_NHL) March 3, 2025
Friedman is a professional water carrier, so unless he’s breaking a trade, he’s not really worth listening to. But it’s not that I believed him and I was let down when this didn’t come to pass, it’s more that Fitzgerald or someone else in the Devils organization fed this to Freidman in an effort to avoid criticism. That’s what bothered me more. I took a nap right before tonight’s game and I was almost as active as Fitzgerald was this trade deadline.
Then there was this gem:
I did more buying than Fitzgerald at the deadline, because I foolishly bought this nonsense.
So this afternoon, I was angry. But to be honest, as this game went on, I just lost the energy to be angry. Instead my anger turned to sadness. That’s how I feel writing this right now; sad, not angry. The Devils finally broke my spirit.
After a crushing loss to the Dallas Stars on Tuesday, a loss that Jared argued was the worst this franchise has seen in the regular season since opening night in 2019, it didn’t seem like things could get much worse. But just when we all thought the Devils hit rock bottom, they found a new shovel to keep digging with.
I apologize if this “The sky is falling” recap rubs some of you the wrong way. It might be hard to believe, but I get annoyed at overly negative coverage and attitudes surrounding my favorite sports teams as well. But I’m sorry, I have nothing to be positive about right now. The New Jersey Devils are a broken team, and even worse, perhaps a broken organization. I have time for the argument that an onslaught of injuries to key players is once again holding this team back. But they were flailing even when fully healthy, so it’s tough to buy that argument too much.
This has been one of the worst weeks the New Jersey Devils have experienced in a long, long time. And I really don’t see it getting much better anytime soon.
The Game Stats: The NHL.com Game Summary | The NHL.com Event Summary | The NHL.com Play by Play Log | The NHL.com Shot Summary | The Natural Stat Trick Game Stats
The Game Highlights: Courtesy of the NHL’s website
Fitzgerald In His Own Words
After the trade deadline came and went, Tom Fitzgerald held a brief press conference with local media. The Devils posted it online, here’s the roughly 9 1⁄2 minute presser in its entirety if you want to listen for yourself:
If you don’t have time to watch it, here are the cliff notes:
Fitzgerald bemoaned how much of a seller’s market it was. I do agree to an extent, some of the prices for trade pieces this year were pretty crazy. But plenty of other teams found a way to suck it up and pay the piper for reinforcements.
At one point he alluded to a player who he really wanted, but “finished second” for. No one followed up on this to see who he was referring to, which was annoying. But then again Fitzgerald was never going to say who it was even if asked directly so I guess it doesn’t really matter. I believe he was referring to Brock Nelson, who got moved to the Avalanche, but I can’t be 100% sure of that. I wonder if it will ever leak, I’d be curious to find out who Fitz coveted.
Perhaps the biggest long term question that has arisen out of this trade deadline is the future of the right side of the blueline in the wake of Johnathan Kovacevic’s extension (yes that’s right, Fitzgerald didn’t have time to add offense, but he did have time to extend Kovacevic to a 5-year, $20 million deal). Dougie Hamilton and Brett Pesce are signed for three more seasons, and now Kovacevic is signed until 2030. That creates a logjam for two of New Jersey’s three best prospects, Simon Nemec and Seamus Casey. When asked about this, Fitzgerald stated how this gives the organization “optionality”, which I did not know was a word and can only assume is a synonym for flexibility. It’s true that this provides flexibility and depth for New Jersey as far as right-shot defensemen go, but there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing. A lack of ice time at the NHL level could potentially stunt the growth of Nemec and Casey.
And then of course, he gave updates on the injuries the team is dealing with, which deserves its own section…
The Hits Just Keep On Coming
We all knew that Jack Hughes would miss the rest of the season, which is of course quite a gut punch. But Fitzgerald also provided updates on Dougie Hamilton and Jonas Siegenthaler, and the news was not good.
According to Fitzgerald, Hamilton will miss “extended” time. Who knows how long that will be exactly. But somehow that wasn’t the bad news, as Fitzgerald revealed that Siegenthaler will miss the rest of the season. This revelation sheds some light on the acquisition of Brian Dumoulin, which now makes much more sense. I suppose the plan is for him to serve as a Siegenthaler replacement, as Dumoulin was paired with Kovacevic on the shutdown pair this evening.
It really is hard to fathom the injury luck this organization has experienced over the past few seasons. Both Hughes and Hamilton have now missed significant time in three of the last four campaigns, with 2022-23 being the lone exception for each. It’s not a coincidence that New Jersey set a franchise record in points during that campaign. Nico Hischier missed significant time last year and missed a brief stretch this season, Timo Meier missed time last season and played hurt for much of the time he didn’t miss, and Siegenthaler has now suffered major injuries the last two seasons.
These are the most important players on this roster, and they continue to miss significant time seemingly every season. I know we’re all sick of excuses around here, but to be fair, these are factors that have to be taken into account when evaluating this team.
Dumoulin’s Debut
The first player general manager Tom Fitzgerald traded for, a few days ahead of deadline day, was Brian Dumoulin. So not surprisingly, he was the first to make his Devils debut.
So how did the newest (for now) Devil fare in his first game with the team? Well according to Natural Stat Trick, Dumoulin actually led the team with a 5-on-5 xGF% of 68.38%. The six forwards he was matched up against the most was the entirety of Winnipeg’s top-6, so it’s not like Dumoulin was able to coast against soft competition either. He didn’t put up any shots on net and barely produced any other offense on his own, but that’s not exactly his job.
I’m still not going to say Dumoulin had a good game, because no one on the Devils had a good game. But at the very least I can say he wasn’t a trainwreck tonight. If he can serve as a reasonable facsimile to what Jonas Siegenthaler was until he went down with an injury, that would go a long way toward stabilizing this team.
Rising To The Challenge
Very early in the season, there was a narrative that started to form around these parts that even though the Devils were winning, they were only doing so against lesser competition. That narrative went away as the months rolled along, to the point where we were all talking about this team being one of the best in the league around Christmas time.
Well as the season circles the drain, it’s time to bring that narrative back. With the loss tonight, New Jersey has once again failed to defeat a team that is currently in playoff position. The last time they actually managed to do that? All the way back on January 11th, a 4-3 overtime win over the Tampa Bay Lightning. Yes, it’s been almost two calendar months since the Devils beat a team in the top half of the standings. Since that game on January 11th, New Jersey is 0-10 against teams that entered today in a playoff spot.
Even if the Devils do squeak into the postseason, their stay will be very brief.
Next Time Out
The Devils are back at it on Sunday for a matinee game in Philadelphia against the Flyers. Puck drop is scheduled for 1:00pm.
Your Take
What did you make of tonight’s game? Are you able to find any positives tonight? What do you expect from the other new guys when they eventually suit up for the Devils? What do you expect next time out? As always, thanks for reading.