Steve PolitiThu, January 15, 2026 at 2:39 AM UTC·4 min readFinally, four months into a season that has gone completely off the rails, Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald threw himself under the Zamboni.
He spent more than 30 minutes taking questions from local media on Wednesday morning, and before the interrogation even began, he used the four magic words that have become a staple for the general managers and head coaches of our failing professional teams.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“This is on me,” Fitzgerald said.
That admission did not get him off the hook from facing the difficult but valid questions he hasn’t answered about his team since it plummeted from top of the Eastern Conference standings. Even team legend/broadcaster Ken Daneyko dropped his gloves to ask about the team’s unacceptable lack of urgency at times.
It was, as Q&A sessions go, as uncomfortable to watch as the team’s recent 9-0 loss to the Islanders. The fans who wanted to see Fitzgerald fired did not get their wish this week. They did, however, get to see him squirm, and that will have to be enough.
For now.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“I’m the leader of the group and this is absolutely not good enough,” Fitzgerald said. “We’re not meeting the standard and expectations we’ve set. I feel for the fans. I really do. They’re used to Stanley Cup championship teams. Anything less is unacceptable.”
So give Fitzgerald points for contrition. Specifics? They were harder to find.
The general manager contradicted reports that his decisions to offer no-trade/no-movement clauses to a staggering 15 players has hampered his efforts to upgrade his roster — including the inability to land superstar defenseman Quinn Hughes, the brother of two cornerstone Devils players, in December.
He said the team had no issues clearing the salary-cap space necessary to make a trade for Hughes, who ended up in Minnesota instead. If that’s true, though, it makes his failure to land the generational player — who has stated a clear preference of playing with brothers Jack and Luke — even more glaring.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementGetting Hughes might have been the home run to shake the Devils out of their malaise, but it wasn’t the only option to improve this team. Fitzgerald has not made a single roster-shaping move as the team fade from contention. He fell back on the usual GM speak that it “takes two to tango,” that every team believes it can make the playoffs, that deals are harder to make than ever.
All of that might be true, but it remains only one person’s job to solve these difficult problems. And, on that front, Fitzgerald has failed.
So now what? Well, we wait.
It seems obvious that only one thing — a complete turnaround on the ice — will save Fitzgerald’s job. He reaffirmed his belief in this team’s core, and when asked if he still believed these Devils could make the playoffs as currently constructed, he almost sounded like a young John Lennon.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said.
“Listen, I don’t even look at standings, but I know that we’re one streak away from being where we were at the start (of the season), where we really liked what we had and thought we were a good team. The reality is, there’s still plenty of runway for this group to come together.”
So, now it’s up to the players. After Wednesday night’s overtime win against Seattle, they are just three points out of a wild card spot. That doesn’t sound all that daunting until you consider that they trailed 12 of the other 15 teams in the Eastern Conference.
They have 35 games to play, and the season’s biggest X-factor — the long Olympic break next month — could shake shake up the standings in unforeseeable ways. All hope is not lost.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIf the Devils play like they did in Minnesota on Monday night, a 5-2 victory over a team that has looked like a real contender, they’ll have a chance. The problem is that inconsistent Devils haven’t looked like they’re capable of playing at that level for long stretches, and with veterans like Dougie Hamilton and Ondrej Palat on the trading block, a cloud of uncertainty will remain above this team.
This has a playoffs-or-bust feel for Fitzgerald. It is hard to envision how Devils ownership can make the case for status quo if this team — with core players like Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt now very much in their primes — fails to even reach the postseason.
“The passion I have for New Jersey, the Devils, ownership and more important the fans, I love this,” Fitzgerald said. “I love New Jersey. I do think I can be the one to help move this organization forward, and the goal has never changed.
“We know what winning hockey looks like. It’s just not good enough. It has to get better.”
He was certainly right on that point. The view from under the Zamboni is not a good one.
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