Paul Cotter #47 of the New Jersey Devils (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
To say that the New Jersey Devils' general manager, Tom Fitzgerald, has been one of the most aggressive general managers this offseason would be an understatement.
After a disastrous season that saw his team miss the playoffs for the third time in his four-year tenure as New Jersey Devils general manager, Fitzgerald pivoted his team-building approach and went to work in late June. On June 20, he finally acquired goalie Jacob Markstrom from the Calgary Flames after unsuccessfully trying to do so at two points during the 2023-24 regular season.
Fitzgerald continued his wheeling and dealing at the NHL Entry Draft in Las Vegas June 28-30. The Devils acquired Paul Cotter and a 2025 third-round pick from the Vegas Golden Knights for forward Alexander Holtz and goaltender Akira Schmid on June 29. Then they got defenseman Johnathan Kovacevic from Montreal in exchange for a 2026 fourth-round pick on June 30.
The fifth-year GM didn’t stop there. He went on a spending spree in the first two days of unrestricted free agency, signing forwards Tomas Tatar and Stefan Noesen and highly coveted defenseman Brett Pesce.
In an exclusive interview with RG, Fitzgerald discussed his offseason and reflected on what he accomplished as he prepares for the 2024-25 season.
On goaltending:
“A lot. It started with the goalie. …well, actually, it started last trade deadline when traded Vítek [Vaněček] and acquired Kappo [Kähkönen]. We saved a little bit of money there but also got Vitek off the books for this year, which allowed us to have the flexibility to be in the goalie market. So, that’s when it started with the intention of finding that goalie that we’re getting in [Jacob] Markstrom.”
On defensemen:
We got a lot of skill because that’s how we built our team: through the draft and drafting a lot of high-end skill, but the reality is, to advance in the playoffs, you have to play hard and be hard to play against. It’s not just personnel hard; it’s mental. Are we willing to be a hard team to play against? But we wanted to address a couple of areas there, get bigger on the backend, a little harder at the net front - which we did well on that in getting both [Brett] Pesce and [Brenden] Dillon - and I think it’s contagious if those guys can come in and play the right way. It’s gonna force somebody else to do the same.
Let’s not forget we’re also adding Dougie Hamilton to the mix. We didn’t have him for 62 games last year.
That was a big hole, but when you look at the experience of our two young players, Luke Hughes and Šimon Nemec, and in particular Šimon because he wasn’t expected to be on our team, and because of Dougie’s absence, he got that opportunity. More times than not, both those players played strong, but there is also a learning curve for a 19-year-old and 20-year-old defenseman, and we believe that will pay forward here, and they’re not going to have to play 20 to 21 minutes a night like they did last year. So, there was a domino effect in adding Pesce and Dillon and now getting Dougie Hamilton back into the mix.”
On forwards:
“Up front, we wanted to be harder to play against. I’d say two years ago, we were one of the fastest teams in the league, but I don’t think we could look in the mirror and say we were a fast team last season. We had some fast players, and I thought we played fast at times, but you subtract guys like Miles Wood, and you subtract guys like [Jesper] Boqvist and even Tomáš Tatar, he thinks the game really fast and anticipates really well. If you take speed like that out of your lineup, it’s hard to replace.
So, with Paul Cotter, it was just an opportunity to add a player who had won, really good size - top 5 in hits I believe - physical, and has really good speed. So, is this an opportunity for him to take the next step in his career? He’s going to get that opportunity. So, with that, you gotta give things to get, and to give up a young prospect like Alexander Holtz wasn’t easy. However, with that being said, we just had to figure out where Holtz was going to fit in our lineup today. Not two years from now or three years from now, today, and he’s probably on the outside looking in, to be quite honest, because of areas that we wanted to address. So we gave up a good prospect for a specific type of player like Paul Cotter and what we were looking for.
And finally, Stefan Noesen. I gotta give Steph a lot of credit. Once he left us, he really had to go back to his roots and how to get back to the league, and he did that by going to the Chicago Wolves and taking advantage of the opportunity he got in Carolina. We’re in need of a right-shot that has powerplay experience and he definitely has that. He’s a hell of a net-front presence on the powerplay, and he will get an opportunity to play some big minutes on our powerplay with some pretty good players. He’s a hard-nosed player that plays with pace, and when you can add that to your roster, it was a no-brainer for us."
James Murphy
