“This team has to continue to grow.” – New Jersey Devils GM, Tom Fitzgerald.

That was the prevailing message both Fitzgerald and Interim Head Coach Travis Green delivered during their end-of-season media availability. They found multiple ways to say it and repeated it many times. You almost felt like you were back in school with a teacher repeating something so you knew to underline it because it was going to show up on an exam. 

The media weren’t assembled in a classroom, but you get the feeling that the Devils players will be in a classroom-like setting the next time they convene as a team. Green, whose future with the team is uncertain, and Fitzgerald both talked about needing players to mature and put in the work. They explained how attention to detail is important and how maybe they didn’t do the best jobs staying on top of the little things this season. 

“To be honest,” Fitzgerald explained, “I probably have let my guard down on a lot of areas that may not matter upfront — but the looser you get, it may be just dress code with people to loosen it up a little bit — you know, the old saying, right? You give an inch, they take a yard, you give a yard, it’s gotta be a little tighter. The potential of just keeping people accountable that way. 

“I can do a way better job in that. I think that’ll help create an everyday professional player, an everyday professional hockey ops department who understands that when you kind of loosen (up) some things, some people take advantage of it versus being a nice guy. Things are gonna change that way.”

“I want hockey players and that can be defined in many ways, “Fitzgerald continued. “But first and foremost, they have to be passionate. They need to love the game. They need to come every single day, punch the clock, go to work, and actually enjoy it and then do extra work too; because they love the game versus just guys who play hockey. There’s a huge difference in that. I want hockey players on this team. 

“Our fans deserve those types of players and those are players who are willing to block shots, are willing to be comfortable in confrontation. They understand that physicality is part of the game. (We need to) create an identity, and get back to having a momentum line, a line or two that can actually change the momentum of a game. That’s what I’m looking for. I think our fans deserve that. Our core and skilled guys deserve that. Those are some of the areas I think we need to improve and that’s up to me.”

You can try as hard as you want to find multiple meanings in what Fitzgerald said, but in reality, there is only one way to interpret his statements. He wants players who are grinders, gamers, and who have an overall strong work ethic. He wants the “immaturity” the team showed this year to be a thing of the past. And he’s ready to crack the whip on his team in order to get the desired result. Essentially, he called himself and the organization soft. 

To his credit, Fitzgerald owned it during his roughly 38-minute-long media session. He didn’t hold back about his team, his staff, or even himself. He acknowledged, more than once, that the whole organization needs to be better. He knows this is a crucial offseason for the Devils and it starts with finding the right person to be their Head Coach. 

Travis Green, who served as Interim Head Coach after Lindy Ruff was fired mid-season, is among the list of candidates Fitzgerald will consider before making a final decision. And that decision needs to be made before we reach certain significant dates on the calendar.

“Reality is, yes, I’d like to have somebody in place before The Draft,” Fitzgerald said. “That gives me flexibility with the available candidates, including Travis. And hey, you don’t know what could shake out after the first round either. I want to take my time with this. I have specific areas that I want to check. Boxes that I want to be checked. 

“One, they have to be an excellent communicator; negative feedback, positive feedback, constant feedback. The players crave it. They want it. Communicating upwards, communicating with our management partners. Lots of feedback. Like I said, positive and negative. So communication is a big one. Someone who’s collaborative, who wants to collaborate with all different areas of the organization, in particular, me. Someone who understands where the team needs to get to and how we do that. 

“I’m not a dictator. I work with everybody. I think I’m very collaborative with information and I use all that information to try to make the best decisions I possibly can. As the manager, when I talk about collaboration, that is using our analytics for decisions and personnel or strategy and how we want to play. Sports science, to me, it’s real. It’s there, now, where we can use the information from the equipment that we use to gauge where our players are at in practice and what kind of practices we need. Where can we push and when do we have to pull back? So, someone who believes in that and will utilize that. 

“And then, lastly, accountability. I want a coach who’s going to keep every player, not just a handful of guys, accountable. If you don’t have accountability, you really don’t have the building blocks of a championship-caliber team, in my opinion. With that being said, we need players who understand accountability and want to be held accountable and want to be able to and should be able to look in the mirror and say, ‘You’re right. I gotta be better. And this isn’t good enough.’ Like I said, maybe it’s not enough time in the weight room. Maybe it’s just checking a box here and just doing it, ’cause that is as important as face-offs, just as one example.”

One thing Travis Green is known for is being a superior communicator. So that’s one box he certainly checks. Now, I’m not saying Green doesn’t check Fitzgerald’s other boxes, but there’s something in my gut that says that The GM isn’t too happy with how certain things didn’t improve after Green replaced Lindy Ruff behind the bench. Again, from the sources I’ve spoken to, Green has been mentioned as “The Safe Choice,” rather than as “The First Choice.” 

If that’s truly the case – and it is way too soon to know one way or the other – then Fitzgerald is going to go with a different candidate. And it won’t be an indictment of Green’s ability, rather, it’ll be a GM doing what he feels is best to turn the team around. Let’s face it, if Fitzgerald’s next Head Coach – be it Green or somebody else – doesn’t deliver the desired results, it’ll be the GM himself who will be out of a job next. 

If you need any more nuggets to explain how Fitzgerald is feeling after the disappointment that was the Devils’ season, I offer you this statement he made in the middle of his media availability. 

“It really doesn’t matter what kind of system we play,” Fitzgerald explained. “I want individuals to actually follow directions, be committed to it, and actually do it because any system works. The breakdowns are when individuals don’t want to do it or make a mistake, which is a game of mistakes, but it doesn’t matter what system we play. The coach lays out the game plan. The soldiers will follow. If they don’t, you have breakdowns.”

He’s not outwardly blaming his coaches in this statement, rather, he’s re-emphasizing his earlier points about how everybody needs to be better. The coaches need to make sure they properly communicate the game plan and that they get the players to follow it. And the players need to buy into the plan and execute it. Too often this season, those two things didn’t happen and you all saw what the end result was.

Perhaps Fitzgerald best summed up the Devils’ problems when he said, “What they permit is what they promote.”

Well, the Devils permitted too many things to fall through the cracks in 2023-24, which led to them sitting at home as the playoffs get set to begin on Saturday. Now the question becomes, can they clean up their act and turn things around in 2024-25 so that they can promote a winning atmosphere that their fans and the whole organization have spent years trying to get back to?