Fitzgerald: 'Players underachieved,' Devils 'won't be coming back with the same group'

Changes are coming to the New Jersey Devils.

So says general manager Tom Fitzgerald, who met with the media for an end-of-season press conference on Thursday.

"We won't be coming back with the same group," Fitzgerald said. "Because it was just not good enough."

Under new head coach Sheldon Keefe, the Devils finished third in the Metropolitan Division on 91 points, returning to the playoffs after a one-year absence. But their postseason participation was short-lived with the team losing its first-round series to the Carolina Hurricanes in five games.

Fitzgerald says some tough choices are ahead.

"I like our group, [but] my job is to continue to better the group," the 56-year-old Fitzgerald said. "And we've got a lot of decisions to make on certain players, bringing guys back, trad[ing] players..."

Fitzgerald, who is in his sixth year on the job and signed an extension in 2024, lamented a lack of secondary scoring.

 "Players underachieved," he said. "I think players who have given us depth scoring [in the past] didn't."

A vast majority of the Devils are under contract through next season.

Forwards Tomas Tatar, Nathan Bastian, Curtis Lazar, Daniel Sprong and Justin Dowling are set to become unrestricted free agents on July 1, as are defencemen Brian Dumoulin and Dennis Cholowski and goaltender Jake Allen.

Set for restricted free agency are forwards Cody Glass and Nolan Foote and defenceman Luke Hughes.