Tom Fitzgerald could have acquired Quinn Hughes from the Vancouver Canucks and unite him with his brothers. But the Minnesota Wild paid the big-enough price to get him. Now, the Devils and Fitzgerald parted ways, writes Michael Traikos.
Technically, the New Jersey Devils fired Tom Fitzgerald as their GM on April 6, 2026.
But you can trace the beginning of his downfall four months earlier, when Fitzgerald failed to acquire Quinn Hughes in a deal with the Vancouver Canucks.
In what was a sliding doors type of moment, the Devils had a chance at uniting all three Hughes' brothers in New Jersey. And they blew it in a way that not only cost the Devils the season, but also Fitzgerald his job.
Hughes, who becomes a UFA at the end of next season, had made no secret that he wanted to play on a team with his two younger brothers someday. Maybe he'll still get that chance in 2027.
But rather than wait, the Devils could have already had him if they had only met the Canucks' price tag.
We don't know what the Devils had offered. More importantly, we don't know who they weren't willing to offer in a trade.
All we know is that at the end of the day, it was Minnesota Wild GM Bill Guerin whom Hughes credited for "sacking up" and delivering a bounty that included Zeev Buium, Marco Rossi, Liam Ohgren and a first-round pick for the 26-year-old defenseman.
"Billy was full-in," Hughes told reporters. "There were other teams that could have probably have thrown in certain packages too, but at the end of the day, they didn't want to do that… I'll remember that Billy did that."
Sometimes, it's the trades you don’t make that end up becoming the best ones. In this case, it was the one that the Devils didn't pull off that ended up costing them the most.
What would have the Devils have looked like had they acquired Hughes? Well, they probably would have been a lot closer to a playoff than they are today.
At the time of the trade, the Devils had a 17-13-1 record and were tied with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Montreal Canadiens for the eighth-most points in the in the Eastern Conference standings. The Wild, meanwhile, had the third-best record (17-9-5, 39 points) in the Central Division.
Since then, the two franchises have gone in completely different directions.
While the Wild remain the third-best team in the Central, having picked up points in 34 of 46 games, the Devils have dropped to 13th overall in the East, managing points in 25 of 46 games.
In Minnesota, Hughes has become everything that New Jersey needs right now.
The Norris Trophy candidate has 51 points in 45 games for the Wild, while logging an NHL-most 27:50 in ice time.
Brothers Quinn and Jack Hughes won gold together for Team USA at the Olympics in Milan. (Geoff Burke-Imagn Images)Teammates credit Hughes for making "us all better" at a time when the Wild are trying to take the next step and compete for a Stanley Cup.
It's the sort of position that New Jersey hoped to find itself in.
Instead, the Devils have now fired their GM and could be looking for a new coach in the off-season. From there, we'll see what other changes are made.
The team still has Jack Hughes under contract for four more years and Luke Hughes for another six years. Maybe, with a new GM coming in, there's still hope for a Hughes brothers' reunion.
If so, don't discount the idea of Jack or Luke one day deciding to join their older brother in Minnesota.
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