Jacob Markström was home in Sweden, preparing for a Midsummer holiday celebration. Halfway across the world, on the phone in his office, New Jersey Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald was in the process of finalizing a trade with the Calgary Flames to alter the goalie’s hockey future.
Fitzgerald had been on a call with a different team with an available goalie earlier in the day, then re-engaged with Calgary on Markström. When he and Flames general manager Craig Conroy finally reached an agreement — Markström for defenseman Kevin Bahl and a 2025 first-round pick — Fitzgerald hung up and walked into a room full of staffers in the office.
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“I think we’re getting our goalie!” he told them.
Markström got word shortly before going to bed. After that, he says, “It was a little tough to sleep.”
The next day, the deal was finalized. New Jersey had filled its most glaring need of the offseason.
It was only the beginning of Fitzgerald’s moves. After hiring former Toronto Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe in May and snagging Markström in June, he set out to improve the defensive group and add grit. By summer’s end, he accomplished both. The Devils roster, weakened by free-agency departures and injuries last season, once again looks like it can contend for a playoff spot — and maybe more.
Fitzgerald’s aggressive moves are the reason. If they pay off, it could be the defining summer of his tenure.
Read: The Athletic’s preseason NHL player poll.
This wasn’t a quick fix. The groundwork for the Devils’ offseason was laid more than six months before Fitzgerald got to work on the 2024-25 roster.
When the Flames were in Toronto for a matchup with the Maple Leafs on Nov. 10, agent Patrick Morris — who represents Markström and is based in the Toronto area — met with Conroy. There had been telling signs about the Flames’ direction. In June 2023, they had traded Tyler Toffoli to the Devils, and Conroy hadn’t reached extensions with pending unrestricted free agents Elias Lindholm, Noah Hanafin and Nikita Zadorov.
The Flames, who have an up-and-coming goalie in Dustin Wolf, looked like a team building for the future.
“It was clear that they were going a different path,” Morris says. “Why have Jacob be there for a team that was going to unload everybody?”
With a no-movement clause in his contract, Markström had the right to block any deal. Morris told Conroy on that day in November they could work together. As the agent, he could get a sense of teams Markström would accept a trade to.
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The Devils were a favorite on that list. They needed a goalie — Vitek Vanecek and Akira Schmid had struggled to start the season — and Markström liked their young core of players and had a pre-existing relationship with Scott Clemmensen, the team’s director of goaltending development and his former teammate on the Panthers.
“He basically picked New Jersey pretty early in the process and was fixated on New Jersey all last year,” Morris says. “It didn’t just come up at the trade deadline. There were behind-the-scenes, lengthy discussions in December, January and February.”
Calgary went on a mid-February road trip through New York and New Jersey, and speculation ramped up. A deal never came together, though, and in early March, Markström expressed frustration publicly with his situation, telling reporters, “I think it could’ve been handled a lot different from up top,” referring to upper management.
By the time the deadline passed, Lindholm and Zadorov were both Vancouver Canucks, Hanafin was a Vegas Golden Knight and Markström was … a Calgary Flame. He had finality, meaning the noise would quiet for the rest of the season, but he was disappointed.
“There were offers made back and forth, but nothing of substance to be quite honest,” Fitzgerald says. “We felt we made a really fair offer at the deadline — picks and prospects. I would say I really felt there was something in the works prior to that, but it didn’t happen.”
With Markström signed through 2025-26, the Flames didn’t have the same urgency to trade him as their pending unrestricted free agents. Hoping to leverage Markström’s strong first half of the season, Calgary seemed to want to get premium pieces back — perhaps Dawson Mercer — if it was going to accept a deal before the deadline.
The Devils didn’t offer enough to get the deal done. But Fitzgerald did put himself in position to make an offseason splash. He unloaded Vanecek’s cap hit ($3.4 million through 2024-25) at the deadline, trading him to the San Jose Sharks for Kaapo Kahkonen, whose contract would come off the books after the season. That opened cap space for the summer.
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Fitzgerald was not shy about his intentions: He told reporters he wanted to go “big-game hunting” for a goalie after the season. The Vanecek trade gave him more cap space to do so. He also added veteran goalie Jake Allen, a proven backup previously with the Montreal Canadiens and St. Louis Blues.
Fitzgerald’s next task was finding the No. 1, and he still had his eyes on Markström.
The Devils had leverage for the next wave of talks with the Flames. Yes, Conroy knew New Jersey needed a goalie and wanted Markström, but there were other starters on the market, including 2023 Vezina winner Linus Ullmark, who was eventually traded from the Boston Bruins to the Ottawa Senators.
Fitzgerald used the number of available netminders to his advantage, saying he talked to “as many teams as possible” to leverage the Devils’ situation.
Still, there was some urgency to the Devils’ pursuit. Aside from goaltending being a glaring hole on a roster full of young talent, Fitzgerald wanted to know how much salary-cap space he’d have to make other moves in free agency. He says he would have been willing to take Markström’s whole $6 million cap hit at the deadline — he’d have had time to adjust the books accordingly — but by the offseason, that option was gone.
“Once the deadline came and went, I was adamant there was going to be a reduction in his salary,” he says.
Though Morris says Markström never strayed from wanting to be in New Jersey, the goalie began to open his mind to other possibilities early in the summer. “There were more teams interested,” Markström says.
The Devils remained the prime fit, though.
With Calgary and New Jersey’s seasons complete, Fitzgerald re-engaged in talks with Conroy during the playoffs. The worst-case scenario for Conroy was other teams making moves before him, then Calgary ending up without a landing spot for a goalie who wanted out. The Flames deemed it time to make the trade, even if the return was less than they originally envisioned.
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Conroy accepted the Devils’ offer, and on June 19 it was announced. Fitzgerald sent them a top-10-protected 2025 first-round pick, as well as the 24-year-old Bahl, who is a massive 6-foot-6 and played all 82 games in 2023-24. Though the defenseman is not a blue-chip prospect, Conroy sees him as a potential Zadorov-type with team control.
Notably, the Devils did not give up their 2024 first-round pick, No. 10, which Fitzgerald says he would not have traded for a goalie. With the pick, the Devils selected 6-foot-7 defenseman Anton Silayev, who is currently playing in the KHL and ranks second in Corey Pronman’s rankings of New Jersey’s under-23 players.
“How do you replace a 6-foot-6 defenseman? You can’t,” Fitzgerald says. “Unless you pick (the replacement) 10th overall!”
Back in his home state of Michigan for the summer, forward Paul Cotter was having a rough round of golf on June 29 when his phone rang. Golden Knights general manager Kelly McCrimmon was on the line, telling him the team had made a move at the NHL Draft. Cotter, a bottom-six forward who had 25 points in 2023-24, was going to New Jersey.
“I didn’t end up finishing (golfing),” says Cotter, who was on the 12th hole. “I think I was shaking the rest of the round. I was just flying around in the cart making calls.”
Alexander Holtz, the No. 7 pick in the 2020 draft, went to Vegas in the deal. Holtz played all 82 games in 2023-24, his first full NHL season. He scored a respectable 16 goals. He also got benched on multiple occasions, putting his future with the club in question.
Fitzgerald has a good relationship with Holtz’s agent, and they talked about the young player’s situation. The GM didn’t want the 22-year-old playing on the fourth line, and he wasn’t sure there was a fit for him in the top nine.
“I was holding out hope that it would click with him,” Fitzgerald says. “We’re not in the hope business. We’ve accelerated the process. I don’t want to waste any more of our top players’ years away.”
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Holtz’s agent agreed a trade could be in both parties’ interests. Fitzgerald started assessing what he could get in return. The Golden Knights offered Cotter, who is 6-foot-2 with physicality and some scoring touch. New Jersey’s staff liked him; Fitzgerald says he could play a similar role to Miles Wood, who left for the Colorado Avalanche in free agency last summer. Plus Cotter is set to make only $775,000 each of the next two seasons.
New Jersey also sent Schmid to Vegas in the deal and got back a 2023 third-round pick.
Fitzgerald knows the trade is a risk.
“I know on paper what it looks like, but I’m trying to help build a team that can actually withstand the heavy teams in the league and play a different style — play any style, quite honestly,” he says.
That wasn’t Fitzgerald’s only trade at the draft. He also shipped John Marino and a fifth-round pick to Utah for a pair of second-rounders. Marino, who has a $4.4 million cap hit, has averaged more than 20 minutes per game all five seasons of his career and has proven himself as a solid contributor on playoff-level teams.
The rationale was simple: Fitzgerald needed to clear space. He had his eyes on bigger targets.
In the hours after the Carolina Hurricanes’ season ended at the hands of the New York Rangers, Brett Pesce’s dad, Brian, sent out a series of tweets thanking Canes fans. He said he’d miss them and posted that he’d visit Raleigh when Brett, a pending free agent, was on a different team.
There was one issue: His son still wanted to stay and had made no decisions about his future.
“You can only laugh now,” Brett Pesce says.
Though posted at an inopportune time, Pesce’s father perhaps knew best. Carolina’s extension offers never got to the range Pesce wanted.
Pesce is from Tarrytown, New York, where he grew up a Rangers fan. The chance to play in the New York area was appealing to him — “I don’t know if I’ll ever leave this area,” he says — and the Devils emerged as a frontrunner once Carolina was out of the picture. Reports leaked ahead of free agency connecting Fitzgerald to the 29-year-old, who has twice appeared on Norris Trophy ballots and has averaged more than 21 minutes of ice time per game over his career.
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“Once I saw they traded John Marino, I was like, ‘Oh wow, this could become real,'” Pesce says.
Sure enough, in the hours after free agency opened July 1, Pesce agreed to a six-year contract with a $5.5 million cap hit. To help with their salary-cap situation, the Devils structured the deal in a way that made Pesce comfortable with a slightly lower average annual value than he perhaps could’ve gotten elsewhere. He has a no-trade clause for the first three years, plus a 15-team no-trade list for the final three. His camp also negotiated large signing bonuses early in the contract ($5 million in 2024-25 and $4 million in 2025-26 on top of a $2 million base salary both years) so he could get more money up front.
In an attempt to avoid thinking too much about his future, Pesce worked out the morning of free agency. Defenseman Brenden Dillon, also a free agent this summer, took the same approach.
“I tried to be a hero,” Dillon jokes. “I think it might’ve been worse because the guys in the gym were like, ‘Where are you signing today?'”
The 33-year-old Dillon spent the past three seasons in Winnipeg, where he had a plus-38 rating and played in the postseason the past two years. A few weeks before free agency, he came to terms with potentially not returning. That’s when he started considering the Devils, a team with youth, talent and a role he felt he could play.
When rumors Pesce might sign in New Jersey emerged heading into free agency, Dillon started thinking about the team’s potential defensive pairs. A left-shot defenseman, he liked the idea of potentially partnering with Dougie Hamilton, promising youngster Simon Nemec or Pesce, all of whom play on the right side.
Dillon wanted a deal between two and four years for around the same AAV ($3.9 million) as his most recent contract. When his agent started talking with New Jersey about a three-year deal, the Devils offered around a $3.8 million AAV, and Dillon’s agent asked for around $4.25 million, the defenseman says. The two sides met between those numbers: Dillon signed for three years at a $4 million AAV.
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“From there, I was just super pumped,” Dillon says. “There were offers that had a little bit more money. There were a couple offers that had a fourth year.”
In Dillon’s eyes, there are different ways to approach free agency. Some players focus on making the most money possible. Others look at optimizing their fit with a coach or roster. And some focus solely on where they can win.
“For myself, I haven’t won yet,” Dillon says. “I really do value being a part of something special.”
As active as the Devils’ offseason was, there’s a world in which it could have been even flashier.
“I was in on the Steven Stamkos thing right until the end,” Fitzgerald says.
Heading into free agency, Fitzgerald got a call from Don Meehan, who represents Stamkos. The future Hall of Famer was headed to market, unable to come to terms with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Stamkos had identified New Jersey as a team he could help, Fitzgerald remembers Meehan saying.
“Then you start looking at the pieces,” Fitzgerald says. “There was no way we could’ve done what he got, but we stayed in the fight.”
Ultimately, Stamkos signed a four-year, $8 million AAV deal with Nashville. The Devils, who currently have less than $6 million in cap space and still need to sign Mercer, a restricted free agent, would have had to make trades to come close to that. The chances of actually landing Stamkos were always slim, but for Fitzgerald, the fact he was interested felt good.
Though Fitzgerald would’ve made an exception for a player like Stamkos — “When you get that phone call, you’ve got to take it,” he says — he didn’t view adding skill to the top six as a priority. The Devils already have that with players like Jack Hughes, Timo Meier, Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt.
Instead, Fitzgerald spent the rest of free agency adding complementary pieces to his forward group.
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Stefan Noesen, a former Devils forward coming off a career-high 37-point season, fit the bill. He had five teams offer him a contract after he couldn’t reach an extension with the Carolina Hurricanes, his agent Wade Arnott says.
Fitzgerald views Noesen as someone who can play up and down the lineup, contribute on special teams and bring some snarl to the lineup.
“He’s not a sexy player, but we believe he’s the right player for what we need,” the general manager says.
During negotiations with Noesen, Fitzgerald had the forward hop on the phone with Keefe. The two had overlapped in Toronto, and the call further sold Noesen on New Jersey. After finalizing a three-year, $2.75 million AAV deal, Noesen spoke with Fitzgerald.
“We’ve kind of been bumped around a little bit, and I’m very excited,” he remembers the manager saying. “I’ve got you, I’ve got Dillon, I’ve got (Kurtis MacDermid). I’ve got some good, heavy, big, physical-presence guys who can help us and guide us.”
Fitzgerald’s goal was to make his team harder to play against. By the end of July 1, he believed he accomplished that.
New Jersey also reunited with Tomáš Tatar, who had 20 goals and 48 points for the Devils in 2022-23. Tatar struggled this past season after signing a one-year deal with the Avalanche and ultimately finished the year with the Seattle Kraken. He told his agent that if New Jersey was interested, he’d love to go back. The Devils, who believe he can get back to his 2022-23 level, signed him for $1.8 million.
That capped Fitzgerald’s early-offseason transactions — ones that leave the roster looking far different from the team that missed the playoffs this past season.
“I look on paper,” Tatar says, “(and) the team looks very scary.”
(Top graphic: Meech Robinson / The Athletic, with photos of Jacob Markström, Tom Fitzgerald and Brett Pesce from Josh Lavallee, Andrew Mordzynski and Derek Cain / Getty Images)
