Going back to the offseason, there has been varying degrees of smoke around the future of New Jersey Devils defenseman Dougie Hamilton. Entering the fifth year of a seven-year, $63m contract he signed back in 2021, Hamilton’s play and physical health were starting to decline. So much so that apparently Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald saw fit to shop him over the summer. Nothing came of those explorations, and so New Jersey entered 2025-26 with Hamilton on their roster.
Fast forward to this past
weekend, and we appear to be entering the endgame with Hamilton and the Devils. Thanks almost entirely to Fitzgerald’s alarming incompetence at managing the roster and salary cap, New Jersey was unable to accommodate the impending return of Johnny Kovacevic both on the ice and on the books. The issue of the salary cap was resolved with Stefan Noesen undergoing knee surgery and being placed on LTIR, and Zack MacEwen following him there with ACL surgery.
As for the logjam on the blueline? Apparently Fitzgerald and head coach Sheldon Keefe decided it was Hamilton who needed to hit the press box. This prompted a lot of speculation and a lot of actual responses. First, from Hamilton’s agent:
“Dougie was informed today that he will be not be playing now that Kovacevic is back in the lineup. In our view, this decision is all about business rather than his game right now. Singling him out seems very calculated at this stage. Dougie has a 10-team trade list and there have been efforts to trade him going back to the draft last year. We have made it clear to the Devils that we will consider teams outside our list and other creative ways to get to a team that is mutually acceptable.”
It’s unusual to see statements this fiery, even from player agents, who are generally more prone to quotes like this one. This would have been juicy enough, but Fitzgerald saw fit to throw more gasoline on the fire with a statement of his own to the same reporter:
“As you know, we just put Nemec back in the lineup on Thursday. He’s a young guy who we want getting his game back, where he had been easily our best defensemen before his injury. Pesce’s play speaks for itself, he isn’t going anywhere. And Kovacevic coming back, gives our roster a spark we are looking for, and he was our best defensive defenseman all of last year. And that’s what we want with our lineup now. This is simply Dougie being the odd-man out with where our right-side is- fully healthy for the first time all year. This is business. Business of our lineup!”
This is a story for another day, but just a quick aside here: Am I the only one who is profoundly annoyed by Fitzgerald disappearing whenever things are going bad, but taking victory laps with his national media cronies whenever things are going well? The only other time we see him make a public statement is when he feels the need to get in front of a story like this one. I’m not saying he needs to hold press conferences every week, but it’s such a gutless move for him to be such a frontrunner in the media during good times, then duck when things get bad.
Anyway, what a mess this is. And it really, really, REALLY didn’t have to be this way. There were a ton of off-ramps for Fitzgerald to take that didn’t involve alienating a top defenseman and popular player in the locker room, but Fitzgerald decided to barrel straight ahead into the danger zone anyway. It’s a masterclass in roster mismanagement, salary cap mismanagement, and public relations mismanagement. Other than that, things couldn’t have gone better for Fitzgerald and the Devils.
To attempt to be fair about this, here is at least one defense of Fitzgerald: While it may be frustrating to Fitzgerald (and, to be fair, a portion of Devils fans) that Hamilton refuses to waive his modified no-trade clause to help New Jersey clear their blueline and books, I don’t think anyone with a brain in their head or empathy in their heart actually blames Hamilton for this. He negotiated a modified NTC in his contract, and so it is absolutely his right to exercise it as he sees fit. Good on Hamilton for not just rolling over to help a bad general manager bail himself out of a mess he created. But you know what that means? That means the opposite is true as well. While you can’t fault Hamilton for using his weapon (the modified NTC) to get what he wants, I think it’s reasonable to not blame management for using their own weapon (healthy scratches) to get what they want. It’s a business, and this business can be ruthless sometimes, and Hamilton and his agent should expect the Devils’ front office to fight fire with fire.
But that’s the only defense of Fitzgerald I’ll offer, and I don’t even agree with it fully. Even if it’s fair for Fitzgerald and Keefe to healthy scratch Hamilton in an attempt to get him to waive his NTC, it’s been a comedy of unforced errors that got us to this point. Not to mention, even though Hamilton’s contract is the most bloated, I personally think he’s been among the least of the Devils’ problems on the blueline this season. According to Hockey Stat Cards, Hamilton actually leads New Jersey defensemen in average Game Score. Meanwhile, old friend CJ Turtoro has seen fit to point out that Hamilton appears not to be the problem on defense either. Others are bringing up the fact that while he is not bringing what he should bring to the table offensively, a large part of that is weirdly tough defensive usage, to say nothing of the fact that Hamilton is actually doing reasonably well in that usage.
Why not do this with Ondrej Palat? He’s another player that has smoke around him as far as a trade goes, but not anywhere close to as much as with Hamilton. Palat is only making two-thirds what Hamilton is, but he’s been FAR less than two-thirds as valuable as Hamilton, so the bang for the buck favors Hamilton. Why isn’t Palat getting the healthy scratch treatment? It makes no sense.
I have to admit, I did advocate for Hamilton to get banished to the scratch suite in my game recap of the 9-0 disaster against the Islanders, so I might come across as a hypocrite for bemoaning Hamilton’s benching here. But in my defense, that was made in a completely emotional state of mind after one of the worst embarrassments I’ve ever seen the Devils put together, AND I also said that Palat should be benched right alongside him. I just wanted change, I was disgusted at everything, and I thought something needed to be done about it. In retrospect, Hamilton did not deserve to be put in the same category as Palat.
In any case, whether you like how this has all unfolded or not, it really does appear that we are reaching the end of the road with Hamilton in New Jersey. Is it possible something wild happens that gets Hamilton back on the ice and keeps him in New Jersey until the end of his contract? Sure, stranger things have happened. But we have to admit it’s highly unlikely at this point. So since we are presumably nearing the end, I figured it was time to look back on Hamilton’s tenure in the Garden State. The highs, the lows, and everything in between.
Let’s take a look at what Dougie Hamilton has done as a New Jersey Devil:
The Big Fish Was Reeled In
Let’s begin, well, at the beginning. Dougie Hamilton was by far the biggest free agent in the class of 2021. Hamilton had spent the prior three seasons in Carolina, where he put up 121 points in 184 games, while finishing 14th, seventh, and fourth in Norris trophy voting in his three seasons there. Hamilton was an elite defensemen during his time with the Hurricanes, and it was his time to be paid like one. Meanwhile, the Devils were still in the depths of a rebuild. They had some promising young pieces like Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, and Jesper Bratt, and they just added another one in the draft with Luke Hughes. So while one could dream about a brighter future, that day had not arrived quite yet.
That’s when Hamilton chose the Devils. A seven-year, $63m contract brought him to New Jersey.
It really cannot be understated just how big a deal it was for Hamilton to sign with the Devils. As a smaller market team in the shadow of New York, this has never been a popular free agent destination. Not that it was a toxic location that free agents actively avoided, just that the big fish almost always chose elsewhere. Well, Hamilton was the biggest fish, and he chose New Jersey. It was borderline unprecedented for this franchise. Seriously, thinking back on it, the last “big” free agent to sign with the Devils might be Will Butcher. I know you might laugh reading that now, but dial your mind back to 2017. Butcher was the hottest college free agent to hit the market in a long time after not reaching an agreement with the team that drafted him, the Colorado Avalanche. Plenty of teams wanted him, and he landed on the Devils as his preferred destination. It was genuinely a big deal at the time.
But it was nowhere close to Hamilton’s signing. So if that was the bar, it was a very low bar, and Hamilton cleared it by miles. In hindsight, Hamilton signing here did not lead to a slew of top free agents coming to New Jersey. Then again not many truly elite players hit the market each year, so I suppose it’s possible that if more of them got to free agency, at least one of them would also have signed with the Devils in part thanks to Hamilton. But Hamilton’s signing definitely made the Devils a much more appealing destination, helping their reputation across the league. As we write Hamilton’s story in the wake of his seemingly imminent departure, we must remember to include in that story the fact that his signing in New Jersey changed things for this franchise for the better.
By The Numbers
Hamilton was signed in New Jersey to produce points and generate offense (AKA, advanced stats). How did he fare in that regard? We’ll start with basic point production:
As of this writing, Hamilton ranks fifth all-time among Devils defensemen in goals, 11th in assists, ninth in points, and his 74 points in 2022-23 is the second-most points in a single season by a defenseman in franchise history behind only Scott Stevens’ 78 in 1993-94. In a franchise known for their legendary defensemen, Hamilton climbed the offensive ranks very quickly. His 170 points in 268 games comes out to a point per game pace of approximately 0.63, which is almost dead on from his high-flying Carolina days where he averaged 0.66 points per game.
And what about the advanced numbers, how did they turn out? For that we turn to Natural Stat Trick (all numbers 5-on-5):
Take a look at those numbers. Hamilton never – NEVER – dipped below breakeven at any point in his Devils tenure. It was a clean sweep. Yes, some of those numbers were a little too close to 50% for a $9m-defenseman, but at the very least Hamilton could say he always drove possession in a positive way in New Jersey.
It wasn’t a perfect Devils career, but Hamilton was a relentless producer in red and black.
The Highs Were Extremely High
We just went over Hamilton’s entire Devils career, but what about Hamilton at his absolute peak?
Well, put simply, Hamilton at his best was truly something special.
I would consider the 2022-23 season to be “Hamilton at his best”. It was the only season in which he played all 82 games as a Devil, and boy did he deliver. He scored 22 goals in the regular season, the most by a defenseman since the team moved to New Jersey, and tied for the lead in the entire franchise’s history with Barry Beck’s 22 goals for the 1977-78 Colorado Rockies. As mentioned, his 74 points that season stands as the second-best mark in franchise history by a defenseman. As you can see in the charts above, it wasn’t just empty-calory scoring either. Hamilton was tilting the ice in a huge way that season. On a team of major producers, Hamilton played a leading role on a Devils team that reached 112 points, the most in franchise history.
And then, on April 22, 2023, Hamilton produced inarguably his biggest moment as a Devil:
Down 2-0 in the series after getting blown out in games 1 and 2, the Devils faced a must-win in enemy territory. It was a hard-fought battle late into the night, and Hamilton came up clutch with the overtime game-winner. He, along with Akira Schmid’s heroics, ignited the Devils’ comeback in that series, which culminated in a seven-game series win over their bitter rivals. It remains the high point of Tom Fitzgerald’s tenure.
Forget being worth his $9m price tag, Hamilton was an absolute bargain in 2022-23. It was perhaps the single greatest defenseman season this franchise has seen since Scott Niedermayer’s Norris Trophy-winning campaign of 2003-04. New Jersey does not set a franchise record with 112 points and defeat the Rangers in the first round without Hamilton being one of the best defensemen in the NHL that year.
The Dreaded Injury Bug
But of course, the one major negative of Hamilton’s time in New Jersey has been his struggle to stay healthy. That magical 2022-23 season? Sadly it was his only fully healthy campaign in a Devils sweater. He did stay mostly healthy in 2021-22 and 2024-25, but he still missed around 25% of each of those campaigns, which is a big chunk of the year. I suppose he was mostly staying healthy this season as well, but he did miss time earlier in the year, and it’s not like this season was shaping up to be anything special either with a meager 10 points in 40 games.
The biggest disappointment to me was the 2023-24 campaign. As we all know now, that season was a massive failure from everybody, as the Devils followed up their record-setting 2022-23 by missing the playoffs altogether. Horrible goaltending was a major factor in that, but another was the ridiculous injury luck the Devils endured. Dougie Hamilton was one of those injuries, suffering a torn pectoral muscle 20 games into the campaign. He did not play again that season. It was such a shame, as he was in the midst of posting another stellar season, basically in line with 2022-23 as far as point production and play-driving. This while getting inexplicably bumped off the top power play unit for a rookie Luke Hughes, which made it even more impressive.
Upon returning at the beginning of 2024-25, he was an effective player, but not quite the same. It’s hard to tell if there was a direct correlation, but post-pec injury, Hamilton’s shot (one of his best tools) took a big step back. In his previous two seasons with New Jersey, Hamilton’s shooting percentage stood at 8.0%. Since his pec injury, he’s been shooting at a a 4.8% clip, a huge drop.
To be fair, it doesn’t appear that the injury has affected the power on his shot though. According to NHL Edge, Hamilton’s hardest shot sat in the 86th percentile in 2021-22, 87th percentile in 2022-23, down to the 73rd percentile in 2023-24, back up to the 86th percentile in 2024-25, and he’s down to the 77th percentile this season. If we didn’t see him get right back to his peak in 2024-25, I would put more stock in the theory that his torn pec has contributed to his shot slowing down this year. But even if the power on his shot wasn’t altered, it seems his accuracy was. It’s been unfortunate watching Hamilton struggle to hit the net the past couple seasons, as it was something he was so good at prior to 2024-25.
The injuries sadly piled up for Hamilton. He has played 268 of a possible 372 (I’m not counting his healthy scratch) games, which comes out to about 72%. That’s an 82-game pace of about 59 games per season. Certainly not what you want out of a prized free agent signing and the highest-paid member of your team.
Final Thoughts And Your Take
There’s a reason I titled this piece “Soaring Highs and Unfulfilled Promise”. When I think of the absolute best of Dougie Hamilton, I think of a defenseman that could do things that very, very few others could do. His offensive IQ and playmaking were out of this world, his shot was lethal (I might argue he’s the best pure shooter the Devils have had since Ilya Kovalchuk), he was underrated defensively, and whenever he was on the ice, the puck had a habit of usually being in the opponent’s end. He was fearless. He would fire his shot from anywhere on the ice and ask questions later. He ended opponent’s possessions and got the puck moving back up the ice in the blink of an eye. Prime Dougie Hamilton soared with the New Jersey Devils.
But I also can’t help but feel sad at what could have been. What if Hamilton had been able to stay consistently healthy? What if the Devils didn’t get away from what made them special in 2022-23? What if Tom Fitzgerald didn’t mangle the roster and cap sheet so horribly that he forced himself to take extreme measures with one of his best players? Hamilton deserves some blame for the decline of the Devils since 2022-23, as his injuries and declining play (even if he’s still been reasonably effective) have played a role. But I’m of the opinion that Hamilton deserved much better than this.
If Tom Fitzgerald is actually able to trade Hamilton, I have no doubt it will be for pennies on the dollar. And if Hamilton goes to a team with a GM that actually has a clue and a coach that actually knows how to deploy him properly, don’t be surprised to see him “miraculously” find his game again. Hamilton may very well play games for New Jersey again. Injuries and other benchings are possible after all. But even if he does, it really does feel like we are close to the end of the road here.
If this is it for Dougie Hamilton in New Jersey, it’s been a fun and frustrating ride. I’ll be rooting for Hamilton wherever he goes next.
What do you think of this whole saga? What about Hamilton’s career in New Jersey? Aside from the overtime goal against the Rangers, what do you think is Hamilton’s second-best moment as a Devil? As always, thanks for reading.
