Devils shake up front office after 21st-place finish, part ways with Dan MacKinnon and Chuck Fletcher
The New Jersey Devils confirmed Friday afternoon they will not renew the contracts of assistant GMs Dan MacKinnon and Chuck Fletcher.
The announcement landed at 4:30 PM, hours after a season that ended with the team 21st in the league standings.
That's the part fans should sit with. When ownership cleans out the second floor, somebody upstairs decided the foundation is the problem.
The numbers behind the move are uncomfortable. New Jersey finished 42-37-3 with 87 points, a minus-24 goal differential, and a 0-4 loss in Boston to close it out.
That roster was built to challenge in the Metro. Instead it landed seventh in the division and watched the Atlantic teams race past it.
Sheldon Keefe inherits the fallout from a front-office reset
Sheldon Keefe just finished his first full season behind the New Jersey bench. He was hired in May 2024, brought in to push this group deeper.
A 21-20-0 road record and a 21-17-3 home mark do not scream contender. They scream average, on a roster paid to be much more than that.
What we do know is that 230 goals scored is a brutal number for a team with this skill on paper. Goals against ticked up to 254. Both lines moved the wrong way.
Friday's release used the words "Changes to Front Office." That phrasing is corporate. The message underneath is not.
Two men were told their work wasn't good enough.
The next move is the one that matters. Replacement hires, free-agent targets, and whatever Keefe wants from his roster will tell us if this purge was real change or theater dressed up like change.
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YESTERDAY
APRIL 30, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Quinn Hughes | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Leo Carlsson | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Chris Kreider | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Troy Terry | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Matthew Boldy | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Cutter Gauthier | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Mavrik Bourque | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Wyatt Johnston | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Connor Murphy | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Vasily Podkolzin | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Ryan Poehling | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Vladimir Tarasenko | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Michael Bunting | - | 1 | 1 | |
| John Carlson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Colton Dach | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Leon Draisaitl | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Matt Duchene | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Brock Faber | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Marcus Foligno | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Kasperi Kapanen | - | 1 | 1 | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||