Devils GM Drops Stunning Update on Dougie Hamilton

We all knew that the New Jersey Devils were going to be without Dougie Hamilton for "an extended time" due to an injury suffered last week. But now GM Tom Fitzgerald has dropped a bomb that fans might not have been expecting:

Hamilton is out for the rest of the season, and quite likely the playoffs, a tidbit that the GM just dropped into the conversation on the Krackin' Canuckleheads podcast.

“You’re never going to replace a Jack Hughes,” said Fitzgerald. “Then Dougie Hamilton goes down and you lose him for the rest of the year and possibly playoffs. You’re looking at committee."

#NJDevils GM Tom Fitzgerald says Dougie Hamilton's regular season is over—and he didn’t sound too optimistic about a playoff return either. "This is what we have," he said on @simmerpuck's Krackin' Canuckleheads podcast. pic.twitter.com/ghj5JVfeUv
— Mark Fischer (@MarkFischerNY) March 13, 2025

Hamilton's regular season is definitely over. And Fitzgerald didn't exactly make it sound like he'd be back in the playoffs either.

"It'll go (at least) into the second round... There's a possibility (he could return sometime around then, but)... We're not planning on it, how's that?"

It's yet another blow in a disastrous stretch for the Devils, who've lost three key players over the last little while for the rest of the season.

In the span of a month the Devils have lost 3 very important players for the season:

- Jack Hughes
- Jonas Siegenthaler
- Dougie Hamilton

It doesn’t get much unlucky than that for the Devils…
— Devils Fanatics (@devilsfanatics) March 13, 2025

The Jack Hughes void is an impossible one to replace up front, as Fitzgerald noted, and the Hamilton and Siegenthaler injuries leave the blueline severely diminished.

The team was able to bring in Brian Dumoulin and Dennis Cholowski at the trade deadline, but they will not be able to fully replace what's been lost.

As for Hamilton, this is the second straight season that's ended far sooner than they would have liked. He only played 20 games in 2023-24, and now just 63 games. He's had just one fully healthy season in the last six years. There are still three years left on his contract at a $9 million AAV.