Devils GM confirms big trades coming, calls out Jack Hughes personally

The New Jersey Devils held their locker room clean up and media availability session at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

GM Tom Fitzgerald fielded questions from reporters and was quite blunt and frank in his responses. When asked about his plans for the upcoming offseason, Fitzgerald made it clear that he'll be making some significant changes to his team. Put simply, the team's roster just isn't good enough to compete with the NHL's top teams and so Fitzgerald will be working hard to make meaningful roster changes this summer.

"I like our group, my job is to continue to better the group. And we've got a lot of decision to make on certain players, bringing guys back, trade players..."

Despite praising his group though, Fitzgerald confirmed that changes are coming.

"We won't be coming back with the same group. Because it was just not good enough."

In particlar, Fitzgerald called out star forward Jack Hughes after another injury plagued season.

"Jack knows the work that is ahead of him, strength-wise and body makeup," said Fitzgerald matter-of-factly.

Hughes has yet to play a full season in his six year NHL career due to ongoing injury problems. At just 5'11" and 170lbs, there's certainly some muscle that Hughes could be adding this upcoming offseason. He's an absolutely electrifying talent, but if he can't be counted on game in and game out because of poor conditioning or because he simply can't take the bumps and bruises of the NHL schedule, well then that's a real problem for this team moving forward.

As for the rest of the roster, Fitzgerald can simply walk away from pending UFA's Tomas Tatar, Nathan Bastian, Curtis Lazar, Brian Dumoulin and Jake Allen this offseason but bigger changes will require making bold trades. Could Fitzgerald go nuclear by shipping out Hughes?