James Nichols
Brenden Dillon just called out the New Jersey Devils in public.
The 2025-26 season was nothing short of a failure. Dillon—a physical and vocal leader in New Jersey—explained it’s on every position from forwards, to defensemen, to goaltending.
“It was, it was a disappointing season, no matter how you cut it, for the Devils individually, as a team,” Dillon said in an interview on the latest Donnie and Dhali. “I mean, right on down from forwards to defense to goaltending. There’s a reason why we aren’t in playoffs, and I think that’s the key for us with with the roster makeup we do have is we’re built to win now.”
He went on to explain it should be a big summer for the returning players. A “look in the mirror moment” that will have the Devils come into the 2026-27 season with a chip on their shoulder.
Why?
Dillon feels the Devils have lost their playoff and championship threat credibility.
“We’re one of those teams that isn’t going to be taken serious next year because we weren’t in playoffs, and we’re just one of those 16 that was on the outside looking in, so that should piss us off.”
When asked about the latest Simon Nemec Devils trade rumors, Dillon went on to explain that outside distractions were a total problem for New Jersey in the 2025-26 season.
I enjoyed playing with [Nemec]. He’s got a bright future, between the offensive side of the puck, he wants the puck on a stick, he wants to be running a power play. We’ve got a lot of those guys here with between Dougie Hamilton and Luke Hughes, so you know that’s above my pay grade in the sense of those those decisions and how things are going to shake out.
“I feel like we had, unfortunately, a lot of those elephants in the room this year, that was just the reality of, ‘Is this guy upset because this guy’s got more ice time,” or “I should be playing where that guy’s playing,” or “I wish I was playing with that guy as my winger or D-partner.”
Dillon explained he hopes the Devils can get back on the same page next season with Sunny Mehta at the helm.
“It’s hard enough to win in this league when you’re healthy and when you’re just trying to beat the other team, let alone having other distractions going on. We just had way too many of those that hopefully, we’ll get the ship righted and can get back to the winning ways we need to be.”
There’s a reason there’s a new GM. The Devils let go of Tom Fitzgerald for a number of reasons. However, one of them is certainly the damage he did to the locker room in the middle of the season.
Amid his attempt to acquire Quinn Hughes from the Vancouver Canucks, a number of players in the locker room became disgriuntled along the way.
For instance, it became public when Fitzgerald asked both Ondrej Palat and Dougie Hamilton to waive their respective trade clauses.
That escalated when Hamilton had his situation go public when he was healthy scratch for “performance reason,” to which his agent explained the Devils were trying to force his hand at a trade.
Nemec was another name heavily rumored in that potential trade, as well as Dawson Mercer.
Ultimately, that situation resolved itself when Quinn was traded to the Minnesota Wild instead of New Jersey.
However, Nemec’s name popped up again in trade rumors at the 2026 NHL Trade Deadline while Fitzgerald was seeking a forward upgrade.
And those are just the problems we know surfaced.
Suffice to say, there’s a reason Fitzgerald is no longer running the Devils.
Once again, it’s not his mess, but Mehta has a big one to clean. And it looks like Dillon wants to assist in ensuring everyone returns to New Jersey with the right mindset in September.
