Devils Won’t Retain Dan MacKinnon, Chuck Fletcher
The Devils will not renew the contracts of assistant general manager Dan MacKinnon or senior advisor Chuck Fletcher for next season, the team announced Friday.
They’re the first changes instituted in New Jersey’s front office by Sunny Mehta, who was tapped as the franchise’s sixth general manager in team history last month after they fired Tom Fitzgerald 10 days prior. The moves, of course, come after the Devils limped to the finish line for their sixth playoff miss in the last eight years.
Mehta, who was hired without a president of hockey operations as oversight, will officially have virtually unfettered reign with Fletcher no longer serving as essentially a GM emeritus on staff. The 59-year-old had been working with Fitzgerald over the last two seasons after being fired as GM of the Flyers in 2023.
It likely won’t take very long for Fletcher to find some type of work if he wants to stay in the league. A Stanley Cup winner as the assistant GM of the Penguins in 2009, Fletcher has consistently worked in the league in some capacity since being tapped as an AGM for the Panthers at their point of inception in 1993. He got his first GM gig on an interim basis with Florida in 2001-02 before re-emerging as GM of the Wild from 2009-18 and again with the Flyers from 2018-23. Between jobs, he was an AGM with Anaheim and Pittsburgh while being in charge of their respective AHL franchises.
MacKinnon has had significantly more of a day-to-day impact in New Jersey in recent years. The 51-year-old also has oodles of experience, first joining the Predators as their director of scouting back in 2000. He was picked up by the Penguins in a similar role in 2007 – working with Fletcher there – and was part of their 2009 and 2016 wins before joining New Jersey as their director of player personnel. MacKinnon’s tenure, which began under Ray Shero’s administration, saw him promoted to AGM and senior VP of hockey ops in 2019, both titles he held up until today, before adding AHL GMing responsibilities in 2021.
It’s not clear what replacements, if any, Mehta intends to bring in yet. His inner circle now consists of executive vice president Martin Brodeur, advisor Andy Greene, and AGM Kate Madigan.
Metro Notes: MacKinnon, Nedeljkovic, Rosen
Although the Edmonton Oilers ultimately decided on Stan Bowman to fill their general manager vacancy, we now know of another candidate who was close to capturing the role. Originally reported by Elliotte Friedman on his ’32 Thoughts’ podcast and later extrapolated by James Nichols of NJ Hockey Now, New Jersey Devils assistant general manager Dan MacKinnon was very close to becoming the next GM for the Oilers.
MacKinnon began his executive career in 2000-01 for the Nashville Predators as the director of scouting before transitioning to the position of pro scout until the 2005-06 season. He would spend one year as a pro scout for the Pittsburgh Penguins before becoming the team’s director of professional scouting and then director of player personnel until 2015-16. Since his first year with the Penguins organization in 2006-07, MacKinnon has followed Devils’ GM Tom Fitzgerald the rest of the way.
He has spent the last four years as AGM in New Jersey with most of his responsibilities focused around the organization’s AHL affiliate, the Utica Comets. Coupled with this report, and MacKinnon being one of the finalists for the Penguins’ GM vacancy a year ago, it appears that MacKinnon is looking to detach himself from Fitzgerald and craft his own team.
Other Metro notes:
- Whatever controversy surrounds the crease for the Penguins this year won’t be generated by either of the respective netminders. After agreeing to a two-year, $5MM extension earlier this summer, Alex Nedeljkovic spoke to local media and said, “[Jarry] was one of the first ones to text me when I re-signed, to say congrats and welcome back and, ‘Looking forward to getting back at it together‘”. Nedeljkovic did not indicate if he had his eyes set on the starting job in Pittsburgh. Nevertheless, he’s earned an opportunity for a goaltending battle out of camp with Tristan Jarry after nearly willing the Penguins into the playoffs last year with an 8-1-2 record down the stretch and a .902 save percentage.
- Longtime play-by-play announcer for the New York Rangers, Sam Rosen, is set to retire after the 2024-25 NHL season according to Dan Rosen of the NHL. Rosen began his career as a backup radio host with the Rangers for the 1977-78 season and saw the organization win their first Stanley Cup in over 50 years. The Rangers will have some big shoes to fill when the current longest-serving, Hall of Fame announcer hangs them up at the end of the year.