The New Jersey Devils have added another notable name to their first offseason under GM Sunny Mehta, and this one is aimed squarely at the future. Jessica Campbell, who spent the last two seasons as an assistant coach with the Seattle Kraken, has been hired as the team’s Manager of Player Development.
The move gives the Devils a new voice in a department that badly needs one. Their development pipeline has not produced enough payoff, with high-profile prospects like Alexander Holtz and Chase Stillman failing to become effective NHL players, along with several mid-round picks who never really took the next step.
Campbell steps into a system that has plenty of pressure on it. Important seasons are ahead for players such as Seamus Casey, Nico Daws, Anton Silayev, and Alexander Command, so the Devils were looking for someone who could help steer that group in the right direction.
Her appeal goes beyond the title. Campbell has built a reputation for focusing on the player as a person and tailoring her approach to whoever she is working with. That kind of flexibility can matter even more in development than in day-to-day coaching, where there is less room to adjust on the fly.
Even during her time on the Kraken bench, Campbell’s emphasis was on development. She spent two years in that role, and the source material notes that she has grown into knowing when difficult conversations are necessary and how to get more out of her players because of them.
Campbell left Seattle in April on her own to explore other coaching opportunities. When that didn’t immediately lead to another bench job, the expectation might have been that interest in the first female assistant coach in NHL history would be limited. Instead, the Devils moved to bring her in, and she now takes over a crucial part of the organization’s player pipeline.
The Devils also hired Bryan McCabe, though that move was set aside for separate coverage.
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Daws has been clear about the challenge in front of him, saying the only way forward is to earn it through hard work and steady play. That mindset matters in a camp where every performance is under the microscope, and Daws sounds confident he is ready to compete at the NHL level after the long grind that brought him here. [Read more 🡒]