State of the Devils
After functioning as one of the model franchises in the NHL with five Stanley Cup Final appearances and three titles between the years of 1995 and 2012, the New Jersey Devils have finally fallen back to Earth. Father Time finally grounded Martin Brodeur, considered by many to be the greatest goaltender in the history of the NHL.
The sudden and stunning departures of the franchise’s cornerstone forwards—first Zach Parise to his hometown Minnesota Wild and then Ilya Kovalchuk to his Russian homeland’s KHL—left the Devils devoid of scoring punch with no trade return to show for either devastating loss.
Ultimately, New Jersey fell apart at the seams, missing the playoffs for three consecutive seasons for the first time since longtime GM/executive legend Lou Lamoriello built the organization from the joke of the NHL into a perennial playoff contender back in the 1980s.
The Devils opened the 2014-15 season with the oldest roster in the NHL and proceeded to play like it, struggling to score goals and wasting a terrific season by the brightest spot in their organization, goaltender Cory Schneider. While the chasm between the team and any hope of a playoff spot vanished, the proud Lamoriello refused to trade away assets and tank for a chance at Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel like several teams surrounding them at the nadir of the NHL standings.
Following the season, the Devils lost yet another all-time great, as Lamoniello announced he was stepping down from his nearly three-decade reign as GM and handing the reins over to Ray Shero, one-time Stanley Cup winner with the 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins. While rebuilding the Devils into winners will certainly be a challenge, Lamoriello has left his successor in far better shape than many in the hockey media have led us to believe.
Devils Top 5 Prospects (Scale to 10)
RD Steven Santini (7.5) — the most underrated players in hockey are the ones who don’t hit the scoresheets — defensive-minded d-men and checking line forwards. Santini is an elite, physical shut-down D prospect who is rock-solid in his own zone and is often reminiscent of a young Ken Daneyko.
LW Reid Boucher (7.0) — the only prospect in the Devils’ organization with the potential to score 30+ goals in a season, he has a surgical wrist-shot with a lightning-quick release, though the rest of his game is a developing work.
C John Quenneville (7.0) — the type of player coaches love: smart, hard-working, competitive and versatile. Capable of improving offensively, but he projects to a second/third line all-situation player.
LW Stefan Matteau (7.0) — a big, physical and energetic power forward who can crash a crease, but unlikely to become a big-time point producer at the NHL level.
RD Joshua Jacobs (7.0) — a smooth-skating, two-way defenseman with ideal NHL size, the Michigan State product is emerging as a future mobile, mid-pairing asset with some power play potential.
Organizational Strengths
Schneider is signed through 2021-22 at a very reasonable $6 million per and is a top-10 goaltender.
The future of the blueline is very good. Andy Greene is one of the most efficient and underrated rearguards in the NHL, and is signed through 2020. Damon Severson and Adam Larsson emerged for breakthrough seasons under the tutelage assistant coach Scott Stevens last year, and both have top-pairing upside. Eric Gelinas and Jon Merrill are both young, mid-pairing talents and Steve Santini has top-pairing, shut-down upside. The Devils might need to trade from this depth to address their scoring woes.
While the New Jersey organization lacks high-end offensive potential, both the big club and the prospect pipeline are overflowing with players capable of playing a bottom-six role at the NHL level. Dainius Zubrus, Tuomo Ruutu, Jordin Tootoo, Jacob Josefson and Stephen Gionta are all signed through the upcoming season, while Matteau is ready to crack the NHL roster. Quenneville headlines a long prospect list of future third and fourth line forwards, as almost all of the Devils forward prospects are suited to checking-line roles. A team looking for depth forwards at the 2016 NHL trade deadline would be wise to call up Ray Shero.
Organizational Weaknesses
Scoring, scoring, scoring. It’s that simple. The only player on the Devils to score more than 16 goals last year was Mike Cammalleri. Patrik Elias may be the most under-appreciated NHL great of the past two decades, but he will be 40 by the end of next season. Adam Henrique and Travis Zajac are good, versatile forwards but would thrive more in secondary scoring roles than being relied on as go-to offensive players. At the end of last season, the Devils were wheeling out a power play unit featuring a far-past-his-prime Scott Gomez and a never-had-a-prime Steve Bernier. The Devils need a first-line center and right wing and a second line right wing to even be taken seriously as a playoff threat next year, and complicating this is the fact that they have a grand total of zero centers or right wings in their prospect pipeline with legitimate high-scoring potential.
The Devils are as organizationally thin on the right wing as any franchise has ever been thin on the right wing in the modern history of the NHL. At the time of the writing of this column, the RW at the top of their depth chart was Tootoo. We love Tootoo’s heart, but in hockey-skill terms, the best thing about his hands is that they often become fists. On their organizational depth chart, the top right wing is Connor Chatham, whose upside is to one day make it as Tootoo’s successor in a pugilistic, fourth-line role. The Devils must address this in the 2015 draft.
A repetitive theme here, but while the Devils have a great many hardworking, character players who can handle the center position like Zajac, Elias, Henrique and Josefson — they have no one who can handle the offensive burden as a true #1 pivot anywhere in the organization. A Stanley Cup can simply not be won in the modern NHL without a true, stud top center. Though he enjoyed a nice renaissance last season, Scott Gomez is simply not the answer here. Picking sixth overall in a stacked 2015 draft, the Devils simply must address this lack.
Trade Winds
Well, we can call it “signing winds,” because the most recent hockey news out of New Jersey involves the reported signing of big-bodied KHL RW Sergei Kalinin. Known as a character player with outstanding work-ethic and tenacious play in the defensive zone, Kalinin does not solve the Devils’ scoring woes but he does jump to the top of the organizational RW depth chart.
Sergei Kalinin may seem like yet another depth pickup New Jersey doesn't need, but this one's a smart move: http://t.co/vmOazYe0ZP
— *SuStAiNaBLE HOcKeY* (@CataCarryOn) May 24, 2015
Ideally, this is not the last Devils’ KHL signing. With the Russian economy in a state of flux, the time is ripe to lure some high-end Russian players back to the NHL. New Jersey is expected to be at least $22 million under the NHL salary cap going into next season, with the possibility of freeing up almost $5 million more with Ryane Clowe on long-term injury reserve. They have the potential to be big players in luring Russian stars to the NHL, and if the Kalinin signing is any indication, they are planning on precisely this. There are several quality players who could be jumping ship to the NHL this off-season, notably LW Viktor Tikhonov and LD Nikita Zaitsev. Next year one of Russia’s biggest stars becomes a free agent.
Alexander Radulov would be a perfect fit on the RW of the Devils’ top line.
On to the trade talk, as there has been great speculation that Ray Shero will use the Devils’ glut of young talent on the blue line to address their need for young forwards with big offensive potential. We mentioned in our Edmonton draft preview that the Oilers—with their cache of blue-chip forwards only matched by their desperation for young talent on defense—would be a perfect trade partner.
The New Jersey Devils would be wise to pursue Leon Draisaitl.
Leon Draisaitl is a big-bodied, 19-year old center who has drawn comparisons to Anze Kopitar and Joe Thornton, but is soon to be pushed down to third on the organizational depth chart behind former first-overall pick Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and imminent first-overall pick Connor McDavid.
A straight-up deal of Draisaitl for Adam Larsson would improve both teams for the future, though it would negatively affect the Devils’
slim
chances of a playoff berth in 2015-16.
Another name often discussed in Devils’ trade rumors is Eric Gelinas, who has an absolute bomb of a shot and is big and offensively gifted, but is prone to struggles in the defensive zone. Perhaps he can be paired with another asset or two to pry Mikhail Grigorenko out of Buffalo.
Grigorenko is precisely the type of player the Devils need to be targeting through a trade. His development has stalled in Buffalo, where he will be buried on the depth chart behind a fearsome future center trifecta of Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart and Zemgus Girgensons. Grigorenko possesses ideal size at 6’3″, and is a gifted puck-handler and passer. He has yet to put all the tools in his tool-box together and establish himself as an impact NHL-er, but having just turned 21 years old, the youngster’s potential is still likely far greater than the cost it would take to acquire him. Perhaps an offer of Gelinas, Blake Coleman (another solid future checking line center in the NJ pipeline) and a mid-round pick could sway the Sabres to swing a deal?
GM Ray Shero Draft Dossier
Ray Shero ran the Pittsburgh Penguins’ drafts from 2006 through 2013. In that time, he displayed a great deal of acumen drafting quality defensemen in both the first round (Olli Maata, Derrick Pouliot, Simon Despres, Joe Morrow) and in later rounds (Jake Muzzin, Robert Bortuzzo, Brian Strait).
Unfortunately, the Devils already have a wealth of young blue line talent. What they sorely lack is offensively gifted forwards. Even more unfortunately, Shero enjoyed far less success in drafting players who fit such a description. The best forward Shero drafted in eight drafts with the Pens was Jordan Staal, selected second overall in 2006. This seems like a perfectly good pick, until one realizes that the player drafted third overall that same year was none other than Jonathan Toews.
The second best scoring forward Shero uncovered in eight years of drafting? Well, we would have to go with Beau Bennett. And then we would have to cry our eyes out if we were Pittsburgh Penguins fans.
Shero must do a better job at drafting high-upside forwards if the Devils are going to have any chance to return to their former status as a perennial post-season contender.
If Ray Shero wants to do this with the Devils, he’ll need to do a better job of drafting solid forwards.
Shero has shown a propensity for drafting Canadian-born players — 60% percent of his picks with Pittsburgh were from the Great White North. Another 20% were American-born, though Shero has displayed the wherewithal to also draft out of such unconventional nations as Germany and Latvia.
Precisely 50% of Shero’s picks were from the ranks of the Canadian juniors, including every single one of his first-round selections with the exception of Bennett (BCHL). Another 22% were from the USA high school circuit.
Despite the Penguins’ on-going needs to surround Crosby and Malkin with talented wingers, between 2009-13 Shero used four first-rounders on defensemen and only one on a forward. Clearly, Shero is far more confident in his ability to project the talents of young blueliners to his ability to uncover a future scoring star.
We repeat: Shero is a strong GM. He has proven to be very good at trading — he stole Chris Kunitz from Anaheim for next to nothing, the return he received for Jordan Staal was outstanding, and the Goligoski for Neal and Niskanen deal is downright legendary. He has earned his Stanley Cup ring, and is very good at drafting defensemen. We are simply stating that if he does not reverse an inability to draft high-end scoring forwards, the Devils will not reverse their recent poor showings in the NHL standings.
New Jersey Devils 2015 Draft Preview
The Devils have a great opportunity with the sixth overall pick in a 2015 draft which scouts are calling the greatest collection of available young talent in over a decade. If possible, they must use this pick to acquire a future franchise center.
History has shown that while elite goalies can be found all over the place (Henrik Lundqvist: 7th round, Pekka Rinne: 8th round) and elite defensemen can be found past the first round (Weber, Keith, Subban — all 2nd rounders), the same cannot be said for franchise centers. If we were asked to name the five greatest NHL centers, we would reply with Sidney Crosby (1st overall), Jonathan Toews (3rd overall), Evgeni Malkin (2nd overall), Steven Stamkos (1st overall) and John Tavares (1st overall).
Outside of Pavel Datsyuk and Patrice Bergeron, we would say that all of our top-15 NHL centers were first-round picks, most of them in the top-half of the round. The Devils may not draft this high again for years, and there may not be a draft this deep in years.
Though generational centers Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel will be gone after the top two selections, and highly-regarded two-way future star Dylan Strome will certainly be off the board by the fourth pick, we will say that exactly the player the Devils need will almost certainly be waiting there for them with the #6 overall selection.
1st Round (No. 6 overall)
A crucial factor to keep in mind when analyzing the rankings of the major scouting bureaus, is that they do not like to make cataclysmic changes to their prior rankings when updating those rankings. This creates an inconsistency in these rankings—a wrinkle in their validity, if you will.
A perfect example of this incongruity lies in the curious case of Mathew Barzal. A 5’11.5″ center gifted with electrifying skating ability, dazzling puck-skills and outstanding on-ice vision, Barzal missed most of the 2014-15 WHL season with a broken knee-cap and it took him over a month following his return to round into form. At this point, the Seattle Thunderbirds’ marquee player had already been dropped out of the top-10 of several scouting services.
The fact that Barzal completely dominated once healthy, seemingly improving with every shift he played, proved to us at Todays Slapshot that he might be the third best player in the entire draft. However, scouting bureaus are often reticent to give players huge jumps at the top of their rankings. Barzal is a can’t-miss superstar in our estimation.
In the offensive zone, he is reminiscent of Claude Giroux, but his character and excellent defensive play have led many scouts to liken him to a far superior superstar in Pavel Datsyuk.
There will be several quality players available to the Devils with the No. 6 pick. Perhaps a future franchise defenseman in Noah Hanifin, perhaps a future elite-scoring winger in Mitch Marner, perhaps an intimidating future two-way top-line power forward in Lawson Crouse. Regardless, we think the Devils simply must call Barzal’s name when they go up to the draft podium.
2nd Round (36th overall and 41st overall)
New Jersey will be armed with two-high second-round picks in an extremely deep draft class. As with Barzal, there is one player we would like to highlight as the potential solution to several of the Devils’ problems.
Togliatti RW Denis Guryanov is another player who has slipped through the sight-lines of several scouts. A 6’2″ power forward with one of the most lethal shots in the draft and elite skating ability, Guryanov’s tools compare quite favorably to a pair of RWs, Mikko Rantanen and Timo Meier, often discussed in the hockey media as top-10 picks. The fact that Guryanov has not come overseas to play his hockey in North America and his Russian-ness are (to us, bizarrely) the only factors which could knock him not only out of the top-15 picks, but perhaps out of the first round altogether.
To us, Guryanov is the closest this draft offers to the next Vladimir Tarasenko. We have already highlighted the Devils’ dearth of talent on the right wing. Thus, we feel that if Guryanov drops to the bottom of the first round, the Devils need to make a move and package their 36th overall pick with perhaps a fourth rounder and move up six or seven spots to grab this electrifying talent.
If Guryanov is gone, another player we love is US-NTDP center Jack Roslovic. An outstanding passer with elite defensive abilities and strong acumen in the face-off circle, we feel this Ohio product will have a tough time falling past Columbus with the 34th pick, but if he is still available at #36 he will be the last man standing with star potential at the center position.
Other strong second-round options for the Devils include a pair of high-upside American-born power forwards in RW Christian Fischer and LW Erik Foley, both of whom we are extremely high on. Other possibly available centers with offensive upside include Filip Chlapik, Anthony Beauvillier, Tom Novak and Roope Hintz. If the Devils really want to swing for the fences with their #41 pick (acquired from Florida in the Jaromir Jagr deal), RW/C Alex Dergachev is huge, can skate and features a cannon of a shot.
In Conclusion
The Devils have a strong base from the back-end out with an all-star caliber netminder and a talented young defense corps. They need to be patient and use the next two seasons to acquire, draft and develop young scoring talent at all three forward positions, primarily at center. The 2015 draft offers high-end possibilities, to turn the team’s scoring woes around, in spades. The 2016 draft should provide more high picks to boost the offense. If new GM Ray Shero succeeds in this pursuit, the Devils can again be a NHL force to be reckoned with as early as 2017.
Agree? Disagree? Looking for pictures of Jon Bon Jovi and accidentally wound up on this page? Please use the comments section provided below or hit me up on the Twitter-sphere: @StIves72.
Also, enjoy my previous draft previews:
Edmonton Oilers
Buffalo Sabres
Arizona Coyotes
Toronto Maple Leafs