The New Jersey Devils had a seemingly hard decision with the first overall pick in this year’s draft. Nico Hischier’s play this season shows GM Ray Shero made the right pick.
It’s very, very early in Nico Hischier’s career as a New Jersey Devil. He’s played just 23 games in what will hopefully be more than 500 in the red and black. Still, can you help being very excited for how Hischier’s career has started?
When he was drafted, the prediction for Hischier was a spot on the third line out of training camp, and some tempered expectations. After phenominal rookie seasons by the last two number-one overall picks (Auston Matthews and Connor McDavid), none of that production was expected from Hischier.
Despite his predecessors success, Hischier is still outplaying expectations. He has five goals and 13 assists for .78 points per game. For a player that a. had terrible puck luck to start and b. was still transitioning to the NHL game that’s great.
The Devils other option with the first-overall pick would have been Nolan Patrick. I mistakenly wanted to go with Patrick in my pick prediction, because I figured there was a reason analysts were tracking his talent years in advance. The major issue with Patrick was his injury history, and those issues continue to be a problem.
Patrick has been in the lineup for 16 of the Philadelphia Flyers first 25 games. In those games, there is still work to do. He has just six points on a Flyers team that desperately needs offense. They rank 21st in the league in scoring despite Sean Couturier breaking out with 14 goals early in the season. This Flyers team needs secondary scoring, but that doesn’t come when the second-overall pick has the same amount of points as defenseman Brandon Manning.
Both Hischier and Patrick has equal 9% shooting percentages. The difference is Hischier has 55 shots and Patrick has just 21. Clearly, Hischier is playing with much more confidence, especially lately, than his counterpart.
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Nico accepted his status with the Devils almost immediately. Right after he was drafted, he goes on a quasi media tour to introduce himself to the New York/New Jersey area. He visited the New York Yankees and even got a sandwich named after him a Hobby’s Deli. Hischier lived in his Devils draft hat. It really showed he loved the attention that came with a number-one pick.
Hischier’s play is one of the main reasons the Devils are fighting for the Metropolitan Division lead going into December. On the other side, the Flyers are the only Metro team under .500. That isn’t completely Patrick’s fault, but he isn’t helping.
It’s way too early to say the Devils won the first pick, but it’s hard to argue right now. Hischier looks like he belongs in the league. There’s still work to be done for Patrick. That’s a complete 180 of what experts thought coming in to this season. However, I’m not saying that Patrick will be a bust, but just that Hischier won’t be.
At the end of the day, this just teaches us to trust Shero with his every move.