The New Jersey Devils are a team with lots of great prospects that everybody should be excited about. There are future players up and down the organization.
The New Jersey Devils are looking like a team that can contend this upcoming season. They’ve added a lot of impact players that will join a group that already had big talent. The Devils fortunes have been enhanced over the last few seasons as they have won the Draft Lottery twice in the last three seasons. The middle year that they didn’t win it was a playoff year and they still may have drafted a player that should have went in the top ten.
All of this luck has enhanced their organizational depth as far as prospects. They have added lots of great players through accumulating lots of draft picks and using them wisely. They have also made some smart trades with some of these picks and done everything they can to improve their NHL roster and the organization. They know what it takes to have sustained success and this is the route they’ve taken to do so.
The prospect pyramid is a different way of looking at prospects other than just ranking them. Ranking them is fun and we all do it, but sometimes positional differences make it hard. Is the best defenseman in the NHL as good at playing defense as the best goalie in the NHL is at playing goalie? It is hard to determine those things sometimes. The pyramid is a way of breaking down the prospects into six different tiers based on their talent, potential, and where they’re at in their development. The pyramid was created by YouTuber and Sportsnet personality, Steve Dangle Glynn. We were given permission by Steve to use his pyramid for the New Jersey Devils:
Tier One
It is not every year that tier one has any players in it at all. Tier one is reserved for players who have a chance to be the face of your franchise. The Devils have had Nico Hischier in tier one in 2017 but nobody in 2018. This year, that player is Jack Hughes. Hughes was taken with the first overall pick in the 2019 NHL Draft and the Devils believe his scoring abilities will make him one of the best players in the National Hockey League. It may take him a while to get to a Taylor Hall level of offensive numbers, but he will get there.
Tier Two
This tier is for guys who have the ceiling of being legit All-Stars. You might not call them franchise players like the guys who are in tier one, but they could be really good for your team. In this year’s pyramid, you will find Jesper Boqvist and Ty Smith. Both of these two players are going to be given every opportunity to play in the NHL as early as this season and they will get a long look in training camp and preseason. The Devils see them both as players who can be All-Star level players and important to what they are planning on doing.
Tier Three
Tier three is where you will find guys who you may need someday to provide depth. They aren’t necessarily going to move the needle for you, but these guys are just as important to winning championships as the stars. The best stars in the league can’t carry a team on their back, they need help. Tier three for the Devils contains Reilly Walsh, Michael McLeod, Joey Anderson, Fabian Zetterlund, Nathan Bastian, and Aarne Talvitie. These guys might all be a part of the team someday and contribute to winning hockey.
Tier Four
This tier is for players who haven’t shown much as far as the skill or game-breaking ability needed to be considered a top-tier prospect. That doesn’t mean they will never be NHL players by any means, it just may take them a little longer to develop into being ready. Brett Seney, Daniil Misyul, Graeme Clarke, Marian Studenic, Nikita Popugaev, and Matthew Hellickson are the tier four Devils prospects. Bottom six forwards and bottom pair defenseman are very important to successful NHL teams so it is important to develop these types of players.
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Tier Five
There are always guys who are still underdeveloped that still have a chance at making it to the National Hockey League someday. Finding diamonds in the rough is very important and tier five is where you may find some of those. All of these players have the ceiling of an NHL caliber player, but their floor is way below NHL standard. The players in tier five for the New Jersey Devils are Nikita Okhotyuk, Akira Schmid, Mikhail Maltsev, Mitchell Hoelscher, Gilles Senn, Michael Vukojevic, Patrick Moynihan, Nikola Pasic, Yegor Sarangovich, and Brandon Gignac.
Tier Six
Tier six is dedicated to every other Devils prospect. They have a long way to go before they need to have a chance to think about the National Hockey League. One player that sticks out is Ludvig Larsson. He wasn’t even invited to training camp until he took over the final game of the 2019 Prospects Challenge against the Boston Bruins, and now he has an invite. Just because you aren’t noticed right away doesn’t mean you have no chance. It is up to them to try and be higher on the pyramid by this time next season.
Ranking all of the prospects by tier is much more fun and perhaps more accurate when evaluating their talent over just simply numbering them. Either way, we can’t wait until the preseason gets underway so we can see where some of these guys stand and their chances of playing in the NHL.