New Jersey Devils: 5 Possibilities With 6th-Overall Pick In NHL Draft
The New Jersey Devils season is likely over, and they will end up with the sixth-overall pick in the NHL Draft, barring another lottery win. Who are some of the names they should consider with the pick?
We’re going into full offseason mode for the New Jersey Devils, now that it looks like the season won’t start until at best mid May. There’s no chance the Devils will be able to finish off those final 13 games, which might be for the best. In the most tumultuous season in franchise history, it’s only fitting to end things earlier than expected.
So, let’s jump right into the NHL Draft, something that can get us excited while we wait for real hockey to resume. The Devils appear to have three 1st-round picks, which will fall in the sixth spot (their own pick), the 10th spot (Arizona Coyotes’ pick acquired in the Taylor Hall trade) and the 17th spot (Vancouver Canucks pick acquired in the Blake Coleman trade).
This is a pretty nice haul for a season that ends with a lot of uncertainty. Hopefully, the league still puts a postseason together in order to get Vancouver (and Carolina, who we could get a 3rd-round pick from in the Sami Vatanen trade) in the postseason.
The Devils are facing the most important offseason possibly in franchise history. With Lou Lamoriello at the helm for so long, and Ray Shero taking over while he was still here, they haven’t gone on a GM search in three decades. Now, they have to find a new GM, a new head coach and need to fill four to five glaring holes on this roster. The sixth-overall pick could be the start to that filling right off the top.
These five options for the Devils could equal a great fit now and for a long time.
Jamie Drysdale
The Devils need a game-breaking defenseman after passing on Bowen Byram and Miro Heiskanen/Cale Makar in 2017. Now, it’s not like the Devils got bad players with the number-one overall pick. They went with Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes, which at the end of the day could provide a bigger impact in the long run. Still, that left a hole on the blue line that P.K. Subban could not fill.
Jamie Drysdale is the best defenseman in the 2020 NHL Draft, and it’s not particularly close. He’s slightly undersized, which is very concerning. He stands at 5’11 and 170 lbs. The Devils currently have Subban (6’0, 210), Will Butcher (5’10, 190), Damon Severson (6’2, 210) and next year they’ll have Ty Smith (5’11, 175). Only one of the defenseman on the Devils is taller than six feet on next year’s team, so adding another smaller defenseman could put them at a disadvantage overall.
Still, he was a driving force for Team Canada’s win at the World Junior Championship. He played on the bottom line, at times with Devils prospect Kevin Bahl. It was a stacked Canadian defense, with Smith and Byram running the show as older players.
He’s an absolute workhorse, playing more than 25 minutes on most nights. He had 47 points in 49 games despite dealing with an injury. His recovery time is really good, which will help with how often the Devils give up a 2-on-1.
Drysdale likely won’t make it to the sixth pick, but he could. It would be near impossible for the Devils to let him go if he’s available. However, if he does fall to them, they will have to focus on size when it comes to signings in the future on defense.
Marco Rossi
The Hockey Writers’ Josh Bell calls this prospect quite possibly the best Austrian prospect ever. He’s also probably very familiar to the Devils scouting staff since he plays on the Ottawa 67’s. He joins Kevin Bahl, Graeme Clarke, Nikita Okhotyuk and Mitchell Hoelscher are all Devils prospects already on the team. Might as well add one more, right?
Marco Rossi would immediately become the best of that bunch, and it’s not particularly close. He was second among all rookies in the OHL last season with 65 points. This season, he went full psycho. He has 120 points in 56 games. Yeah, again, he literally has two points per game. He has an insane 81 assists.
His issue? Well, size again. He’s 5’9, 179 lbs. We’ve seen many, many mock drafts, and where Rossi is going is all over the map. Some places have him going third, while this one NHL.com reporter had him going outside the top ten. That has everything to do with how the evaluator takes size and skill into account. He is one of the most skilled players in the draft.
Rossi is also universally called one of the hardest working players on the ice. Those are the types of the players the Devils target. They want high-quality players that don’t quit in the defensive end of the ice. Rossi very easily makes up for his lack of size with a stupendous effort. After losing Blake Coleman in a trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning, they could use some extra effort.
Alexander Holtz
Alexander Holtz fills a major position of need for the Devils. Right wing is just a point of weakness across the board. Outside of Kyle Palmieri, their options on the right is to play Nikita Gusev out of position, do the same with Jesper Bratt, then there’s John Hayden, Joey Anderson and Janne Kuokkanen. That’s it on the team currently. In Binghamton, they have Nathan Bastian, Nick Merkley and Fabian Zetterlund. Then, in the pipeline, they have Nikita Popugaev, um, that’s pretty much it. Maybe Graeme Clark can play on the right side.
Holtz would immediately become the best right wing prospect in the Devils system. He had 16 points in 35 games in the SHL this season, jumping into the major leagues right away. His intelligence sets him apart from other players. He’s able to put the puck where it needs to go at all times, and his impressive shot allows him to mix skill with smarts.
He apparently molds his game after Alexander Ovechkin and Steven Stamkos, which is easier said than done, but it sounds like he can replicate Palmieri’s skills on the power play. If the Devils can just have someone sit “in their office” and drill shots in on one times, it could lead to a much better offense overall.
Cole Perfetti
Cole Perfetti is a player that saw his stock skyrocket after an insane season with the Saginaw Spirit of the OHL. His points went way up this season, despite the closures due to the Coronavirus. He has 111 points in 61 games. He scored 37 goals in both seasons, but this year his assist numbers doubled.
Perfetti, like Rossi, is a slightly undersized center. The Devils already have one of those, and frankly a better one, in Jack Hughes. Still, Perfetti is a really nice player that could turn into one of the better players in the NHL Draft.
He appears to be a late bloomer, and if the Devils are willing to wait he could be a top three player in the draft. Perfetti has a ton of potential, but some things he needs to work on. If his skating doesn’t improve, that’s something that’s going to put the fear of God into NHL teams. If you can’t skate in today’s NHL, then you might not want to get taken so high, because the expectations are a little too much.
Still, Perfetti has some of the best puck handling skills in the draft. With as many giveaways that go against the Devils, that skill set is important to them. He can plow through defenses and keep the puck. He also has a finishing ability that will make the Devils really consider him, especially since we think he will be available at six.
Anton Lundell
Anton Lundell has been playing in Finland’s Liiga for two seasons now, and has seen some marginal development from one year to the next. His points jumped from 19 points in his rookie season to 28 points this past season.
Anton Lundell has been playing really well compared to other Finnish draft picks. He’s slightly behind Kaapo Kakko and Patrik Laine in production, but is doing better in his draft year than Mikko Rantanen, Aleksander Barkov and Jesperi Kotkaniemi in their draft years.
Lundell has some progressing to do, but he could be really, really good. His underlying numbers have been even better, and he looks like he could be an analytics darling. With the Devils reportedly moving towards analytics-based decision making, Lundell could be a real interesting option at six.
He was on that Finnish team that beat Team USA in the World Junior Classic in 2019. He missed this year’s games with an injury, so that might hurt his value, but the fact his team didn’t come close without him might actually help.
Next. 5 College Head Coaches Who Could Be Devils Coach. dark
He’s definitely giving effort on both sides of the puck, but he is likely going to fall because he lacks the skill set of the players ahead of him. He’s not an exceptional skater or shooter. His puck handling leaves a little to be desired. However, Lundell has the effort to keep pucks moving up the ice. It’s a little scary of a pick, because there is some Pavel Zacha feeling here, but if he continues to focus on the improvements he needs to make, he could be the steal of the draft.