New Jersey Devils: 5 Prospects Who Can Surprisingly Make Team Next Season

Mikhail Maltsev

This one may not come as a total surprise, but Mikhail Maltsev’s insane preseason feels like it was years ago. He showed insane skill and had some instances where he looked like he may be NHL ready. When this is your only preseason goal, and it comes against the hated New York Rangers, it’s going to make some serious noise among fans.

Then, he was surprisingly sent down to Binghamton before the preseason was over. The Devils made the decision to send him down September 22nd in order to give a better look to Michael McLeod, Nathan Bastian and Jesper Boqvist towards the end of the season.

Maltsev had a really slow start to his season in Binghamton, but he’s really come on over the last couple of weeks as the B-Devils put themselves back in the playoff race. He’s brought his stats up to 11 goals and 10 assists in 49 games. He’s become a shootout dynamo that’s almost unstoppable in the extra session.

Maltsev spent the second half of his season scoring in many different ways. He can roof it over a goalie’s shoulder, clean it up in the front of the net, or take a beautiful setup and hit the one timer. If he can take that scoring prowess into the NHL, he will push the Devils to put him in the NHL right off the bat.