New Jersey Devils: 5 Prospects Who Can Surprisingly Make Team Next Season
The New Jersey Devils season is likely over after the response to COVID-19. When looking ahead to next season, these five prospects could come out of nowhere and make the team.
This New Jersey Devils season was the worst season in the history of the franchise. That may be a controversial statement, but what season could actually even compare? The Devils came into the season with a boatload of expectations, then immediately lost the first six games of the season.
This led to the eventual firing of Ray Shero and John Hynes, the trades of superstar Taylor Hall in December, then a complete sell job by moving Andy Greene, Wayne Simmonds, Louis Domingue and of course moving the heart of this team in Blake Coleman. That leaves a lot of opportunities for younger players.
Michael McLeod has been trying to finally get his first goal on the fourth line. Joey Anderson has basically solidified a spot on the roster for the foreseeable future. We’re getting actual looks at Dakota Mermis, Colton White and Josh Jacobs. If the season continued, we’d expect to get more looks at the likes of Jesper Boqvist and Janne Kuokkanen.
Next season, there are a couple of prospects we at least mostly expect to become NHLers, or close to it. Ty Smith is all but a lock to jump into the NHL after another insane season in Spokane and playing for Team Canada. Reilly Walsh is an interesting prospect coming out of Harvard, that they have to sign or he becomes a free agent next year. Nick Merkley could make the team after coming over from the Taylor Hall trade. Kevin Bahl is big, so many think he could make the team.
However, there are always players like Jesper Bratt who come out of training camp and earn themselves a spot seemingly out of nowhere. Next season, there could be quite a few prospects who are fighting for spots. There are as many open positions as ever, and there’s talent in the system to fill it. These five are the most likely to surprise you.
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.
Fabian Zetterlund
Fabian Zetterlund was one of the players we put on our watch list last offseason after he came over from Sweden, but he failed to impress right off the bat. He only got in one game and only took one shot on net. Then, the Devils put him in Binghamton to hone his skills.
He’s another player that took some time to get better. It took Zetterlund a little time to get used to playing the North American style with a different sized ice sheet. Now, he’s playing very well. He’s shifty in the Binghamton and has played really well since Boqvist was placed on a line with him.
Zetterlund was one of the most exciting prospects the Devils had for the past two years. He can make people miss with the best of them, and he has used that to make plays. It would take some time to make those same moves on a smaller ice, but he’s getting there.
Now, with a long time before we’re going to play hockey again, he has plenty of time to work on making his skills transition to North America. He needs to prove he can be a points scorer on the next level, because having under 20 points in 46 games was not good enough, but like we said he was on the right track into making something of this season. If Zetterlund takes two steps forward during this “pause”, he can prove himself to be a surprise NHLer.
Graeme Clarke
Graeme Clarke has one of the best scoring touches in the entire New Jersey Devils system, the NHL players included. Unfortunately, he’s really had a hard time staying healthy. He missed 46 games of the Ottawa 67’s season where he could have been playing with a really good team. He apparently tore his labrum throwing his arms up in celebration, which sounds like it’s made up, but it’s apparently true.
Clarke had seven goals in his first nine games before his injury, and quite possibly on his way to a close to goal-per-game season. Instead, his season will end nine goals in 16 games. He only had two goals returning from a major shoulder injury, but at least he still got a point per game. He’s taken an incredible leap from one season to the next, but of course the injury history is straight up frightening.
He could very well be this year’s Jesper Bratt. Clarke will be the same age as Bratt was when he made his NHL debut, he has an incredible scoring touch, and he has impressive skills that could force Devils management’s hands.
The big problem here is Clarke would need to start proving himself at the Devils Development Camp, which we can’t see happening this year. That usually happens every year in July, but we might still be playing NHL hockey in July. Or, even worse, we may not be back to normal by July. That could hamper his ability to prove himself.
Nathan Bastian
The New Jersey Devils came into last season thinking Nathan Bastian had a chance to break the roster this season. With Brian Boyle moving on, and never really replacing Patrick Maroon, it made sense to bring on the 6’04 Bastian in the middle of the forward group.
However, he just didn’t step up in the preseason, and it took him a really long time to get going in the AHL. He didn’t have the excuse that players like Zetterlund and Maltsev had. He’s been playing in North America his entire career. There was just something completely off with this entire organization to start the season. He was one of the many disappointments out of the gate.
Now? He’s put together a good season with Binghamton. He’s third on the team (outside of Kuokkanen who most of his points with the Charlotte Checkers) with 38 points. A lot of those points have come in the Binghamton Devils recent hot streak. When we pushed him down to 12 on the list of top Devils prospects last month, he only had 22 points. That gives him 16 points in the last 22 games.
Bastian has the size the Devils may want, and during his latest hot streak we feel like he proved he can score points on all levels. He’s the kind of player that we expected Wayne Simmonds to be.
Tyce Thompson
Tyce Thompson came out of literally nowhere to become one of the Devils top prospects. Before the NCAA season ended unceremoniously, he was a Hobey Baker Award possibility, the award going to the best college hockey player in the country. However, Providence College’s recent downturn hasn’t helped at all.
The 20 year old has 44 points in 34 games. The 2019 4th-round pick has exceeded expectations on his way to becoming one of the Devils top-ten prospects. He’s tied for third in the country in points, which linemate Jack Dugan leads the league in.
A lot has to go right for Thompson to make the Devils. First, he has to want to leave Providence College. If they were rolling like they were at the beginning of the season, it might be a harder sell, but there’s less reason to feel like they have unfinished business to do. Also, with the season on pause, just like Graeme Clarke, he has less of a chance to prove himself to make the team.
Next. New Jersey Devils Top 25 Prospects. dark
Thompson has the biggest hill to climb of any of these prospects, but he is 20 years old and may want to move on to professional hockey. He could decide to forego the rest of his NCAA eligibility to learn more in the pros, which includes a stint in the AHL. Thompson still has a lot to go before he’s NHL ready, but who knows what he can do during this break.