Redrafting Every New Jersey Devils Draft Of 2010s
By Nick Villano
The New Jersey Devils have some serious misses when it comes to draft picks. What would they look like if they made the right decisions on draft night?
It’s no surprise the New Jersey Devils are where they are for the past couple years. They haven’t exactly had the greatest record drafting over the past decade. They have Nico Hischier as the only cornerstone player taken in the 1st round since Travis Zajac in 2004. That’s 13 years where the Devils either traded away or blew their 1st-round picks. It takes an effort to be that bad.
Looking back, there are so many more Matthew Correntes and Mattias Tedenbys than there are Zach Parises. That’s a major reason why the Devils are having major struggles. These young players they’re adding every year should be coming with veterans who were built with the system. However, right now the only long-term player on the roster is Travis Zajac. The players who are on the roster and drafted by the Devils before 2016 are Zajac, Mackenzie Blackwood, Pavel Zacha (both barely make the cutoff), Miles Wood and Damon Severson. That’s a serious lack of veteran talent.
So, with hockey on pause, we decided to have a little fun with the drafts. We will take a look at the redrafts of every draft from 2011 to 2018. There are some rules we’ll abide by:
1. We take the ability to reverse trades based on necessity to get the Devils their 1st rounder back. The only one we won’t do that with is 2010, since it’s hard to tell us they wouldn’t give up that pick to get Ilya Kovalchuk again, even with the whole retirement fiasco.
2. We will be using DraftSite.com’s version of redrafts, and choose who’s available at the Devils pick, no matter where that pick lies. This allows an unbiased entity to choose the draft picks leading up to the Devils, and forces us to pick the best available. We allow the Michael McLeod–Logan Brown trade to go through and we still give the Devils the 30th pick in the 2014 NHL Draft.
3. We’ll reshape the roster completely. That means the pick in 2011 impacts the pick in 2012 and 2013. This will be a look into every move based on who they pick in the draft.
Let’s jump straight into the 2011 NFL Draft.