New Jersey Devils: 5 Prospects Who Fell Out Of Favor This Season

Marian Studenic

Preseason Ranking: 13

This one isn’t as bad as the last one, as Marian Studenic is going to remain in Binghamton, and he still has NHL aspirations attached to him, but we don’t see him ranking in the top 15, even with Jack Hughes and Jesper Boqvist leaving the rankings. He fell all the way to 20 in the midseason rankings, but that was before Nolan Foote and an entire draft class was added.

However, he did have a really good run towards the end of the season. When we wrote the midseason rankings, he had just six points in 21 games and couldn’t stay in the lineup. It wasn’t even injuries, he was a healthy scratch (although he was also injured). Since then, he had 11 points in the final 17 games with Binghamton, which coincided with the Devils run towards the Calder Cup Playoffs.

It’s hard to determine where we will have Studenic in next year’s rankings, but the fact is he went from a top-line forward on Bingo to a bottom-six player with upside. It’s fine overall. Studenic is a 5th-round pick that’s showing his talent, but someone taken that late is usually inconsistent until he’s not. The Slovakian center will have plenty of time to prove himself, and the Devils will likely give him a couple of years in Binghamton to develop, so they aren’t close to giving up on him. We just all hoped he was ready to take the next step after the progress he showed last season, but the opposite happened, especially early in the year.