The New Jersey Devils have so many great options with their 1st-round picks and Seth Jarvis is one of the ones that they could take with Arizona’s pick.
If the New Jersey Devils retain the Arizona Coyotes 1st-round pick (it’s lottery protected for the top-three picks), that would mean it’s in the 10-13 range. This 2020 draft is a very good one that could see a lot of impactful players come out of it. The 1st round has some intriguing prospects that should make a lot of different teams think twice about passing on them. One of those pieces for the New Jersey Devils is Seth Jarvis.
Jarvis is a right-wing that plays for the Portland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League. He is a right-hand shot winger that can produce offense at a high level. He had 42 goals and 56 assists for 98 points in 58 games for the Winterhawks last season. It was a great year for him in only his second full season of Major Junior hockey. He will surely be back for a minimum of one more season next year unless he wows his NHL team and makes it as an 18 year old.
One knock on him is his size. At 18 years old, he is 5’10” and 172 lbs. He is a small player, but that will not stop him from succeeding at the next level. In today’s NHL, you want size if it is available, but it isn’t as necessary as it was 20 years ago. You may have heard of a couple of men named Sidney Crosby and Patrick Kane. Those guys turned out okay and they are around the same height as Jarvis.
Size is all about what you make of it. So far in his Major Junior career, he has been a great player. Jarvis is probably going to be selected in the 1st round with a pick in the 9-20 range so the Devils might have two cracks at him if they decided he was the right player for them. Whichever team that gets Jarvis might be very excited about it in about a year or two.
If Jarvis made it to the National Hockey League as a member of the New Jersey Devils, he would be primed to be a member of their top six. There are a lot of guys who could evolve into players who can play that role. Jarvis, in his prime, could thrive playing with a centerman like Nico Hischier or Jack Hughes. This is the type of player that could be sneaky good with them if they went that route.