5 Worst New Jersey Devils 1st-Round Draft Picks Of All Time

5.

Mattias Tedenby – 24th overall in 2008 NHL Draft

Mattias Tedenby was one of the great Swedish players in all of our heads. He was doing really well in international competition, and eventually, he was going to complement the big names on the team like Zach Parise and Travis Zajac.

For years, fans waited with bated breath for him to break out on the NHL level. Maybe it was forcing him to play too much in his rookie year for a team that was originally led by John MacLean. Maybe it was putting him in positions where he wasn’t meant to succeed. Either way, Tedenby never really made the jump to a competent NHL player.

Tedenby isn’t the type of bust that just never made it to the NHL, but we felt the many busts from the late Lou Lamoriello era needed to be represented. At least Jacob Josefson had a couple of moments in the shootout that brought us to our feet. We just don’t have those memories with Tedenby.

He played 120 games in the NHL, scoring 30 points along the way. He eventually went back to the Swedish Hockey League and is now signed to play in the KHL this season. It’s fair to say his career in the NHL is beyond over, and he’s going to be the worst of the most recent Devils draft picks. There are some picks that could surpass his ugliness, but Tedenby was someone we had a ton of faith in and it just never worked out.

4.

Ari Ahonen – 27th overall in 1999 NHL Draft

The New Jersey Devils were spending very important picks on goaltending when they had one of the best of all time in between the pipes and still in his prime. It was a weird move by Lou when Martin Brodeur was nowhere near slowing down, but the Devils general manager took Ari Ahonen with the 27th pick in 99.

There’s obviously more reason to draft a goalie other than to replace Brodeur. He’d be a nice injury backup, and playing Brodeur 70+ games every season shouldn’t have lasted as long as it did. However, it’s not like the 1999 draft was full of talent at the back end. Between the Devils 1st and 2nd-round picks, there was only one player that played more than 100 games. However, we can’t ignore a 1st-round draft pick that never even appeared in the NHL except as an emergency backup to Brodeur.

His progression was really thrown for a loop in 2003-04 when he dealt with some injuries while playing in Albany. Then, to make matters worse, Devils backup Corey Schwab kept hurting his groin, forcing the Devils to call up Ahonen something like five times during their attempted defense of their third Stanley Cup Championship.

His numbers were getting worse and worse in the AHL and eventually went back to Liiga to revive his career. He actually just finished up his career in 2018 based on what we could find, so he held on as long as he possibly could. Ahonen spent time in the U.S., Sweden, Finland, Russia, and Denmark. It was quite the run, but nothing he did for the Devils really made a dent. Still, he’s not the worst goalie draft pick in Devils history….

3.

Jean-Francois Damphousse – 24th overall in 1997 NHL Draft

Jean Francois Damphousse was taken when Martin Brodeur was nowhere near the end. In fact, he was still in the very beginning when the Devils made the pick. Lou was famous for sticking with his board and going all in on “value”, but the Devils ended up getting no value for this pick.

Damphousse ended up playing six NHL games, which is obviously more than Ahonen. However, the 1999 NHL Draft was one of the worst of all time. Brenden Morrow was literally the next pick off the board to the Dallas Stars. He played 991 games in the NHL. Scott Hannan was taken right before him. Damphousse is like putting the best bread on a spoiled meat sandwich.

He ended up being a small part of the Devils-Ducks trade that swapped Jeff Friesen and Petr Sykora, but he wasn’t really able to make a splash with the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, either. He bounced around for a few years, spent the NHL Lockout with the RadioX in a Quebec hockey league, and then it was over. A 1st-round pick’s career was done in his mid-20’s, and it had nothing to do with injuries.

Damphousse has done very well for himself after his NHL career ended before it really took off. He’s now working with NHL Central Scouting. His name doesn’t come up much when it comes to Devils’ history, but he was a questionable pick because of what was in front of him, and he just never put it together to be a very good NHL player.

2.

Adrian Foster – 28th overall in 2001 NHL Draft

The New Jersey Devils had a long string of bad 1st-round draft picks that led to a lack of depth once the stars like Scott Niedermayer, Ken Daneyko, and Scott Stevens moved on. Adrian Foster is one of those major mistakes, and probably the biggest one. We can understand making a mistake on a goalie like Lou did with Damphousse and Ahonen, but missing on a forward so bad he never plays an NHL game is hard.

Looking back at how this pick was assessed at the time, it was a head scratcher. We found this article grading each team’s picks during day the draft, and it seems that Foster was a virtual unknown going into the draft. Overall, the Devils got a C+. Not many teams did worse than that. Foster only played 15 OHL games over the previous two seasons due to injuries.

This was just a bonkers pick. He wasn’t on the Central Scouting’s top 200. Foster was Lou trying to outthink the room, only to be made to look like a fool. Foster had already suffered a cracked hip injury. Ouch. Doesn’t sound like something that comes back, even in elite athletes. That injury led to other injuries as he favored one side or the other. Injuries just destroyed his career.

Still, the Devils knew there was an injury history going into the pick, and this wasn’t someone who had elite speed or skill. Foster was a complete unknown that the Devils made a 1st-round draft pick. He seems like a really good guy based on some newspaper interviews, so we see Lou Lamoriello making a character pick. But entrenched in a dynasty, Lou needed to make safer picks. Derek Roy was taken just a few picks after. Mike Cammalleri was a 2nd-round pick. There were other players who played hundreds of NHL games. Foster played none.

1.

Neil Brady – 3rd overall in 1986 NHL Draft

When it comes to blowing a pick, missing hard on a player taken 3rd overall can set a franchise back years. The Devils were able to destroy the draft in the next few years, so they got lucky, but picking Neil Brady 3rd overall was the biggest mistake the Devils ever made at the NHL Draft. Taking anyone that high who doesn’t play 100 games is a travesty for a franchise.

Brady wasn’t like Foster that he was a relatively unknown. He was a scoring machine for the Medicine Hat Tigers, hitting 80+ points two seasons in a row. His numbers struggled in his last season in Juniors, and the Devils brought him to Utica in 1988. The Devils thought he’d eventually find his scoring touch again, but it just never happened. He only played 29 games in New Jersey before the Ottawa Senators took him in the expansion draft.

The Senators gave him a legitimate shot to be an everyday starter, but he scored just seven goals in his first season there. That was basically the end of his career, as he only had a cup of coffee with the Dallas Stars.

Brady was a player with an edge that was too easily distracted from being the great player he was destined to become. Vincent Damphousse, Brian Leetch, and current Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald all played more than 1,000 games in that 1st round. Imagine the Devils defense while adding Brian Leetch? Do the Rangers still wait for their first Stanley Cup since ’41? If only we could dream.

The Devils had a chance to change the course of their history, but they ended up with a dud. It is what it is, and the Devils have some great draft picks in the past to help us sleep at night, but these were not good.