5 Worst New Jersey Devils 1st-Round Draft Picks Of All Time
The New Jersey Devils don’t have the best track record in the 1st round.
New Jersey Devils fans are not happy with how the team has drafted in the 1st round of the NHL Draft. Looking at the current roster, the only 1st-round picks that are in the NHL were picked first overall. The others include Travis Zajac (happened more than a decade ago) and Pavel Zacha (we all know how that’s turning out).
So, the Devils current roster has just four of their own 1st-round picks on the roster. That wouldn’t be a problem, but when looking at all their other 1st-round picks, only one is really about to make an impact with the NHL team. Ty Smith is the Devils 1st-round pick in 2018, and he’s close to being a really impressive defenseman.
Yet, despite the issues the Devils have drafting in the 1st round as of late, these mistakes are nowhere close to some of the worst picks they’ve ever made. Compared to more than half the picks, Pavel Zacha is an amazing pick. We know he’s not, but he’s definitely nowhere near the worst 1st-round picks in New Jersey Devils history.
Just think about this, from 1982 to 2012, the Devils had 10 1st-round picks that didn’t even make it in the league to play in 100 games. That doesn’t even include the years where the Devils didn’t have a 1st-round pick. Of course, there are plenty of gems that led to what became the Devils dynasty, but we’ve talked about that already. Now it’s time to look back at the Devils’ mistakes.
Honorable Mention:
Rocky Trottier – 8th overall in 1982 NHL Draft
Just a quick note on the Devils first-ever NHL Draft pick. A quick way to beat Devils fans on trivia is to ask them who the team’s first pick was after moving from Colorado. Most will tell you it’s Ken Daneyko, but he was taken 10 picks after Rocky Trottier.
Looking back at this Rich Chere piece from 2013, we see that Trottier was the brother of NHL Hall of Famer Bryan Trottier. It didn’t help that scouts with the Devils later admitted they never even saw the younger Trottier play before drafting him. That’s not the best strategy. He ended up playing just 38 games in the NHL and 226 games in the American Hockey League.
It’s clear the Devils made a major mistake with the pick, and you can trace back the mistakes to those in charge. The logic behind the pick wasn’t sound, and it seems like they misplaced him on the team the second they took him. He still wasn’t one of the Devils worst ever (honestly, he could be sixth), but no list of bad draft picks could be complete without Rocky Trottier.
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.
Next. Pucks and Pitchforks Return-To-Play Predictions. dark
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.