New Jersey Devils: New York Area Hockey Is Going To Be Electric
The New Jersey Devils are part of an exciting hockey scene in the Tri-State area.
The New Jersey Devils, despite what some people might think, have a bright future. They have a few really nice players in place that will be a part of their core for a long time. In 2017 they drafted Nico Hischier and in 2019 they drafted Jack Hughes, both with the first-overall pick. They are, hopefully, going to lead this team for a very long time and make them very successful.
They are not the only two guys who are super exciting on this team. Players like Jesper Bratt and Nikita Gusev are electric players at times. MacKenzie Blackwood is also a really exciting goalie to watch and he looks like a young guy who could be the goalie of the future.
The Devils are not the only team in the area that has a very bright future. The New York Rangers and New York Islanders both are loaded with young players who will bring fans out of their seats for a very long time. The hope is that these three teams make the Tri-State Challenge very competitive. The Stanley Cup Playoffs would be even more electric if these three teams were a part of it and had a chance at winning the whole thing.
Both of them, like the Devils, have an up and coming goalie that hope to backstop their teams for the foreseeable future. Igor Shesterkin is the goalie of the Rangers future and Ilya Sorokin for the Islanders. Of the three, Shesterkin has the highest ceiling but Blackwood has already (mostly) proved that he can do it for a long period of time.
For the Islanders, they have Mathew Barzal leading the way upfront. They play a very defensive style of hockey that can bore some people but there is no denying that they know how to win. As for the Rangers, they have a plethora of great players ready to go. Artemi Panarin is up for the Hart Trophy and Mika Zibanejad wasn’t far behind him this year.
In 2019, similar to the Devils, the Rangers had some lottery luck. They moved up to select Kaapo Kakko with the second overall pick. Then in 2020, they won the lottery outright so they will have Alexis Lafreniere join that fun group of forwards. That doesn’t even include some good young defensemen like Ty Smith, Adam Fox, and Devon Toews. This is going to be a fun hockey scene in this area for a long time.