The New Jersey Devils have their three 1st-round picks locked in.
The New Jersey Devils are a team loaded with firs- round picks in 2020. They have their pick locked in at pick number seven after a placeholder team won the Draft Lottery. They are going to make a top-ten pick using it for the fourth time in the past six seasons. Hopefully, they are almost done making top-ten picks with regularity after this one but hitting on this draft is very important to becoming a perennial playoff team.
Back in December, they traded Taylor Hall to the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for some prospects and their 1st-round pick. The pick was top-three protected but they ended up making it to the NHL bubble following COVID-19. They defeated the Nashville Predators in the play-in round but were then defeated by the Colorado Avalanche in the 1st round. The Devils, as a result, are locked into the 18th overall pick from them.
In the offseason ahead of the 2019-20 season, the Vancouver Canucks sent their 1st-round pick to the Tampa Bay Lightning in exchange for J.T. Miller. The Lightning later sent the Vancouver pick to the New Jersey Devils for Blake Coleman. Vancouver’s condition on the pick to Tampa was that they had to make the playoffs for them to get the pick and they did when they defeated the Minnesota Wild in the play-in round. That pick is not locked into the 20th overall selection as they were defeated by the Vegas Golden Knights last night.
With picks 7, 18, and 20, New Jersey has a chance to make some great selections that will help them win in the future. There is a nice core budding there and they could stand to add some help via this draft. Some good players in this draft are expected to be so deep so hopefully, the Devils can take advantage.
If they make all three selections without trading one or more of them, they will only be the third team to make three 1st-round picks in the NHL Entry Draft. In 2015, the Boston Bruins made three and the Vegas Golden Knights made three in 2017. The Devils are hoping that if they do make three, they can hit on all of them and draft day winners. Now that we know exactly where they are picking for sure, we can start to speculate who they will take.