Options For New Jersey Devils In Late 1st Round Of NHL Draft

The Scorers

Seth Jarvis

After an ok start to the season, Seth Jarvis lit it up after Christmas with 65 points in 29 games to shoot himself up the draft rankings. Finishing the season with 96 points, the Portland Winterhawks speedy center was second in the entire WHL in points and third in goals.

1.69 points per game and 0.72 goals per game are incredible numbers in your draft year, so if he is on the board the Devils should be on this one fast. He would need a couple of years to round out his game, but he does have all the skills needed to fit the mold of what the Devils were, and probably still are, going for which is fast and attacking.

He isn’t afraid to push the play into the slot as often as he can. Most perimeter players don’t make it in the NHL as you are not beating the best goalies in the world from a bad angle. When cycling the puck, he was quite sneaky along the boards and good at keeping players off the puck. On the powerplay, he did a good job of holding the play along the boards and drawing players over to him before getting the puck over to his target freeing up space.

When he didn’t have the puck, Jarvis tended to hover around the slot, which we’ll call the Kyle Palmieri spot on the left side. He would laser a lot of pucks in from it, though with a wrister over the big slapshot. He already has the wheels to keep up with our guys so just refining his play putting on some muscle and putting up points in Jr and then Binghamton would go a long way for building a good top-six offensive player.

Connor Zary

One of the oldest players in the draft in this draft, Connor Zary is a good offensive player much like Jarvis. With 86 points and 38 goals this past season, he found himself just behind Jarvis in about every category. He is slightly bigger than Jarvis at 6 foot already and 180 pounds, but like most kids that age, it’s hard to tell what they will be at the age of 20 or 25.

He is a good skater but not a real speedster. His best asset for generating offense is his hands. He can embarrass players who make a lazy play and showed this many times in the WHL. The speed at which he does it and the control he has shows he can do this at the next level.

Zary backchecks as hard as he forechecks. This is something that’s especially great at that age. It shows he could play up or down the lineup moving forward. If he didn’t become a big scorer, he can still contribute. This is not a boom or bust pick.

He is a decently safe pick and he could have top-line potential, but realistically it’s a lower possibility than someone like Jarvis and those who will be gone like Jack Quinn. He will however be a good middle-six player and a two-way complimentary player who can move around the line-up, much like I feel Jesper Bratt and Blake Coleman were for us the last two years.