The New Jersey Devils need to be smart at the NHL Draft.
The New Jersey Devils are a team that has holes just about everywhere. The only place you could say with a bit of confidence that they don’t have a hole at center. Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes are developing nicely and the hope is that they turn into legit stars in this league. With guys like Travis Zajac and Pavel Zacha to handle the center of the ice in the bottom-six, that position could wait.
They have Mackenzie Blackwood in the net and he appears to be a good starting goalie in the league. The Devils would have had an even worse record if Blackwood didn’t play out of his mind in most games. However, he does need to prove that he can keep it up and they do need a backup. The secondary netminding on the Devils was absolutely atrocious in 2019-20.
Everyone knows they need defensemen. Ty Smith and Kevin Bahl are two hopefuls that want to be impact players on this team sometime in the future. They also have players like P.K. Subban, Damon Severson, and Will Butcher to help in the present. No matter how you look at it, they need more help on the blue line.
New Jersey has three picks in the first round of the 2020 NHL Draft. That is a lot because most teams don’t usually even ever have two and some don’t even have one. The Devils have a chance here to really bolster their organization by hitting on these three picks. So that begs the question, what position should they be looking to draft? That question doesn’t even apply to the first round as they have nine picks total in the entire draft.
With the seventh overall pick, it has to be who they deem as the best player available. The chances of it being a forward are very high. It doesn’t matter if it is a wing or a center because with a pick that high you just need the best kid. Picks 17, 20, and beyond get a little bit more complicated. If Yaroslav Askarov is there at 20 they might want to consider him. If there are some really good defensemen left, they should take one. There is even a chance that they take a forward with one of their later first-round picks but looking at the defenseman might be the best route to go.
The later round picks are always essentially guessed anyway. The hope is that the scouting has done their homework and can maybe find another Jesper Bratt or Nikita Gusev. A defenseman that turns out to be a stud in the late rounds would be lovely too. The Devils haven’t been sustainably good for a long time but if they keep adding all of these draft picks they should turn the corner at some point. Hopefully, these selections help them do that just a little bit quicker.