New Jersey Devils Full 7-Round Mock Draft

1st Round, 20th Overall

Devils select Jacob Perreault, RW, Sarnia Sting of the OHL

Ther is a lot of intriguing names here. Pronman had the Devils taking Connor Zary here, but his downside is very scary with a 1st-round pick. Noel Gunler is another player on the board that a lot of people have going to the Devils. Lukas Reichel would be a wonderful pick, but the upside isn’t as high as Jacob Perreault.

The Devils are likely going to reach on a prospect they love here, but this isn’t that much of a reach. He’s being ranked in the 25 range. Since the Devils don’t have a 2nd-round pick, there could be a huge reach for a player like Justin Barron or Helge Grans, but going off the board like that isn’t likely with this being Fitzgerald’s first draft.

The Devils have had trouble scoring up and down the lineup for over a decade. They’ve had three 30-goal scorers since Zach Parise left in free agency in 2012. Six of the past eight seasons, they didn’t have one player hit 30 goals despite having talent like Taylor Hall, Kyle Palmieri, Jaromir Jagr, and Travis Zajac on the roster. The Devils need scorers, and Perreault is exactly that.

Some say that Perreault has one of the best shots in his draft class. He’s a pure sniper, which would give the Devils a deadly one-two prospect punch with Nolan Foote and Perreault. He has some things to work on, especially in his two-way game.

The reason the Devils need to make this pick here is Perreault has that absolute superstar potential. He’s playing on a putrid Sarnia Sting team. If he’s able to put up a stat line of 39-31-70 when there was nothing around him, imagine what he could do with either Jack Hughes or Nico Hischier as his center. This one could be another steal. If the Devils come out of the 1st round of the draft with Raymond, Schneider, and Perreault, then Fitzgerald is getting an A no matter what the rest of the draft looks like.