New Jersey Devils: Full Seven-Round Mock Draft
By Nick Villano
Round 1, Pick 29
Logan Stankoven, Right Wing, Kamloops Blazers
Alright, we’ll start with the elephant in the room with Logan Stankoven. He is a small forward, and they have historically fallen way below their value in the NHL Draft. Brayden Point, Alex DeBrincat, and even going back to Brian Gionta, players with 1st-round talent fall to the 3rd and 4th rounds. Logan Stankoven will be one of those players where GMs show they are learning their lesson. Stankoven has literally everything a GM wants in a forward outside of size.
Stankoven can play all over the ice, and his unlimited motor gets him to where the puck is with a quickness that’s hard to describe. He is always moving. This is the type of player that would be a great fit with the Devils current prospect pool and young NHL players. The Devils need players who can get possession back, and Stankoven does that. They need players that can get into the dirty areas to get the puck back to Hughes, Nico Hischier, and Pavel Zacha. Stankoven can do that.
Beyond “doing the right thing”, Stankoven is electric on the ice. His numbers speak for themselves. The WHL only gave him six games this season. He scored seven goals and recorded 10 points in those six games. On a normal 60-game WHL season, that equates to 100 points. He was just as good at the U18s for Team Canada. He had eight points in seven games including four goals. He also had a +14 in seven games. +/- doesn’t matter unless it’s an outlier, and averaging a +2 per game is definitely an outlier.
There are other interesting players available here. Two of our other writers love Sasha Pastujov, who would be another U.S. player taken in the 1st round. Pronman actually has Shai Buium out of the USHL going to the Devils here. In the FanSided mock draft that we did as a network, Stankoven was taken so I went with Jack Peart out of Fargo. There are other good players here, but if the other GMs pass on Stankoven because of his size, the Devils will get a possible star in a draft that is desperate to find them.