The New Jersey Devils have not had a good season, so once again it’s time to look at the future. There are a lot of pieces on the team now that will be here for a long time. Jack Hughes just signed an eight-year extension, and he’s still only 20 years old. Nico Hischier is signed through the 2026-27 season. He’s just 23 years old. Dawson Mercer is no longer a prospect, making the team out of training camp despite being 20 years old. The Devils currently have 9 forwards on the roster under the age of 25. That doesn’t include Jonas Siegenthaler (24) and Ty Smith (21) on the defensive side of things.
None of those players are eligible for this list. They are all long-time NHL players. As we hit the halfway point of the NHL season, we want to see where the Devils prospects rank compared to where they were at the end of last season. The prospect pool looked very, very different at that point. There are major changes based on what we saw this season.
Sure, there were some things we didn’t get to see from the prospects. Some lost games due to COVID pauses, and others completely lost their final World Junior Championship tournament. Still, the Devils have a ton of prospects who could one day make it into the NHL.
In fact, the talent is so deep, look at some of the players that made it into the honorable mentions section:
Zakhar Bardakov
Case McCarthy
Topias Vilen
Jakub Malek
Benjamin Baumgartner
Aarne Talvitie
Artem Shlaine
Nikola Pasic
The list is pretty stacked. Here is the criteria in who is considered a prospect:
-23 years old or younger
-Still has realistic ties to New Jersey Devils organization
-Not a guaranteed NHL player right now (So Mercer isn’t considered but Boqvist is)
Besides that, everyone is up for grabs. The Devils have a ton of prospects and ranking them 1-25 was not an easy task. There was a fight for the number-one spot, and there were fights at just about every spot along the way. There were some players who rose the ranks dramatically, and there were others who fell off the list entirely. Let’s start at the beginning. But first, shout out to Elite Prospects for the hard-to-find stats on a lot of these players.