The New Jersey Devils have had a little bit of luck on their side recently. They won the 2017 NHL Draft Lottery and did it again in 2019. They were lucky enough to draft Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes with those picks and now they are their two best players.
That has not translated to team success, however, which is why continuing to build through the draft is important. They need more young players to come in and help turn things around. That will start with the 2022 NHL Draft.
New Jersey went in with the fifth-best odds to win the lottery at 8.5 percent. Well, they won one of the two draft lottery spots. It was revealed that the Montreal Canadiens will pick first so the Devils were left with the second overall pick. That is much better than the fifth overall pick.
There are a variety of players for them to consider with this pick. No matter who they go with, they will be getting a really nice prospect that they can use to their advantage going forward. It is certainly going to be fun thinking about who it might be for the next couple of months.
The New Jersey Devils are going to make the 2nd overall pick in the 2022 Draft.
It is almost certain that the Montreal Canadiens are going to take Shane Wright with the first overall pick. That leaves guys like Logan Cooley, Juraj Slafkovsky, or Simon Nemec amongst others available to the Devils at two.
New Jersey, as mentioned before, already has a lot of good young players in the mix. One of those guys is going to join the likes of Hischier, Hughes, Jesper Bratt, Luke Hughes, Yegor Sharangovich, and others. This team was bad in 2021-22 but they have a legit chance to have a very bright future.
We can only hope that whoever they draft is someone that can help them sustain success. There is a good winger, defenseman, and center to consider. They could go with who they deem is the best player available or they could go by positional need.
It would be nice if this is the last time that the Devils pick this high for a long time as that would probably mean that they start to play much better.