New Jersey Devils Top 25 Prospects 2022-23 Season

This one is really hard to rank. Artem Shlaine was at UConn last season but transferred to Northern Michigan University for this season. He’s centering their second line and has eight goals and six assists through 16 games. That’s second on his team. He scored a power play goal this past weekend against eighth-ranked Minnesota State that started their comeback and led to a major upset. Shlaine is worth paying attention to, but it’s hard to tell where his development goes next.

Jakub Malek could be the biggest Masterclass of the Tom Fitzgerald regime, or he could be a huge reach that backfires. Nobody even considered Malek a draftable goalie prospect in the 2021 NHL Draft. Malek originally started his season with Ilves of Liiga in Finland, but he struggled mightily. He had an .896 save percentage (but only a 2.62 GAA), which wasn’t acceptable for a team trying to compete like Ilves. He was loaned to KOOVIE, which is the second-tier league in Finland. He has dominated there, allowing less than a goal per game in just two games. We’ll see how the rest of the year goes.

Jack Dugan is not a prospect that was always in the system. In fact, he just joined the Devils this year. He was one of the prized prospects in the Vegas Golden Knights system, but something just didn’t click. He signed out of Providence College, where he tore up the NCAA with Tyce Thompson (who will join us later). He was really good in his first professional season, putting up 31 points in 37 games and adding three goals in five playoff games. Then, he fell off a cliff. He had 18 points in 35 games last season with Henderson, and he only has 10 points in 17 games this season. He still clearly has talent, but someone needs to find out how to unlock it.

This one will come off as controversial. Nikita Okhotiuk almost made the Devils out of training camp this season. He was giving a long look for his size, strength, and ability. He can hit, fight, and put fear into opposing skill players. The Devils don’t have a lot of that on the roster. Unfortunately, his skill is pretty limited beyond that. He needs to get better with the puck on his stick if he wants to stay in the NHL for a long period of time. The former second-round pick is really good at stopping the puck, but it’s what comes next that has him so low on this list.