A lack of size, athleticism, and skill has contributed to the lack of playoff success for the New Jersey Devils. While it may not be an immediate solution, the Devils could find an unconventional player with all three in the 2025 NHL Draft.
The Devils do not have a first-round pick, which makes the quest all the more difficult, but they do have two second-round picks. Those could potentially put them within range for Fargo Force winger Mason West, a 6-foot-6 right-handed forward with a heavy shot... and a heavy arm.
The 18-year-old West is also a high school quarterback for Edina High back home in Minnesota. A three-star recruit drawing attention from names like Illinois, Marshall, and California, West is focusing his efforts on hockey after his last season of football.
It's not every year that the Devils, or any NHL team, for that matter, can draft a 6-foot-6 winger with 65 passing touchdowns to his name and counting.
West was a prominent topic of discussion on NHL insider Elliotte Friedman's latest "32 Thoughts" podcast as one of the hottest names at the recent NHL Scouting Combine.
The Devils could get a draft steal by taking Mason West
Based on Friedman's most recent intel, the Devils could have a hard time finding themselves lucky enough to be in a position to select West in the 2025 draft.
"He's kind of got his own list on each team's draft board. The way it was explained to me was, every time a team gets a pick from the second round on, he'll be part of the conversation," Friedman said. "Is now the time we take him? He's really raw, but he's big, he's obviously a great athlete, and he can score. He scores goals, and he plays on the power play, too.
"Someone told me that he was playing point on the power play because he can really shoot the puck. Because you're always looking for big, mobile guys, everyone's watching him. There's so little eye test against really good players. He briefly played in the USHL, he's planning on going there, I guess, for the back half of next year, that he's the biggest wildcard in the draft. Because he could go boom. It really could turn out to be a great pick.
"What a couple teams told me is, every time your pick comes up, you're going to be sitting there saying, 'If we don't take him now, is somebody else going to jump in there and do it? Are we going to lose our opporunity?' So that's going to be the question. When is some team going to say, 'We have to do this now because we won't get another opportunity to do it later?'"
Friedman noted that a team believes other clubs, like the rival Philadelphia Flyers, could be in play for West with one of their late first-round picks. Notably, the Flyers also pick four (yes, four) times in the second round before the Devils do at Pick 50.
At the same time, though, the Flyers have been known to stray from the public consensus in recent years and are already loaded up on right wings. West is currently ranked no higher than 46th based on rankings compiled by EliteProspects, so it seems that, at least for now, there's a good chance the prolific dual-sport athlete is available to the Devils at some point in the second round.
But should it be at Pick 50 or Pick 63? Or will he be gone entirely before then?