The New Jersey Devils came out of the 2026 NHL Draft with a very interesting class. There was clearly a motive to attack the center position, which has value on multiple fronts. For one, the Devils might have the worst center prospect pool in the NHL. After years of passing on the position because of the existence of Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes (and for a time Michael McLeod before he was arrested and Dawson Mercer), the Devils now see themselves with no center prospect who might make the NHL. Now, they have at least three.
Their first is their first-round pick. With the 12th-overall pick, Sunny Mehta’s first draft pick for the Devils was Swedish center Alexander Command. Some people really didn’t like the pick, but others really see the upside. He’s a big motor guy who can dominate against the boards and plays well in open ice. He won’t score a ton, but he hits and outworks everyone around him.Â
In the second round, Mehta and the Devils selected Matias Vanhanen 37th overall. He’s a Finnish center who just put up 87 points in the WHL. Now, the Devils originally had the 35th-overall pick, but they traded down with the Chicago Blackhawks to add a fourth-round pick.Â
With that fourth-round pick, the Devils might have taken their best player in the entire draft.Â
The Devils selected centerman Lavr Gashilov with the 119th overall pick. He spent most of last season in the Russian minor league, the MHL. There, he had 16 goals and 51 assists in 53 games with Avto. He was also an assistant captain despite still being a teenager. He’s just the second player ever to average more than a point per game ahead of their draft year, along with Ivan Ryabkin. Both players broke the record once held by Matvei Michkov.Â
Gashilov led all MHL players in assists. All of them. He has elite offensive upside. He could easily be a top-six player in just a few years.Â
The Devils may have drafted a gem in Lavr Gashilov
And that’s where we sit. Gashilov is the typical high-risk, high-reward prospect. He could be a Jesper Bratt-type, someone Mehta has been hanging his hat on for years. Mehta famously had Bratt as his third-ranked prospect in the 2016 NHL Draft.Â
It’s possible that Gashilov gets to the KHL and gets exposed, which actually happened to Ryabkin. However, he could see his skill translate to the next level. Being in Russia complicates this, as it could be a long time before he makes the jump to the NHL. We saw how long it took Arseny Gritsyuk to make the jump to the NHL, but Mikhail Yegorov and Anton Silayev came to North America rather quickly.
We should learn a ton about Gashilov this upcoming season. By the time we hit the 2027 NHL Draft, there’s a chance that Gashilov looks like one of the top 30 draft picks in this year’s class. There’s also a chance he becomes a forgettable prospect. Based on his offensive skill, we’re betting on the former.Â
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