The New Jersey Devils wouldn’t be where they are in the standings without Simon Nemec. Despite the Carolina Hurricanes passing them in the standings this week, they are still second in the entire Eastern Conference. They have a .711 points percentage, and despite the grocery list-sized IR, the Devils are doing their best to survive.
Nemec has been singularly responsible for four points over the past two weeks. He scored a goal with 4.7 seconds left against the New York Islanders to send the game to overtime. He scored a hat trick against the Chicago Blackhawks, including netting the overtime winner. And he capped it off with the shootout winner against the Washington Capitals.
Nemec has been the Devils’ best player for a little while here. He is just on a confidence heater that we haven’t seen from him. He’s taking over games offensively, and he hasn’t been too bad on the defensive side, either.
Jack Hughes’s bizarre injury has Devils fans desperate for something to root for. Simon Nemec has given it to them.
One would think that excitement would stretch to the national media. This is a Slovak prospect who was a former second-overall pick. The narrative from the national media was that the Devils made a huge mistake choosing Nemec over Logan Cooley. No Devils fan is bringing that up right now. Everyone is thrilled with what we’ve seen from Nemec in 2025-26.
So, when the TSN top players under 24 came out, we were curious where Nemec would land. We went through the top 10, and no Nemec. Also, no Luke Hughes, but he’s struggled to start the season, so we understand that. Hughes showed up at number 12, so that’s fine for now (we expect him to be higher by the end of the season).
Simon Nemec should be ranked much higher on the U24 rankings
We get to 20, and still no Nemec. Huh, that’s strange. We did pass Cooley along the way, who now sits at 13 on the list.
At 21 is Capitals rookie Ryan Leonard, who people are really high on. Okay, fine. Ducks rookie Beckett Sennecke had a really hot start to the season. He’s sitting at 27. We’re starting to get to a place where we NEED to see Nemec.
We are now in the 30s. There are multiple players who aren’t even in the NHL, like Caleb Desnoyers (32) and Brady Martin (35). Still no Nemec.
From 41-50, we see names like Mason MacTavish, Owen Power, and Quinton Byfield, but we don’t see Nemec. He didn’t even make the list.
Nemec has 12 points this season, tied for 20th among all defensemen. He’s one point behind Jake Sanderson, who is ninth on TSN’s list. He’s ahead of Brock Faber, Zeev Buium, and Artyom Levshunov. He even has more points than Juraj Slafkovsky, who was taken first overall in the 2022 NHL Draft and ended up at 28 on the list.
At the end of the day, many might be demanding that Nemec prove this isn’t a fluke, but most of these players haven’t shown a thing at the NHL level. Keeping Nemec out of the top 50 just shows they aren’t a list worth paying attention to in the first place.