The New Jersey Devils made a key push in their 2024 NHL Draft Class to add size and strength at key positions. They made some excellent picks. The first two of those prospects, Anton Silayev and Mikhail Yegorov, are the guys who get our stamp of approval. We follow in the footsteps of head amateur scouts on the New Jersey Devils over the years including Mark Dennehey, Paul Castron, Dakota Keene, Scott Lachance, Patrick Charbonneau, Niklas Evertsson, Sergei Nemchinov, Tom Sinisalo, Vacla Slansky, Jr., and Anders Nilsson in our research.
The New Jersey Devils added a few new names to their scouting department under General Manager Tom Fitzgerald's watch. This is a New Jersey Devils team that missed the playoffs but added a lot of veteran experience in physicality, faceoffs, goaltending, and added some defensive-minded defenders via free agency. You may ask yourselves why the Devils added new blood to their amateur scouting department. The inference on this situation is to bring in a few fresh perspectives for the upcoming draft classes. When scouts keep tabs on guys for two to three seasons, they can help paint a clearer picture for a GM to mitigate the risks of how to value assets they have versus creating reliabilities.
Having a solid collective and experienced group of amateur scouts around Tom Fitzgerald, along with the new ones, helped Tom Fitzgerald put a value on certain draft picks, drafted players in the pipeline, and potential players from past drafts who can fit in as NHL-ready players who on the verge of becoming full-time NHL players. As Tom Fitzgerald gets more intel from his crew and begins making a well-informed decision, it becomes easier to make deals like the one that included Alexander Holtz and Paul Cotter.
Not every person in Tom Fitzgerald's front office will agree on what moves to make, but at the end of the day, the story reads about how the players they develop potentially fit or don't fit in the New Jersey Devils' timeline. At this point, the Devils aim to be a Top 8 team in the Eastern Conference, returning to the playoffs. There will be a time when Tom Fitzgerald & Company decides to deal with a few players who may not make it, which would bring in more experienced players on better-valued contracts that help the Devils aim for a Stanley Cup run.
Tom Fitzgerald builds a deep scouting department that brought them to where they are today.
The Devils are uniquely deep on both ends of the ice. This team is more positioned than ever to withstand any setbacks with the quality and quantity of players they now have. It'll be a big turnaround if the Dougie Hamilton of the 2021-22 season returns and gets this team more balanced on all three lines of defense with the firepower he brings with the defensive defenders potentially on his pairing.
The speed, physical play, offensive and defensive drive, combined with the number of veterans to rookies are a healthy dose of greatness when it works out. Jake Allen and Jacob Markstrom are giving Nico Daws and several other young goalies more time to marinate, which is where Manny Legace comes in. The new goalie scout will have time to make Daws into a future NHL goaltender.
Legace will work with every NJ Devils goalie prospect, from Isaac Poulter and Jakub Malek to newcomers Mikhail Yegorov in the USHL and Veeti Louhivaara in Finland. In December, when the World Juniors is up and running, and next summer, during the Hlinka-Gretzky Cup tournament, the top crop in the NHL draft will be there for Legace to watch. All in all, the stability is a good thing, The knowledge and experience that Tom Fitzgerald's upper brass have given him more insight into how they were able to capitalize this offseason and bring in near-term talent to improve the product for the upcoming season.