The New Jersey Devils during Tom Fitzgerald’s tenure has had a constant flow of young players coming from both Ray Shero’s draft picks and Fitzgerald’s own picks. Fitzgerald actually took over during Jack Hughes’s rookie year, a player who was expected to be in the Calder Trophy race.
From then on out, rookies felt like an important part of the fabric of the Devils. Ty Smith was the rookie making an impact in the COVID-shortened 2021 season. Dawson Mercer played all 82 games in 2021-22 and actually got a few Calder votes after scoring 17 goals and finishing with 42 points. We thought Alexander Holtz would be that rookie in 2022-23, but that didn’t work out. We did get that rookie season out of Luke Hughes in 23-24.
Rookies are not a priority for Sunny Mehta's New Jersey Devils
Fast forward to last season, and we have Arseny Gritsyuk as the rookie making an impact in the lineup. We also had Lenni Hameenaho, but Gritsyuk was the guy who could have won the Calder Trophy in an ideal world. Matthew Schaefer ended up running away with the award, but Gritsyuk was a good rookie all the same.
This season, that’s not the case. Who is the rookie making the Devils' roster? The only one with a sliver of a chance to make it is Shane Lachance, but he’s as big a longshot as there is. There’s already a logjam at the forward position, and the Devils haven’t signed any PTOs yet.
There are a few reasons for this, but the biggest reason is the bad drafting by Tom Fitzgerald. There aren’t any new rookies worth playing right now. The Devils have a prospect pool that’s in the bottom half of the league.
It’s a new world for the Devils. Rookies will eventually again be a part of this roster, with guys like Anton Silayev, Mikhail Yegorov, and Alexander Command building their profiles, but it doesn’t seem to be a priority this season.
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