2024 Draft Recap: New Jersey Devils
The Devils took a massive jump toward a rewarding future with smothering defenseman Anton Silayev headlining their super-sized draft class
NASHVILLE (The Draft Analyst) — Those familiar with my work know how I feel about draft report cards, even if I’ve been guilty of feeding that beast throughout the last 10 years. But my thoughts on the latest 2024 results will be more than broad brush strokes, as pinning the rose on 12 uninterrupted months of in-depth analysis from both the team and prospect standpoints requires more than the standard letter-grade marking scheme acting as the rubric. Rather, draft hauls will be evaluated and labeled on the following criteria, which I think are both fair and reasonable:
Strong — Any four of potential franchise player(s) drafted; needs addressed; first-round caliber picks in the second or third round; multiple home-run swings in later rounds; point-producing sleepers; the majority of prospects were in top-line/top-pairing/starter roles (Ex. Buffalo’s 2022 draft)
Above-average - Any three of needs addressed; multiple home-run swings; acknowledged consensus favorites; the majority of prospects were in top-line/top-pairing/starter roles; making more with less; first-round quality in the second or third round. (Ex. Carolina’s 2023 draft)
Average — A solid first- or second-round pick but mostly unspectacular thereafter (Ex. Colorado’s 2020 draft)
Below-average — Quantity over quality; over-drafting of higher-round picks/reaching; four picks or less with no first-round selection; obsession with overagers (Ex. New York Rangers’ 2018 draft or Ottawa’s drafts from 2021-2023)
Poor — Any three of unpopular reach in the first round, no picks in the first or second round; needs not addressed, obsession with overagers, leaving upside on the board for projects, or bucking popular consensus choices (Ex. Arizona’s 2020 draft)
Outlook
No NHL team in recent memory has turned the proverbial princes-to-paupers routine as often as the New Jersey Devils, who in the last 14 years have missed the playoffs four times immediately after qualifying the season prior with 97 points or better. As such, the Garden Staters haven’t seen consecutive postseasons since 2010, which happened to be the last of 13 straight qualifications and 19 of 20 that included three Stanley Cups.
How history repeated itself under three different general managers is another story for another time. Ask around and you’ll find out that New Jersey’s latest calamity was mostly a combined result of bad goaltending and injuries to key players. Context, however, can be an important tool when determining the driving factors behind a given team’s draft strategy, which, according to most NHL GMs themselves, usually has more to do with how that season’s Stanley Cup champion looked during the playoffs than anything else. That’s right, a team’s ability to survive four rounds of a single postseason after years of spending up to the salary cap, firing and hiring different coaches, and turning over half the roster year after year is a referendum on the draft strategy for teams who missed the playoffs by anywhere from 15 to 35 points. Gotcha.
Nonetheless, the Devil perspective toward the 2024 draft crop probably had more to it than what the average bottom-feeder was considering, beginning with the fact that they aren’t one of the nine current franchises who have gone four years or more without making the playoffs. In other words, there was some wiggle room for their scouts to get funky fresh and make everyone happy, fans included. Yes, the Devils lean heavily toward analytics and no, they don’t fit the profile of a habitual reactionary drafter (Ottawa Senators, anyone?). But after New Jersey’s near-record turnaround of +49 points in 2023 to a putrid reversal of -31 this past season, it’s more reasonable to expect an active and communicative general manager like Tom Fitzgerald to issue strict marching orders to his staff that detailed the targeting of specific concerns (e.g., size, toughness, clutch goaltending) rather than execute New Jersey’s usual draft-day practice of swinging big and taking chances, even when a specific position was targeted.
Still, it was hard to overlook how often the Devils were pushed around and outworked during an injury-riddled season, thereby presenting the front office and coaching staff with the opportunity (or necessity) to insert younger players into the lineup; specifically recent high-round draft picks who had shaped the organization’s farm system into one of the league’s best. If Devil management were disappointed in the collective’s competitive level and overall strength in battles, then it would be fair to assume that Fitzgerald’s scouts were quite privy to these criticisms and thus likely mandated by their boss to construct a draft board that highlighted hard-working prospects with both size and consistent late-in-the-shift energy.
But this plausible scenario begs the question: Were the Devils at the physical mercy of their opponents because the youth forced into their lineup were short on muscle maturity? And if so, was it problematic enough to cost them points in the standings? The answer to the first part is an obvious yes, as opponents know younger players are easier to intimidate. Additionally, the veteran portion of the forward group was already small by NHL standards — top scorers Jesper Bratt and Jack Hughes, among others, are listed under six feet and seven of the top 10 Devil scorers were six feet or less. But as already mentioned, the lack of quality goaltending and injuries are what kept the Devils out of the playoffs more than anything else, especially in a season where both of the Eastern Conference wild-card berths were up for grabs until the last week of the campaign. Then again, Fitzgerald had this to say at his end-of-season press conference:
“…the maturity of this team has to continue to grow, and that’s everyone. It’s challenging themselves, taking the next step in leadership…there’s another level that we have to get to. And I’m not just talking about on ice. I’m talking about off-ice as well, leading the way off the ice. Doing things in the weight room is as important as the extra stuff you do on the ice…it’s all-encompassing and we have to get there.
“We’ve got to value those things to make the next step. With that being said, then you get to the on-ice — better details, better habits, better practice habits, are we in the best possible shape we can be in? When you are, the game’s easier and slows down more when you’re stronger and faster and can actually stay out there for a minute and 25 seconds, and at 45 seconds you’re still at your top peak. That’s a level we need to get to.”
Weight room? Best possible shape? Stronger and faster? Not exactly a canned end-of-season lament from a front-office executive with a plane to catch, is it? Remember, these season wrap-ups with the media usually come after the exit meetings between the players and staff have already taken place, meaning it’s a good bet Fitzgerald’s criticisms on breakup day were already delivered to those deserving to be criticized, albeit in a private setting. Additionally, the draft was over two months away when Fitzgerald said the above, thereby making the Devils a prime candidate to go for beef and bulk above all once the draft got underway.
As far as positions go, the rapid ascensions of former No. 1 overall picks Jack Hughes (2019) and Nico Hischier (2017) made drafting centers less of a priority for the Devils in the years that followed. In fact, of the 39 players picked by the Devils between 2019 and 2023, only seven were listed as centers while 16 were defensemen and 12 played the wing. This disparity was starkly depicted on New Jersey’s prospect depth chart heading into the draft, as only three pivots were listed with one — 2021 third-rounder Samu Salminen — the lone center prospect taken higher than the fourth round.
The thinning of their prospect pool from promotions and trades also was noticeable in goal, although selecting only four backstops in the five years leading up to the 2024 draft had plenty to do with it. But New Jersey’s tendency to go for need at other positions, or at least develop a theme for a given class, should be a consideration for predicting which direction their scouts would go toward in Las Vegas. In 2019, they went for left-handed defensemen and right-wingers, followed by centers in 2020, right-shot defensemen in 2022, and right wings again in 2023.
MORE: 2024 NHL Draft Report (PDF Download)
Traded picks
Rarely do trades on the draft’s second day involve anything more than a swapping of same-round picks, but the Devils and their recent win-at-all-cost spending habits under Fitzgerald tend to involve much more. As expected, the Devil GM significantly altered his draft order by making high-profile moves involving roster players, albeit surprisingly more on Day 2 than during the opening round, which has been his usual pattern since assuming command. Keep in mind that those moves about to be discussed won’t include his preemptive strike on the goalie market a week before the draft when he sent a 2025 first-round pick and mammoth defenseman Kevin Bahl to Calgary for pricey veteran backstop Jakub Markstrom. But to get an idea of the extent of Fitzgerald’s busier-than-usual endeavors on the draft floor, I broke down all of his draft-day trades since he took over as GM in 2020.
2020 Draft
In his first draft-pick deal as Devils’ GM, Fitzgerald traded the 191st pick in 2020 to Arizona for a 2021 seventh-rounder. The Coyotes took Swedish winger Elliot Ekefjard (who is no longer NHL-affiliated) while the Devils in the following year drafted overage power forward Zakhar Bardakov with the 202nd pick. Although Fitzgerald would fall 11 spots in the round in making that deal, it was Bardakov who became the better prospect and was later flipped to the Colorado Avalanche at the 2024 trade deadline (along with a 2024 seventh-rounder that we’ll discuss later) for resident pugilist Kurtis MacDermid. Fitzgerald inked MacDermid last May to a three-year, $3.45 million deal while the Avs have a KHL-proven prospect in Bardakov, who could come to North America as early as next season, in addition to the seventh-round pick with legitimate long-term upside.
2021 Draft
Another lackluster Devil finish in the overall standings thrust Fitzgerald into a deadline sell-off that fetched additional higher-round options, including the late second-rounder from the New York Islanders (for 37-seven-year-old defenseman Andy Greene) that he would give to Colorado on draft day for established everyday defender Ryan Graves. Also sent packing in the deal from New Jersey was journeyman forward Mikhail Maltsev, although Graves at the time of the trade was the unquestionable prize. But the prospect the Avalanche would choose — cerebral two-way defender Sean Behrens — later became a top NCAA blueliner and anchored the University of Denver’s first pairing for two Frozen Four championships. Still, Fitzgerald would get two solid middle-pairing seasons out of a prime Graves before losing him to Pittsburgh via free agency last offseason, so try to remember that as we track what becomes of Behrens in the near and distant future.
2022 Draft
The bright side to its worst season in 36 years was New Jersey’s triumph at the 2022 draft lottery, where the first of two ping-ponged moments of truth awarded Fitzgerald and his Devils the second overall pick. After making a sizeable splash on the first day with the selection of defenseman Simon Nemec, Fitzgerald addressed a major organizational weakness early on Day 2 when he sent his 37th and 70th picks to the Washington Capitals for Winnipeg’s 2022 second-rounder (46th overall) and goalie Vitek Vanecek, who at the time of the trade was 26 years old with 75 career NHL starts to his credit. The Capitals would draft defensive defenseman Ryan Chesley at 37 and flashy winger Alexander Suzdalev at 70, while the Devils used the Winnipeg pick on offensive defenseman Seamus Casey (speaking of flashy). Fast forward to the present, and the deal still looks favorably on Fitzgerald’s resume; mostly from Casey’s upward trajectory and certainly not for Vanecek's regression from a 33-win effort as New Jersey’s No. 1 in 2022-23 to donning the Swiss Cheese costume last season before ultimately being traded to the San Jose Sharks on March 8.
2023 Draft
A dream season that included a franchise-record 52 wins and a first-round playoff triumph over the hated crosstown rival New York Rangers didn’t stop Fitzgerald from sticking with his annual tradition of executing a draft-related move involving a roster player. Of course, his trading of former starting goalie Mackenzie Blackwood and the acquisition of veteran winger Tyler Toffoli from the Calgary Flames for promising scorer Yegor Sharangovich and Calgary’s third-rounder (previously acquired by the Seattle Kraken, then the Columbus Blue Jackets, and later by the Devils in the Damon Severson trade) were both made official the day before the draft was underway. But the point stands — Fitzgerald made it three straight years where he leveraged his early-round capital to acquire proven talent, and did so while the league was convening for the draft.
Unfortunately for the Devils, a nightmarish string of bad luck coupled with poor goaltending effectively ended any hopes for a playoff repeat in 2024, forcing Fitzgerald to reaffix the dreaded seller button to his lapel at the trade deadline and deal Toffoli and his 26 goals to the Winnipeg Jets for a 2024 third-round pick (more on that later). Compounding the issue was what became of the price Fitzgerald paid to land Toffoli in the first place — Sharangovich scored 31 goals for the Flames while the third-round pick became deadly UMass-Amherst sniper Aydar Suniev, who was one of Hockey East’s top freshmen.
The Blackwood deal was far less complex, even if the return from San Jose — a 2023 sixth-round pick that New Jersey would use to draft physical winger Cole Brown — is essentially an admission by Fitzgerald that the Devils were forced to sell incredibly low on a goalie who once was considered a cornerstone piece. Nonetheless, Blackwood regressed considerably and was up for a new contract, while Brown saw his OHL production dip in what was his third full season of Canadian major junior. This move is a wash through and through.
Capping Fitzgerald’s busy weekend was a move of lesser note than the previous two deals in that it took place late in the seventh round and was straight draft pick-for-draft pick. Remember the 2024 seventh-rounder from the MacDermid deal with Colorado? Well, that’s what the Devils would acquire from the Nashville Predators in exchange for New Jersey’s last pick (218th overall) in 2023. The Predators would make out well with this seemingly meaningless swap by drafting high-scoring AJHL winger Aiden Fink, who last season produced at a point-per-game clip for Penn State. The Nashville pick from 2024 that went back to the Devils wound up slotting in at 215th overall, which is where the Avalanche took hard-nosed NTDP center Christian Humphreys, who may have gone at least two rounds higher had he not dealt with a draft-year injury bug.
As you can see, this is a lot of work for a general manager and his staff to handle in three days, especially for a team that had just set a team record with 112 points. But it would pale in comparison to what Fitzgerald had in store 12 months later.
2024 Draft
Nobody should expect a GM to sit by idly during an offseason that immediately follows a 31-point drop in the standings, which is the exact conundrum Fitzgerald faced after the smoke cleared on New Jersey’s disappointing 2023-24 campaign. Although still far from the point of receiving those ever-so-fateful words from his superiors, Fitzgerald after his fourth full season in charge was likely to feel a tightening around his collar, especially since those same bosses had just inked him to a lengthy contract extension and how Fitzgerald didn’t exactly build his roster strictly through the draft. Turbulent times or not, his collection of veterans didn’t come cheap, and that includes the eight-year, $70M contract extension he gave Timo Meier after acquiring the beefy winger in a mega deal with San Jose on Feb. 23, 2023.
Still, Fitzgerald had to plug sizeable leaks heading into the 2024 draft, which was soon followed by the opening of the league’s free-agent signing period on July 1, thereby strengthening the likelihood of yet another iteration of Fitzgerald’s pick-for-player deals. Armed with the 10th overall selection and two third-rounders (the other belonging to Winnipeg from moving Toffoli at the previous deadline) but without picks in the second, fourth, and seventh rounds, Fitzgerald busily went about knocking the Day 2 draft order off its rails with a total of three deals, all seemingly designed to add more prospects to the pool at a negotiable cost of draft positioning.
His opening move was a biggie, but it addressed the missing second-round pick by sending steady middle-pairing defenseman John Marino and Colorado’s 2024 fifth-rounder at 153 (previously acquired from San Jose in the Meier deal) for Washington’s slot at 49th overall, which Utah had acquired from Ottawa in the Jakob Chychrun trade. Also heading to New Jersey was Utah’s 2025 second-rounder, which could land closer to the late first round than the early third. Nonetheless, the Devils at 49 would grab highly-touted USHL goalie Mikhail Yegorov, who was the highest netminder drafted by New Jersey since they took Blackwood with the 42nd pick in 2015. Utah would go on to select physical Czech defender Ales Cech with the throw-in fifth-rounder.
Fitzgerald maintained his momentum into the third round, where he traded down from 75th overall (his own) by shipping it to the Capitals for No. 82 and an additional fifth-rounder, which New Jersey later used on Finnish goalie Veeti Louhivaara at 146. Washington opted for lanky USHL scorer Ilya Protas at 75, while the 82nd pick they surrendered didn’t stay in Devil possession for long, as Fitzgerald quickly traded down three spots with Tampa Bay to 85, allowing the Lightning to draft power forward Carson Wetsch at a cost of a 2025 sixth-rounder going back to New Jersey. As for the Devils, the 10-spot drop from 75 to 85 netted them abrasive winger Kasper Pikkarainen, plus a decent goalie prospect in Louhivaara and the extra sixth-rounder for next year.
To sum it all up, Fitzgerald acquired two second-rounders, a fifth, and a sixth for John Marino and a fifth, all while keeping his initial allocation of two picks in both the third and fifth rounds. This may seem like a lateral move at best, but the cap space freed from the Marino deal allowed the Devils to sign Brett Pesce for close to the same cap hit. Overall, it looks well-contrived on New Jersey’s end.
Additional notes:
-The Sharks used New Jersey’s original second-round pick (42nd overall) from the Timo Meier trade to trade up from 14 to 11 with Buffalo. San Jose, which acquired the 14th pick from Pittsburgh in the Erik Karlsson deal, would take defenseman Sam Dickinson at 11, while the Sabres took playmaking center Konsta Helenius at 14 and big defender Adam Kleber with the Devils’ second-rounder. And for fun, it looks like Fitzgerald would have taken Helenius had Anton Silayev not been on the board.
-The third-rounder New Jersey received from Winnipeg in the Tyler Toffoli deadline deal was used to take speedy power-winger Herman Traff at 91st overall. Traff was rated 25th among European skaters by NHL Central Scouting.
-New Jersey’s own fourth-round pick (107th overall), which was moved to Vancouver for Curtis Lazar on March 3, 2023, and then from the Canucks to Calgary on Jan. 31 in the Elias Lindholm deal, was acquired by the Philadelphia Flyers in a draft-day deal with the Flames. The Flyers took physical Finnish center Heikki Ruohonen at 107.
-The Detroit Red Wings drafted checking forward Austin Baker with New Jersey’s seventh-round pick (203rd overall), which the Devils shipped to San Jose in the Meier trade. Detroit acquired the pick and defenseman Radim Simek from the Sharks on March 8 for physical winger (and 2017 first-round pick) Klim Kostin.
MORE: 2023-24 NHL Farm System Rankings and Assessments (Pre-Draft)
Draft picks
Assessment: Strong
Fitzgerald claims to be a hands-off GM and has yet to deliver a single post-draft press briefing without mentioning the role of analytics, which probably explains his frequent trades on draft day.
Nevertheless, one can only wonder why New Jersey’s theft of towering defenseman Anton Silayev at 10th overall was deemed permissible by the hockey gods; as if the Devils needed another top-of-the-scale defense prospect shortly after drafting both Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec in the top five. Pondering the why and how doesn’t do anyone employed by the Devils any good at this point — he’s theirs, and there’s nothing anybody outside the organization can do about it. Although it’s too early to determine Silayev’s impact on the franchise, the flip side is how the door will remain open for valuable lessons to be learned by the handful of scouting departments — San Jose Sharks with the top pick notwithstanding — who opted to pass on Central Scouting’s top-rated European prospect and in essence made the unthinkable happen when Silayev slid to the double digits.
So what exactly will Silayev do for the Devils? Before we get there, it’s important to consider his impressive adult-league experience and subsequent KHL contract that expires after (key word) the 2025-26 season, thereby placing Silayev somewhere along the path taken by Luke Hughes (draft+3 arrival) than Nemec (draft+2) and marking his realistic NHL debut somewhere during the 2026-27 season. The idea that he makes the team out of his first training camp isn’t completely inconceivable, but it’s important to add that four of New Jersey’s veteran defensemen — righties Dougie Hamilton and Brett Pesce, and lefties Jonas Siegenthaler and Brenden Dillon — are all signed for at least three seasons, leaving the remaining NHL slots to Hughes and Nemec. Add up-and-coming prospects Seamus Casey and Topias Vilen, and you could see a situation where the Devils may implore Silayev to either stay in the KHL or accept an AHL job in Utica for at least two years after he leaves Russia for good.
Defensive prowess, specifically below the faceoff dots, is where Silayev most likely makes his presence felt. Although much has been said about his elite skating ability and strength for a teenager, Silayev has the potential to develop into one of the game’s best 1-on-1 defenders; one who can be an easy choice to match against opposing top lines and deploy for critical stops at any strength in any zone. Again, the Devils already have Luke Hughes and Nemec to consider as future point producers, so labeling Silayev as a potential premier defensive defenseman, even if drafted in the top 10, isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a team looking to get bigger and tougher to play against.
Trading up to the middle of the second round to draft a goalie made obvious sense for New Jersey, although I believed that the Boston University-bound Yegorov was put on a pedestal by NHL Central Scouting (ranked No. 1 among North American goalies) mostly because he played in the USHL and received multiple viewings, while at least a half-dozen Russian goalies playing overseas were just as impressive when faced with a barrage of shots on a nightly basis. Still, the Devils claim to have gotten their man with each of their first two picks, and developing in Hockey East has proven to be an effective path for goalies to take.
But any minor concerns I may have had over the Yegorov selection (which took place with Carter George, Pavel Moysevich, and Kirill Zarubin still on the board, I may add) were quickly silenced by each of New Jersey’s two third-round picks — big-bodied wingers Kasper Pikkarainen (85th overall) and HV 71’s Herman Traff (91st). Not only did each prospect rank higher on my final 100, but the combined skill level from both of them can rival any winger combo taken outside the first round. Granted, I had Traff (44) as the higher-rated prospect by 32 spots over Pikkarainen (76), but ending up with both after trading down several times for additional assets is a big win for Fitzgerald and his staff.
Double-overager Max Graham (139th overall) was the first center taken and one I would have passed on in favor of two excellent scoring options taken shortly thereafter in Mississauga’s Luke Misa and Czech Miroslav Holinka, who went to Calgary and Toronto, respectively. My biggest concern surrounding Graham is that it was his fourth WHL season and only mustered 20 goals for a Kelowna team that had skill up and down their lineup. Perhaps Graham’s pugilism and size were just as important to Devil scouts as his productive postseason, but they could have done better, even for a fifth-rounder.
Veeti Louhivaara at 146th overall was the second goalie taken by New Jersey and part of the return package from Utah in the John Marino deal and is more of a blank canvas at this point. He shared JyP U20’s cage with fellow 2006-born goalie Otto Hannikainen, but Louhivaara did not play for most of the second half and missed the entirety of the SM-Sarja playoffs from an off-ice injury. Not only was he getting lit up at the U20 level before the injury (JyP was one of the league’s top teams, for what it’s worth), but the same happened at the international level when he faced Czech shooters at the late-December U18 Five Nations. Since this recap is being delivered after the fact, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention his poor start against USA-Blue at the recent U20 World Junior Summer Showcase, although it was doubtful he made Team Finland’s final cut to begin with. Stylistically, Louhivaara is a deep-in-the crease type with jittery movement who’s not quick enough to prevent getting beat up high from mid-range opportunities. For those keeping score at home, Timofei Obvintsev, Marcus Gidlof, and Joel Stierngranat were all options I would have taken over Louhivaara.
With their last pick of the draft, the Devils took a high-IQ center with point-producing upside in Czech double-overager Matyas Melovsky, who posted an impressive second QMJHL season for powerhouse Baie-Comeau. Although the Drakkar fell short of their bid to win the QMJHL title and advance to the Memorial Cup, the 6-foot-2, 190-pounder flashed quality playmaking ability and smart 200-foot habits, much like he did for the Czech Republic at the world junior championship earlier in the season. He made 2022 draft eligibility by only a few months and just turned 20, so he can join New Jersey’s AHL affiliate in Utica as early as this upcoming season. But much like the Graham pick, Devil scouts passed over younger talent with similar upside and 200-foot ability, specifically Petr Sikora, Svante Sjodin, Christian Humphreys, and William Samuelsson.
To be completely frank, the first four picks made this draft phenomenal for the Devils, which is more of an attaboy for the prospects taken early than it is a criticism for the projects chosen in the later rounds. It’s scary to think that New Jersey’s class could have been even better had the team abandoned clear-cut reactionary tactics and had taken a pure best-player-available or high-ceiling approach as they did in each of the first three rounds.
MORE: 2024 Draft: Round 1 Pick-by-Pick Analysis and Grades