The NHL draft lottery is set for May 7th and the New Jersey Devils will have a 3.5% chance and the 10th best odds of winning the right to draft first overall.
The NHL draft lottery is set for May 7th and the New Jersey Devils will have a 3.5% chance and the 10th best odds of winning the right to draft first overall.
The last time the Devils drafted in a lottery spot was in 2022 and they selected Simon Nemec with the 2nd overall pick. Their lottery picks before Nemec include Luke Hughes in 2021 (4th overall), Alexander Holtz in 2020 (7th overall), Jack Hughes in 2019 (1st overall) and Nico Hischier in 2017(1st overall).
The Devils would of course love to move up in the draft. The higher the selection the closer they likely are to playing in the NHL. This year's draft is projected to be dominated by defensemen.
Macklin Celebrini is the guaranteed first overall pick but after him, the draft is wide open. Players like Ivan Demidov, Cayden Lindstrom, Cole Eiserman, Artyom Levshunov, Zeev Buium, Zayne Parekh, Anton Silayev, Sam Dickinson, Tij Iginla and Konsta Helenius have all seen themselves listed in many different orders. Tony Ferrari of The Hockey News wrote about the dream picks for each lottery team and believes the Devils and Helenius would be a great pair.
Lindstrom and Demidov are two forwards that will likely be taken before the Devils pick if they don't move in the lottery. Eiserman was seen as a competitor for Celebrini at the beginning of the year but has dropped because of concerns about missing key elements to his game. He is a pure goal scorer that could possibly pair nicely with a premier playmaker like Jack Hughes.
The Devils had an underwhelming season but should look forward to drafting another top prospect.
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