Devils' 2026 Second-Round Draft Profile: Victor Plante
Evaluating what Victor Plante brings to the table as a potential target with the 44th overall pick in the 2026 NHL Entry Draft.
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With the 2026 NHL Entry Draft going down this month and the Devils in possession of five picks, I’ll be going through a ton of prospects over the next several weeks in order to prepare readers for appealing targets in every round. At the end, I’ll be doing a full mock draft (with reasoning) so that you’ll be able to decipher my preferred targets. Enjoy!
All 2026 NHL Entry Draft Profiles:
12th Overall (First Round): Ethan Belchetz | Ryan Lin | Oscar Hemming | Wyatt Cullen | Viggo Björck | Xavier Villeneuve | Adam Novotný | Elton Hermansson | Tynan Lawrence
44th Overall (Second Round): Tommy Bleyl | Axel Elofsson
103rd Overall (Fourth Round):
140th Overall (Fifth Round):
172nd Overall (Sixth Round):
At this point in time, two things related to prospects are well-documented for me: my affinity for undersized, hard-working forwards and my affinity for products of the US National Team Development Program (USNTDP). Sometimes, both of those boxes are checked off, with players like Cole Caufield and LJ Mooney. Once again, this season, there is a player I am much higher on than the consensus who is both undersized and a USNTDP product: Victor Plante.
Plante, brother to two NHL Draft picks (Max Plante and Zam Plante) and son of former NHLer Derek Plante, has NHL pedigree in his blood. Max is the Red Wings’ top center prospect and Zam is well outperforming his fifth-round pedigree, and, in my opinion, Victor is well worth a look in the second round. I am certainly higher on him than the consensus, with the opinion that he is an early second-round caliber player.
The Devils should have the opportunity to draft him with their second-round pick (44), considering that most rankings have him as a mid-second to early-third-round caliber player. Let’s chat about why he is such an appealing target in my eyes:
By the Numbers
Rankings: #58 by EliteProspects | #33 by Craig Button | #22 by Tony Ferrari | #91 by McKeen’s Hockey | #41 by SMAHT Scouting
Size: 5’10, 157 Pounds
Production: 21 Goals & 27 Assists (48 Total Points) in 57 USNTDP Games
As far as mid-second round picks go, Plante’s probabilities grade out pretty well. His production isn’t anything to write home about, but then again we’re not speaking of a potential first-round pick here. 48 points in 57 USNTDP games is solid, especially considering the team was a weaker crop than usual for the program.
From an underlying perspective, while he isn’t a world-beater, Plante does do a lot of things quite well. Ranking in the 73rd and 87th percentile for entries and breakouts is nothing to scoff at, nor is his above-average defensive impact or individual offense percentile. Don’t be fooled by the bars — there’s a lot to like here.
Evaluating Plante’s Tools
Skating
By no means is Plante a burner — in fact, his top-end speed is inarguably the biggest knock on his game. His acceleration is fine, as is his agility and edgework, but he lacks a true top gear and thus can struggle with separating from defenders at times. This forces him to play in coverage more often than you’d like to see and forces him into making more difficult plays than he would need to if his speed were a strength. His breakaway and odd-man chance generation is a direct product of his positional savviness and nothing more — he does create those types of chances, usually through identifying how a play will pan out rather than simply blazing by coverage:
Shooting
I do think Plante is an excellent shooter, though. His wrist shot is precise and deceptive, with a release that can fool goaltenders from low and mid-distance. He gets his shots off in a hurry, too, and has the IQ to utilize both that and patience to mess with a goalie’s timing.
Plante’s one-timer is strong, too, having an even quicker release that almost comes off like a wrist shot. He gets a surprising amount of power on his one-tees considering how compact his mechanics are and picks his spots insanely well and through traffic. It’s a treat to watch him get into prime scoring areas and then actually capitalize on those chances with regularity.
Hockey Sense & Playmaking
For Plante, the name of the game is and always has been his off-puck positioning. He’s an incredibly smart player, knowing how plays will develop before they actually come to fruition and getting himself in the exact location he needs to be in to get the job done. Effortlessly, he glides through traffic seemingly unnoticed, getting himself in perfect positioning to either take a shot or perform a high-danger pass.
In the above sequence, the first thing that stood out to me was Plante’s work ethic — you can see him try to initiate a board battle or takeaway before the puck gets to the point before immediately jumping into the right position to take the shot and ultimately pot a goal.
Plante does this off the rush as well, perfectly putting himself in the exact right spot as the play unfolds. Below, watch as he understands that the best course of action is to leave his teammate with the puck, identify that both defenders’ eyes are glued to the puck-carrier, and then seamlessly glide into the right spot for a quality chance.
Because his speed is a bit of a limiting factor, Plante often finds himself as the F3 on a breakout. At times, this means that he simply doesn’t have the puck through the neutral zone, but just as often it means that he has an opportunity to find a stretch pass. It sounds crazy, but I saw Plante execute such a play in five of the eight games I watched of his in 2025-26. Each time resulted in a breakaway or odd-man rush.
This doesn’t mean that Plante doesn’t initiate or facilitate rush plays, though. When he does have the puck through the neutral zone, he finds high-danger, cross-ice plays almost every time. His shot is threatening enough to keep the goaltender and defensemen on their toes, and he has the smarts to understand that he can be equally as threatening — if not more so — passing. Plante understand how to place a puck in a place a linemate will be in eventually too, a perfect recipe for a dual-threat player.
A lot of Plante’s playmaking comes via his work ethic — he’s incessant off the puck. He’s a pest and grinder despite his frame, and his positional awareness and penchant for always being in the right place at the right time is exactly what you want to see in a prospect at this point in the draft, even more so than skating chops or creativity.
Puck Skills
Plante keeps it simple for what he is. Typically, one would associate a small-framed forward with having lightning-quick hands, and that isn’t the case here. As a complementary player who relies almost wholly on his astronomical positional IQ, he finds no need to be a dangler. This doesn’t mean he can’t execute the simple dekes to get around coverage — he very much can — he just relies on other things to be dangerous.
Defensive Play
Plante’s positional IQ certainly bleeds into his defensive game as well. He’s always in the right spot to intercept a pass or block a shooting lane, and forces a lot of defensive-zone turnovers because of it. This certainly will make him an asset on a penalty killing unit as well.
Beyond just positionality, Plante’s work ethic is superb, and he uses that to be a menace along the boards. If there is a battle to be had, he initiates it. If he initiates it, he usually wins it. This holds especially true on both the forecheck and in the defensive zone.
Physicality
I wouldn’t call Plante an overly physical player, but he is certainly an agitator. He grinds and grinds and grinds along the boards, being completely unafraid to tackle an assignment with a much bigger opponent. He frequently comes out on top, all a product of his tireless and relentless work ethic. Occasionally, he’ll chip in a hit in the neutral zone to pry the puck from a carrier, but those are few and far between. He’s only going to continue to fill out, though, so I would imagine he gets more physical he gets weightier.
Though Plante doesn’t have the traditional speed/acceleration and quick-twitch hand combination typically connotated with players of his stature, he would be an excellent target with the 44th overall pick in my opinion. His IQ is among the best in the class, and betting on positional smarts is a recipe that has found success with players with subpar foot speed, a la Jason Robertson. Obviously, Plante doesn’t have the ceiling Robertson did and does, but it certainly looks like he’ll be a very serviceable third-liner in the future, which is entirely a product of his rare motor and IQ combination.
NHL Timeline: 2029-30
NHL Stylistic Comparables: Jonathan Marchesseault, Brad Marchand
The clips from the Prospect Challenge were sourced from TSN, with the clips from international tournaments coming from the IIHF. All other videos were from my own personal viewings of USHL games.