What Does Smart Drafting Actually Look Like?
Evaluating what the Devils have not done in recent memory and how that can change under a new regime.
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With a new regime underway in New Jersey, one run by a progressive-thinking, analytics-fluent individual in Sunny Mehta, we can anticipate quite a few changes to philosophies with the Devils.
One such area in which the Devils will need to shift the paradigm to have more success is in drafting. According to Byron Bader’s model, the Devils have the second-worst prospect pool in the league by NHLe, star probability, and NHL probability. For an organization that has selected in the upper-first round of the draft pretty often in recent years and hasn’t ended up as the perennial Cup contender many thought they would be by now, this is simply an unacceptable outcome.
Notable misses in recent years include drafting Alex Holtz over Marco Rossi and Cole Perfetti, drafting Chase Stillman over literally anyone (namely Logan Stankoven and Olen Zellweger), taking Simon Nemec over Logan Cooley or Shane Wright, selecting Shakir Mukhamadullin a round and a half earlier than his projection — the list goes on. Those aren’t retrospective opinions, either; the organization has generally fought the consensus on their draft selections. Even Anton Silayev, who is still too early to give a genuine opinion of whether or not he was worth it, was selected over the consensus pick of Zeev Buium.
They’ve generally drafted well in the second rounds in recent memory, hitting on Lenni Hämeenaho, Seamus Casey, and Mikhail Yegorov, but the reality is that, given the number of picks they’ve had in recent years and where those picks have landed in the draft, their prospect pool and projectable NHL talent is rough.
With the new regime, though, we can hope that some philosophical changes are afoot. The scouting department is reportedly going to undergo a plethora of turnover over the next year or so, with the majority of the department on expiring contracts. Mehta himself said in a press release that the best version of a scouting department is one that aggregates a ton of different backgrounds, ages, and the heavy usage of numbers, so we can anticipate that the way that the Devils approach the draft will be different while he is in charge.
Let’s chat about what that might look like and what the best-drafting teams do that the Devils can mimic:
Draft BPA 100% of the Time
Nothing aggravates me as a prospect enjoyer more than when GMs select for need rather than selecting the best player available (BPA). It’s an infuriating cycle that seemingly never ends, but it’s something that I hope Mehta counteracts, similarly to how the analytic-focused organizations (Carolina, Dallas, Tampa Bay) approach things.
Just looking at the slate of recent Devils’ drafts, we can see a pattern of picking for need over picking the best player there. Holtz was thought of as a sniper to put alongside Jack Hughes, because he needed a scoring winger to play in the top six. Silayev was picked because the Devils’ front office thought the Devils had enough offense and that they needed a defense-first defenseman to play with Luke Hughes and Nemec. Stillman was reached on because Tom Fitzgerald thought the Devils needed to get tougher and less skilled. The Devils’ entire 2024 draft class was picked out of a perceived need to get bigger, stronger, and harder to play against. The list goes on.
The Devils are far from the only organization drafting for need over picking the best player available. In fact, there are only a couple of teams in the league who draft BPA consistently, meaning that the Devils would be breaking the wheel by simply doing the right thing with regularity. The Stars are one such team, preying on the “pick for need” crew by drafting the likes of Mavrik Borque, Logan Stankoven, and Jason Robertson when they were the clear BPA.
They did so again in 2025, selecting Cameron Schmidt in the third round, being able to smartly identify that they could pounce on him far later than he should have been drafted by preying on hockey man mentality and predisposition on size. The Hurricanes do the same exact thing every season, and, as such, they’ve hit players who should have been drafted earlier than they were: Seth Jarvis, Bradly Nadeau, Jackson Blake, Scott Morrow — there are so many examples of not overthinking it and just picking the best player there.
The reality is that, given that unless one is picking in the first couple of selections in the entire draft, the vast, vast, vast majority of draftees aren’t ready for NHL action. As such, by the time they are ready to play in the show, there’s just no saying what a team will actually need. Take Nemec as an example — by the time he was truly a full-time NHLer, there was a logjam on the right side of defense that resulted in other NHL-caliber players getting scratched.
With that, the simple — and correct — thing to do is just to pick the best player available at any time. Overcomplicating and overthinking are how the Devils ended up with Stillman in the first round.
Don’t Follow in the Footsteps of “Hockey Men” GMs
There are actually a couple of ways in which the Devils can, and should, break the wheel. One, of course, is the above practice of picking BPA instead of for need.
Secondly, one thing that has always stood true in recent memory is an over-prioritization of size in the draft (and other areas, of course). Take the 2025 NHL Entry Draft as an example — 15 players who were at least 6’4 were drafted in the first two rounds, but just one player listed at 5’10 or smaller was drafted (Cullen Potter, 32nd overall). I would argue that Cullen Potter is among the highest regarded players of that class now. We saw three different first-round talents fall to the third round or later in Cameron Schmidt, LJ Mooney, and Adam Benak. All three of them are lighting their respective leagues up and are among the top of their respective prospect pools. No shocker there — I listed all three of them as must-get targets for the Devils in my 2025 draft profiles.
I’ve been thinking quite a lot about this recently, but if I were presented with two players of similar pedigree, one of whom was 6’4 and the other of whom was 5’10, I would pick the smaller player nine times out of ten. For one, the smaller players almost always have more projectable skill and upside. Just as importantly, though, the work ethic among first-round caliber players who are undersized is monumentally better than their humongous counterparts. After all, it’s far and away easier for a bigger player to get hype as a prospect than it is if you’re small — give me the player who had to work his tail off to get where he is regarded rather than the great-sized player who didn’t have to work as hard.
With that in mind, the Devils philosophy should be to capitalize on the hockey men who let players like that drop. I doubt it happens, but if Viggo Bjorck falls to 12 because he is 5’10, he should be selected without hesitation. If Xavier Villeneuve falls to the second round — something that is certainly possible given his stature and discourse around him — he should be selected without hesitation. Rather than participating in the outdated, ill-conceived notion that bigger is better in hockey, I surely hope that the Devils think more soundly.
Upside Trumps Floor
I think the ideology that upside trumps floor is less important in the later rounds of the draft — hitting on a high-floor, fourth liner or seventh defenseman in the fifth round, for example, is something that is inherently valuable. However, in the first few rounds of the draft, the priority should absolutely be on upside.
A lot of that ties into the previous two points, with the “best pick” typically being the one with the biggest upside while still projecting to play in the NHL. Many times, this is an undersized player. Think Cole Caufield, Lane Hutson, and Logan Stankoven.
If I had a choice between a player who could either be a third-line or first-line caliber player or a player who was a projectable, sure-fire second-line player, I think it is more valuable to risk the chance at the higher upside swing. That’s what separates the hits from the misses in the NHL. Bet on skill and IQ over steadiness and details, and it’s likely that you’ll be rewarded in a big way.
Of course, there are other parts of great-drafting teams that the Devils should adopt — trusting in the numbers (within context) and valuing IQ and hockey sense more than any other trait are two patterns that generally hold true for them. However, these three habits are the most consistent, in my estimation. Pick the best player available, without relying on size to forge biased opinions and who has the biggest upside. That is how you keep a reliable pipeline of high-end talent that you can draw from either to play in the NHL or as trade fodder.
Obviously, this matters a whole lot less if the Devils trade the 12th overall selection, but they’re valuable ideologies to employ nonetheless.