News Article: Hockey's Future Top 20 Prospects in 2016

[NJ Fan 12]

Always interesting to revisit these five years later.

https://www.hockeysfuture.com/articles/134749/top-20-new-jersey-devils-prospects-developing-gusto/

Click to read more...

 

[FooteBahl]

Always interesting to revisit these five years later.

Top 20 New Jersey Devils prospects developing with gusto - Hockey's Future

For the love of god we have come a loooong way

 

[Oneiro]

Just brutal.

 

[Devils090]

Lmao our scouting department is horrific

 

[Alex NJD]

5 legit NHL players on this list. This is just brutal

 

[Blackjack]

Remember those old number/letter grades? Oh man, I miss that. 7.5 B haha.

I will say that most of the prospects don't seem terribly overrated. Steve Santini and Reid Boucher probably should not have ben 7.5s, but the 'C's meant that it was a bit of a long shot anyway. It was a bad prospect pool that was mostly known to be a bad prospect pool.

 

[Cheddabombs]

I for one, cannot believe it's taken us so long to rebuild looking at that list

 

[New Jersey Devils]

I had such high hopes for Speers after he made the team for a few games. Dude just fell off a cliff.

Biggest blunder IMO was not giving up the Matteau pick in 2012. We could have ended up with a top 8-15 pick in 2014 (guys like Nylander, Ehlers, Fiala, Vrana, Larkin)

 

[SJinNewJersey]

Always interesting to revisit these five years later.

Top 20 New Jersey Devils prospects developing with gusto - Hockey's Future

 

[Devils090]

I for one, cannot believe it's taken us so long to rebuild looking at that list

Graham Black bro, top prospect according to Jim

 

[Triumph]

Remember those old number/letter grades? Oh man, I miss that. 7.5 B haha.

I will say that most of the prospects don't seem terribly overrated. Steve Santini and Reid Boucher probably should not have ben 7.5s, but the 'C's meant that it was a bit of a long shot anyway. It was a bad prospect pool that was mostly known to be a bad prospect pool.

Reid Boucher gets talked about around here like he is some massive bust, but he very narrowly missed being an NHLer and is still probably one of the top 10 goalscorers outside the NHL.

 

[JrFischer54]

Always interesting to revisit these five years later.

https://www.hockeysfuture.com/articles/134749/top-20-new-jersey-devils-prospects-developing-gusto/

really just honestly shows you how much of a crap shoot the draft is and how much junk you can draft even in the early rounds.

 

[PizzaAndPucks]

really just honestly shows you how much of a crap shoot the draft is and how much junk you can draft even in the early rounds.

Our track record was brutal thanks to Lou keeping Conte around for so long. Still thankful for Conte for building us a powerhouse team for a long stretch though.

 

[Call Me Al]

yeah it’s not as much of a crap shoot if your scouting isn’t historically bad

 

[mdj12784]

I have always wondered (still do) are we horrible at developing, or is it not having the right coach at the time?

 

[Devils090]

I have always wondered (still do) are we horrible at developing, or is it not having the right coach at the time?

Our organization has been atrocious at scouting/development since the 04 Lockout. That’s why I never understood all the vitriol DeBoer and Hynes got, no coach would win with those rosters. It’s getting better(picking high every year will eventually lead to that) but I’m still not sold we have anything to get too excited over.

 

[RNCDevil]

Boucher...I'm really hoping Holtz is not Boucher 2.0: a lethal scorer everywhere...except the NHL. He was a PPG player in the KHL and I think I read he was going to be back in the NHL next year.

 

[Billdo]

I liked Hrabarenka and Blandisi.

 

[Devils090]

I liked Hrabarenka and Blandisi.

Blender was fine until he started diving all over the place

 

[Jersey Fan 12]

5 legit NHL players on this list. This is just brutal

Actually it's not as brutal as it seems. Depending on the success of the NHL parent club that was usually about average. If you look at some clubs, particularly before the draft was reduced to seven rounds, many "prospects" which had little if any chance of ever being signed.

 

[Classic Devil]

I mean... Zacha, Blackwood, Coleman, Wood, Kerfoot. *shrugs* honestly, it could be worse.

 

[Classic Devil]

Boucher...I'm really hoping Holtz is not Boucher 2.0: a lethal scorer everywhere...except the NHL. He was a PPG player in the KHL and I think I read he was going to be back in the NHL next year.

Boucher either needs better skating or to become more adept at finding open ice to make it in the NHL.

 

[MartyOwns]

I mean... Zacha, Blackwood, Coleman, Wood, Kerfoot. *shrugs* honestly, it could be worse.

that's a pathetic list tbh. of course it could be worse, but that's a pretty low standard.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

I mean... Zacha, Blackwood, Coleman, Wood, Kerfoot. *shrugs* honestly, it could be worse.

We can just look at some other teams' articles for comparison. I chose Carolina which has a prospect pipeline everyone salivates over:

Breakthrough campaigns propel Carolina Hurricanes prospects up the top 20 - Hockey's Future
(published april 4 2016)

Wallmark, Foegele, Nicolas Roy, Di Giuseppe, Pesce, Nedeljkovic, Fleury, Aho, Slavin

So Carolina has more NHLers, and more high end NHLers, in particular the Aho/Slavin picks way ahead of expected value given the draft capital spent. Carolina probably has a better list of these than most teams in retropsect but I wouldn't be surprised if Devils are bottom 5, in particular because of the Zacha pick miss.

 

[Cheddabombs]

I mean... Zacha, Blackwood, Coleman, Wood, Kerfoot. *shrugs* honestly, it could be worse.

It could be worse.

But then you realize the actual roster was pretty barren as well and that's kind of all we had to work with.