We are getting closer and closer! We are wrapping up our Season Preview and Top 25 Under 25 this week, prior to the regular season puck drop on Thursday, so we are coming out with the first half of our top 10 today! While all five of these players project to have solid or better NHL careers, only three are likely to play there this season. Hopefully, all three play those games for the New Jersey Devils. With that said, let us get to the rankings! At number 10, we have…
10. Nico Daws (G) — Last Rank: 8 — Age: 24 — 2024-25 Teams: Utica Comets (AHL — 34 games), New Jersey Devils (6 games)
Starting our list off today at number 10, Nico Daws played a career-high 34 games in the AHL for a pretty sorry Utica Comets group, who went 11-20-3 in his starts, in which he had a 3.16 goals against average and an .893 save percentage. But Nico still got moments to shine in the NHL, playing in six games with a .939 save percentage and 1.60 goals against average. On February 23, 2025, he had his first career NHL shutout against the Nashville Predators, saving 29 shots and 3.72 expected goals against, which included nine high-danger chances, three rush shots, and six rebound shots against per Natural Stat Trick.
This is just who Nico Daws has been at times in the NHL. He is very big and takes up quite a lot of net, but he has had some injury troubles that have slowed him down at times. He had hip surgery in 2023, and it can still seem like the way to beat Daws is by working from behind the net, where he might be a bit too slow to move post-to-post. Over two years removed from that surgery now, though, I hope that Daws stays healthy moving forward. He is capable of making incredible saves and winning big-time games, so I was not really sure if he would still be on the Devils by the time we posted his part of the Top 25 Under 25.
Now waiver-eligible, he is the Devil I worry most about being claimed in the coming days. Do not get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy the Jacob-Jake goalie tandem in New Jersey, but I had largely assumed going into the offseason that Nico Daws was to take over for Jake Allen as Jacob Markstrom’s backup this season. One rather surprising five-year deal for Allen later, and Daws’s future with the team is questionable. I would love to see Daws make it to Utica and put up a strong season there, but something is going to have to happen eventually. Maybe Daws clears waivers and ends up the injury backup for the Devils this season. Maybe they don’t even test it and try to trade him to help ease their salary situation (whether they dump salary or acquire a perma-LTIR player). Either way, Nico Daws looks like too much of a professional in his NHL appearances to stay in the AHL forever, and it would be boneheaded to lose him for nothing after all these years of development and promising NHL stints.
9. Lenni Hameenaho (RW) — Last Rank: 10 — Age: 20 — 2024-25 Team: Assat (Liiga — 58 games)
Likely AHL bound but possibly good enough for the NHL at this very moment, Lenni Hameenaho projects to be a big part of the contending future of the New Jersey Devils. He has improved in the Finnish Liiga in each of the last three seasons, going from 21 points at age 18 to 31 points at age 19 to 51 points at age 20. He is not the biggest player in the world, but he has NHL size and more than enough skill to be a force in the middle six. The only problem right now is that there is pretty much nowhere for the Devils to play him.
Patience here may yet be rewarded. Hameenaho saw growth in each of his Liiga seasons, and now he can toughen his game up in Utica in preparation for a long, productive career with the Devils. Picked at the end of the second round in 2023, he is a man of professional hockey already, too good for younger competition. If the New Jersey Devils end up needing a middle six forward due to an injury or trade this season, Hameenaho may very well be the best option to call up from Utica, assuming that is where he starts his season.
Perhaps a bit superficially, he reminds me of Tyler Toffoli. He does not seem to be the fastest guy on the ice, but he has a knack for where he needs to be. And when he is carrying the puck, he protects it well and tries to be very solid against physicality. He will throw reverse hits, he will sneak the puck around checkers when they come to hit him, and he will find the soft spots of the ice. With a right-handed shot, too, Hameenaho possesses many of the skills that are needed to round out the rather left-hand and speed-dominant styles of the Devils offense.
8. Anton Silayev (LHD) — Last Rank: 7 — Age: 19 — 2024-25 Team: Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod (KHL — 63 games)
The big man, Anton Silayev, has not been off to a good start to this season, offensively. James noted in his prospect post on Tuesday that he was seeing his ice time drop for the Torpedo, going from an average of 17:25 per game last season to 16:48 in the first 9 games of this season (now down to 16:28 through 12 games). With a new coach in Nizhny Novgorod, I would hope that the Devils are monitoring their situation closely. Silayev is only under contract through the current season. If this type of treatment for the young defenseman continues, losing ice time despite his team doing well with him on the ice, I would hope that the Devils end up on the phone with Torpedo by later in the season to discuss an early termination. The only problem? Torpedo is currently fourth in the KHL with a 8-3-1 record. Unless Silayev really falls down the depth chart, he’s just going to continue getting middling minutes on a successful team.
Silayev has occasionally shown solid puck skills, but he is still limited as one of the largest professional defensemen in the world. At 6’7” and 207 pounds, the Devils are hoping for the kind of offensive growth in his 20s that Zdeno Chara had with the Ottawa Senators, but I have not always been convinced by that comparison. Silayev seems to use an extra long stick, which might be good for his defense, but may make it challenging for him to generate a ton of power on his slap shots. Chara, a bit taller and quite a bit wider, may not be the best model for a defenseman like Silayev, whose primary gift is that of his size and speed combination.
Regardless of how many points he puts up in the KHL or how much ice time he gets right now, Silayev should be the shutdown centerpiece of the Devils defense for years to come after he arrives in North America. Without even needing to project as a top pairing defenseman because of the presences of Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec, he will be afforded years to grow at his own pace. For a defenseman of his stature, that is very advantageous to the Devils.
7. Mikhail Yegorov (G) — Last Rank: 22 — Age: 19 — 2024-25 Teams: Omaha Lancers (USHL — 19 games), Boston University Terriers (NCAA — 18 games)
As the top-ranked goaltender of the Top 25, Mikhail Yegorov quickly earned the love of Devils fans for his spectacular play for the Boston University Terriers after departing the Omaha Lancers during the 2024-25 season. In Omaha, defense was optional, with Yegorov sporting a shocking 3.86 goals against average and .892 save percentage in 2023-24 — meaning he was facing nearly 40 shots per game in his draft year. After working up to a .912 save percentage and 3.12 goals against average in the first half of 2024-25, earning three hard wins out of 18 starts, Yegorov saw it fit to leave the USHL for college.
Former Devil Jay Pandolfo and his Terriers have put Yegorov in a much more favorable position now. Now in 19 games played after his first win of the season the other night, Yegorov has a .929 save percentage and a 2.14 goals against average in 19 total games with Boston University for a 12-6-1 record. At 6’5”, Yegorov is both a positionally-gifted and athletic goaltender, looking rather confident for a guy who only turned 19 years old in March. He was still 18 when he had his Beanpot performance shown below.
As he gets older, Yegorov will likely work with goaltending coaches to work on cutting down even more angle with his frame. He seems to track the puck very well already, and getting just an extra few inches or so away from the goal line on some shots will make him even tougher to deal with as he approaches the NHL. At just 19 years old, Yegorov can spend another couple years at Boston University before making the jump to Utica, especially with the Devils currently having Markstrom, Allen, Daws, and Malek in the organization. I think Yegorov could be ready for the NHL as soon as next season, but there is no reason to rush his development with the amount of goaltending depth the Devils currently have.
6. Seamus Casey (RHD) — Last Rank: 6 — Age: 21 — 2024-25 Teams: Utica Comets (AHL — 30 games), New Jersey Devils (14 games)
In just three years since being drafted in the second round, Seamus Casey has gone from being someone Devils fans saw as a possibly superfluous member of the most organizationally-stacked position and likely trade bait to being a key hinge of the team’s future offensive hopes. Drafted the same year as Simon Nemec, Casey has to contend with Dougie Hamilton, Brett Pesce, Nemec, and the injured Johnny Kovacevic for the right to get NHL ice time as a right-handed defenseman. So why is his skill so tantalizing that the team has not traded him to a position of greater need, such as center?
In 14 NHL games, Seamus Casey has four goals. And they have all been great shots. He has a knack for finding the top corner, even through bodies in front of the net.
Seamus will not have much time to shoot the more he shows this ability in the NHL. But that itself opens up opportunities. When players give him respect at the point, he is capable of moving the puck to create goals for his teammates. And even if he doesn’t score on his shots, they are dangerous for the goalies to deal with. On top of his skills, he has been teammates with both Ethan Edwards and Luke Hughes at Michigan, though he did not get to play with Luke very much (the Devils outscored opponents 2-0 in 14:58 of Hughes-Casey time at 5v5) last year as a Devil.
The more Casey bulks up, and the healthier he stays, the more threatening he will be to opponents. His teammates loved him from the moment he stepped on NHL ice, and it’s for good reason: it is rare to find players with the skill to create offense as a defenseman. And doing it before even playing in the AHL showed it would be a mistake to trade Casey. Does he need to work on his defensive game? Sure. But he played most of his 14 games with the Devils at age 20, and most 5’10” 20-year old defensemen drafted in the second round would fare a lot worse than he did in a short stint on their off-hand to begin their NHL career. Even if he is just working to master AHL play this season, a good year there will bode well for Seamus Casey’s NHL contributions for years to come.
The Rankings
Please see the rankings from today’s listing below.
With the pure tie at nine and ten, I deferred to James and the community votes again for putting Lenni Hameenaho over Nico Daws. As was expected, the votes in general were starting to come closer and closer to the real results. I had all five players placed in this section of the Top 25, as did the community, with the community coming closer to the actual final rankings. James, Jared, and Matt each just missed out on one. Even the averages of this vote all placed the guys in pretty much the right spots. In last week’s vote, which was 15-11, two players had an average vote above 15 (Bordeleau and Edwards). This week, everyone had a pure average in the top 10, which I thought was pretty cool.
Well, now we can all safely guess who the top five are…look for that article in the coming days, alongside Parts 5 and 6 of the Season Preview.
Your Thoughts
What do you think of these five? Who will have the most NHL impact this season? Who will have the best career? Will any win a Stanley Cup with the Devils? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.