The Devils did not have a first round selection in this year’s draft, but they still made seven selections over the weekend. Today we see what you had to say about them
The New Jersey Devils went into the 2025 NHL entry draft without a first round selection, the second time in three years the team has traded their first rounder for NHL talent. They shipped out their top pick in 2025 almost exactly a year ago when they acquired Jacob Markstrom from the Calgary Flames (and in case you’re wondering, the Flames kept that pick, which turned out to be 18th overall, and used it on Cole Reschny). Without that asset, the Devils weren’t exactly in the best position to add premium talent to their pipeline.
But despite sitting out day one of the draft, New Jersey did make seven selections in total. The goal was clear: Gather as much forward talent as they could get their hands on. Chris gave us a nice rundown on the draft class as a whole yesterday, but now that we’ve heard what he had to say, it’s time to analyze what you, the People Who Matter, thought. At the end of Chris’ posts on each individual selection, he included a poll for you to vote on how you felt about the pick. Let’s take a look at the results:
Second Round, 50th Overall: Conrad Fondrk
The Post About The Pick: Here
The Results:
- I love it! – 6%, 21 votes
- I like the pick – 15%, 53 votes
- I don’t know/I’m in the middle – 36%, 128 votes
- I don’t like the pick – 33%, 116 votes
- I hate it! – 10%, 35 votes
Mostly middling to below average support for the Conrad Fondrk selection, with the plurality of the votes falling right down the middle. Chris wasn’t a huge fan of it at first either, though he did say he’s come around a little bit. In all, not a great sign when your top pick of the draft only has 21% of people who thought it was unambiguously positive. Still, it’s not like this was a reviled pick, with only 10% of voters hating the selection. Fondrk has plenty of time to prove us all wrong.
Second Round, 63rd Overall: Ben Kevan
The Post About The Pick: Here
The Results:
- I love it! – 27%, 70 votes
- I like the pick – 50%, 130 votes
- I don’t know/I’m in the middle – 19%, 50 votes
- I don’t like the pick – 3%, 8 votes
- I hate it! – 2%, 4 votes
The selection of Ben Kevan, on the other hand, was pretty universally praised. At the time of this writing since the poll is still open (vote now!) Roughly 77% of voters either loved or liked the pick, with less than a literal handful of folks hating it. Even combining those who didn’t like it with those who hated it only gets us 5% and 12 total votes, a number that is very encouraging to see. Kevan seems like a promising forward, someone who the Devils are hoping can fill the net in their middle six somewhere down the road. If The People Who Matter turn out to be correct, that’s exactly what we’ll see out of Kevan someday.
Third Round, 90th Overall: Mason Moe
The Post About The Pick: Here
The Results:
- I love it! – 16%, 26 votes
- I like the pick – 51%, 84 votes
- I don’t know/I’m in the middle – 27%, 45 votes
- I don’t like the pick – 4%, 7 votes
- I hate it! – 1%, 2 votes
Another pick that was well-received, Moe is the only player New Jersey drafted this weekend that we actually did a profile on. Credit to Chris and James for foreseeing Moe as a real option for the Devils in the middle rounds. Moe was the third forward and second center selected by Tom Fitzgerald in this draft, one that projects as a bottom six pivot with some skill and defensive chops. The majority (not even the plurality, the majority!) of you liked this pick, with another 16% loving it. That’s a resounding seal of approval from The People Who Matter, especially considering only 1% hated it and 5% total had negative feelings overall about Moe.
Fourth Round, 99th Overall: Trenten Bennett
The Post About The Pick: Here
The Results:
- I love it! – 24%, 57 votes
- I like the pick – 41%, 98 votes
- I don’t know/I’m in the middle – 27%, 63 votes
- I don’t like the pick – 6%, 15 votes
- I hate it! – 2%, 4 votes
If only that second “e” in his first name was an “o”, then he really would have been a pick of destiny for New Jersey.
Anyway, Bennett was the first non-forward Fitzgerald went with in this draft. Throughout his time running the show in New Jersey, Tom Fitzgerald has shown us that he has a strong preference for skaters with size. Whether it be through free agency or the draft, Fitzgerald’s moves almost always come down to bringing in players that are above average in terms of size. So it’s funny to me that in this draft, Fitzgerald executed a massive pivot away from size amongst the skaters he selected, and instead doubled down on size with a goaltender. The 6’8” Bennett instantly becomes the largest prospect in the Devils’ pipeline, and the voters seemed to be a fan of the pick. Most of you liked it, and 65% total either loved or liked it. Only 19 dissenters did not enjoy Fitzgerald taking a goalie here.
Fourth Round, 114th Overall: Gustav Hillstrom
The Post About The Pick: Here
The Results:
- I love it! – 20%, 23 votes
- I like the pick – 64%, 73 votes
- I don’t know/I’m in the middle – 11%, 13 votes
- I don’t like the pick – 3%, 3 votes
- I hate it! – 2%, 2 votes
Aside from Fondrk, we’ve seen lots of love for the Devils’ draft picks so far, but Hillstrom eclipses all the picks that came before him by a lot. The People Who Matter were massively in favor of this selection. Granted, it’s not like the “I love it” choice ran away with the vote, as that option only got 20%. But a whopping 64% of voters liked the pick, making this the most approved choice thus far. 84% of total votes went to a positive option, with only 5% disagreeing and 11% falling in the middle. If the voters are anything to go by, Fitzgerald might have found a mid-round gem with Hillstrom. We’ll see if the Swedish center makes Fitzgerald and voters look smart in a few years.
Sixth Round, 161st Overall: David Rozsival
The Post About The Pick: Here
The Results:
- I love it! – 15%, 14 votes
- I like the pick – 48%, 46 votes
- I don’t know/I’m in the middle – 32%, 30 votes
- I don’t like the pick – 3%, 3 votes
- I hate it! – 2%, 2 votes
This one is a lot more down the middle, even though the plurality did like this pick. Rosival is yet another forward, hailing from Czechia where he’s played his entire career up to this point. 48% of you liked the pick, with a healthy 15% of you loving it. A lot of you, 32% to be exact, were in the middle on this, and only 5% of you either disliked or hated the pick. This might not have been the universal lovefest that the Hillstrom pick was, but it was still yet another selection that most of you had positive feelings for.
Sixth Round, 178th Overall: Sigge Holmgren
The Post About The Pick: Here
The Results:
- I love it! – 11%, 12 votes
- I like the pick – 13%, 14 votes
- I don’t know/I’m in the middle – 56%, 61 votes
- I don’t like the pick – 13%, 14 votes
- I hate it! – 6%, 7 votes
The majority of you were in the middle/didn’t know what to think about New Jersey’s final selection of the draft, which makes sense. Holmgren, the lone defenseman taken by the Devils over the weekend, missed his entire 2024-25 campaign due to injury. This begs the question, why did Fitzgerald and the Devils’ brain trust feel comfortable taking a swing on him in this draft then? In this draft recap article on the Devils’ website, they do go into detail on each pick, Holmgren included. And while most of it is the boilerplate praise that every prospect gets, this to me was the money quote:
The Devils took a big swing at him this year with the hope next year he has a big season. If he went undrafted this year, that could have projected him as an early or mid-round selection in 2026.
So the reasoning for this pick seems to be that Fitzgerald and the Devils think they’re getting a roughly 1st-4th round talent in the 6th round, and the only reason Holmgren wasn’t selected earlier was because of his injury. And instead of missing out on him or having to spend a more premium pick on him in 2026, they’re rolling the dice on him here. If that turns out to be true, then expect Holmgren to skyrocket up prospect rankings a year from now. Hey, we’ve seen 6th rounders from Sweden become impact players for the Devils before, now haven’t we?
And that’s a wrap on draft season for the New Jersey Devils. In all, The People Who Matter seemed to really like this draft class. The most negatively-received pick was, unfortunately, the Devils’ highest selection, Fondrk at 50th overall. But even this was not a highly scorned selection. Once you get past Fondrk, every other draft choice was met with a lot of praise. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come, especially considering New Jersey desperately needed to restock the center pipeline, and they did just that with three of their seven selections being used on centers, including two of their top three choices.
Thanks to everyone for following along with our coverage of the NHL draft, the prospect profiles, and everything else here at All About The Jersey. Free agency is right around the corner, and we’ll have you covered there as well, so check out the site for lots of coverage of what Fitzgerald and the Devils decide to do on the free agent market this year. As always, thanks for reading!