High Ranks
The Devils managed to land the No. 1-ranked international skater (Silayev) and No. 1-ranked North American goalie (Yegorov). With the two, the Devils also landed their internal top-ranked defenseman and top-ranked goaltender.
“We were thrilled to get (Silayev) at No. 10. We obviously had him a lot higher,” Dennehy said. “We got our No. 1 D; we got our No. 1 goalie on our list. Let’s just start there. We feel pretty good about the draft.”
Silayev fell to the team at No. 10 overall, while the club traded up in the draft to land Yegorov at No. 49. Any time you can get the top-ranked player at any position, it’s a win. Let alone getting two of them.
“It’s one of those things where you have a guy rated high and you start to see him coming back to you,” Dennehy said, “You start crossing fingers and not mentioning his name – you don’t want to jinx it. We’re thrilled they fell to us.”
“He’s really athletic and has a good path,” Dennehy said of Yegorov, who will attend Boston University. “It’s for us about where get him. If you can step up and get the No. 1 goalie on your draft board, we deciced to do it.”
Super-Size Me
The Devils added a lot of grit and physicality to their prospect pool in the draft. That was highlighted by the 6-foot-7, 211-pound Silayev. They furthered it by adding three physical, power forwards in Pikkarainen (6-foot-3, 197 pounds), Traff (6-3, 216) and Graham (6-3, 203).
“(Silayev) is long, he gets to people in a hurry because of his skating and his reach,” Dennehy said. “He’s only going to get stronger. There’s a lot of growth left in his game.”
As for the forwards, Dennehy said: “Numbers don’t lie, 6-3 is 6-3.”
He added: “Part of being a good hockey player is the ability to win battles, the ability to compete. I’m not saying we put more of an emphasis on that. But there’s no doubt that was an emphasis to the game.
“You have to have a certain prerequisite of skill, which we believe these guys do, but you also have to have the willingness to compete and the ability physically to compete. We like the combo on all those guys, whether it’s Pikkarainen, whether it’s Traff, whether it’s Graham.”
Euro
The Devils went heavy on the European side of the Atlantic Ocean. They opened the draft by selecting two Russians (Silayev, Yegorov). They followed that up with Kasper Pikkarainen (Finland) and Herman Traff (Sweden). In the fifth round, the Devils added Veeti Louhivaara (Finland) and Matyas Melovsky (Czechia) in the sixth.
Six of the Devils’ seven players chosen at the draft were from Europe.
