Devils Sign Vilen to ELC

As the dust settled on the 2022 NHL Draft Lottery and the Devils’ pick position became clearer, a name from a Draft past put his signature to an Entry Level Contract.

The team announced today that defenseman Tobias Vilen, the fifth-round pick in 2021, inked a three-year ELC that will kick in for the 2022-23 season. According to the Devils’ PR team, Vilen will be present at the Devils’ Development Camp later this summer.

The 19-year-old Lahti, Finland-native played in Finland’s Liiga last season for Lahden Pelicans. In 50 games in 2021-22, he had six assists for the club. He also appeared in three Liiga Playoff games last season.

The Devils press release notes that Vilen (who was born April 1, 2003) was the youngest member of the Pelicans and played 35 regular season games for the team in Liiga in 2020-21. That year, he posted three goals and five assists totaling eight points.

The 6-foot, 1-inch, 195-pounder played in the Pelicans’ organization prior to his time at the Liiga level. He played for their Under-20, Under-18 and Under-17 teams going back to 2017-18.

The press release said that he is a left-handed shooting blue liner who has represented Finland at “the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge in 2020, and the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Under-18 World Junior Championship (WJC) in 2021. In the 2021 WJC, Vilen served as an assistant captain, collected four assists and was teammates with fellow Devils’ prospect Samu Salminen (2021 NHL Draft, Round 3, 68th overall).”

As for the impeding 2022 Draft, Peter Robinson of NewJerseyDevils.com recently wrote on who he felt the Devils were going to pick when they are up with the second overall pick.

Robinson mentioned that, since there is not really a consensus number one overall pick right now – with stock rising on more players – the Devils have a few more options than they would have had previously.

Robinson distilled it down to basically three players that the Devils could end up choosing with their pick come July 7: Shane Wright, a center with the Kingston Frontenacs of the Ontario Hockey League, Logan Cooley, a center with the United States National Team Development Program or Juraj Slafkovsky, a left winger from TPS (Liiga – Finland).

He does throw in a few other names as well, but he does note that those three names remain “as close to a ‘top 3’ as can be determined right now.”

Wright, Robinson said in his profile, was “[l]ong considered a shoo-in to go first overall, Wright’s season was cancelled in 2020-21 when the Ontario Hockey League scrubbed its schedule as the pandemic ravaged Canada’s hockey leagues. That, along with Wright’s slow start to the season, brought other players into the mix. Wright has had quiet stretches this season but his proponents believe his understated effectiveness is precisely the point: that’s how he’s going to during a long, productive NHL career.”

Wright played 63 games for the Frontenacs this season and tallied 32 goals and 62 assists for 94 points. Robinson does mention that he is producing largely the same in the OHL playoffs right now with the Fronts “and scored the OT series-winner in his team’s conference quarter-final series.”

Although Wright’s Frontenacs are still active in the OHL Playoffs, they are currently down two games to one in their semi-final series against the North Bay Battalion. Robinson said that the Devils will have scouts present at the Fronts’ games this week.

Slafkovsky is the next of Robinson’s top three. He is a very large (6-foot, 4-inches, 220-pound) winger from Slovakia who participated in the 2022 Olympics with the Slovaks where he chipped in seven goals in their bronze medal winning performance.

Robinson compares Slafkovsky to Wright in that both had “outstanding play mixed in with some indifferent stretches” only differing in that Slafkovsky is “playing against pros in Finland’s Liiga, that country’s top league.”

Robinson envisions Slafkovsky’s “enticing combination of size (6-4, 220) and skill” meshing well on a line with Jack Hughes or Nico Hischier centering.

Slafkovsky will be participating in the upcoming World Championship (which kicks off tomorrow in Finland) for Slovakia and Robinson notes that, should he have a good tournament, his stock would certainly rise and could make things more difficult for the Montreal Canadiens with the first overall pick.

Rounding out Robinson’s top three is Logan Cooley, a center with the USNTDP. He has already committed to the University of Minnesota for next season and, as Robinson says, “NHL-readiness is rarely a factor after the first overall pick, so Cooley being at least a year away from pro hockey will not hurt him.”

What actually hurts Cooley’s chances of being taken by the Devils, according to Robinson, is his relative redundancy within the New Jersey lineup. Cooley, he mentions, is an “all-around package of skills and gumption” that could “make him a No. 1 center in the NHL.” Robinson questions if the Devils need that much depth with Hughes and Hischier already in the lineup.

Robinson does peg him as a “best-player-available” type which could make him attractive to the Devils at the number two spot.

He also references Cooley’s “moxie” which is described as “a quiet confidence needed to be an effective pro.”

From there, Robinson rounds out his top seven with four other options for the Devils (in no particular order) beginning with David Jiricek, a defenseman from Skoda Plzen of the Czech Extraliga.

Jiricek, whom Robinson says should be the first defenseman taken in the Draft, is 6-foot, 3-inches and 190 pounds, giving him size.

What he also has is professional experience, having played in the Extraliga, the top Czech league, “two full seasons” already.

Robinson next lists Joakim Kemell, a right-wing playing with JYP Jyvaskyla of the Finnish Liiga. Kemell, too, had a rough beginning to his season, “but was back in form later in the season and especially at the U18s, almost single-handedly sending Canada home early in the quarter-finals.”

Kemell has moved around in several draft rankings according to Robinson, but he does concede that that could be due to Kemell earning “praise well ahead of his draft season” making it “easier to pick apart his game,” something that plagues other players as well.

Back to the blue line for the next player (and back to Slovakia as well). Simon Nemec, a defenseman playing for HK Nitra of the Slovak Extraliga, also played for the Slovaks in Beijing, having “a quiet Olympics” according to Robinson.

He has come into his own in the Extraliga playoffs this season where he has potted four goals and added six assists to gather ten points over 13 games for Nitra.

Overall, Robinson does not seem to believe that his performance in the playoffs is enough to propel him to moving as high up the draft board as the second pick, although he does say that “[s]tranger things have happened.”

The last player on Robinson’s list is forward Matthew Savoie of the Winnipeg Ice of the Western Hockey League.

Savoie, who Robinson relates “unsuccessfully lobbied to be able to play in the Western Hockey League as an underage player,” is actually playing his second season of junior hockey. He suited up for the United States Hockey League’s Dubuque Fighting Saints in 2020-21 “during the pandemic.”

As for the Ice, Savoie led them in scoring with 90 points (35 goals and 55 assists) last season.

Robinson does bring up that Conor Geekie, a center and teammate of Savoie’s on the Ice, “is an interesting prospect because some teams covet him more than Savoie but is not a candidate to go second overall.”

But with Winnipeg currently in the WHL playoffs (leading two games to one over the Moose Jaw Warriors in their second round series), there is still time for Geekie to end up overtaking Savoie or Savoie cementing his place as a top-two pick for the NHL Draft.

Devils to Pick Second in Draft; Comets Win Playoff Opener

The future of the Devils was in the spotlight tonight.

The organization not only moved up in the NHL Draft Lottery, shuffling ahead of, essentially, three teams to move from the fifth best odds of winning the Lottery (with an 8.5-percent chance of winning the first overall pick) to the second overall spot.

The Devils leapfrog teams like the Coyotes, Flyers and Kraken to move into the second spot while the Montreal Canadiens, who finished last in the league and, thus, had the best odds of winning. They did and will pick first overall in their own building.

As Catherine Bogart, staff writer for the Devils, pointed out, the “last time New Jersey had the 2nd overall pick was in 1987 when the Devils picked Brendan Shanahan.” Prior to that, the team took Kirk Muller at number two in 1984.

She also mentioned (in a separate article) that this “is the fourth time the Devils will have a pick in the top-five since the 2017 NHL Draft where New Jersey selected its now Captain, Nico Hischier. The Devils picked Jack Hughes first-overall in 2019, and Hughes’ younger brother, Luke, fourth-overall last year.”

General Manager Tom Fitzgerald now has his work cut out for him along with (Chief Amateur Scout) Mark Dennehy and (Vice President of Amateur Scouting) Paul Castron, who will work to make sure the Devils make the right choice for the team at that pick.

Fitzgerald feels that with another well-placed pick in the Draft, the Devils should be able to add to their already young and developing pool of talent.

However, there is still room for the team to “weaponize” this pick, as the Devils still have not taken the idea of trading it off of the table according to Mike Morreale of NHL.com.

I will delve more into Morreale’s article on if the Devils and Fitzgerald will decide to make that deal, as well as taking a look at some of the prospects that the Devils might choose with the pick, should they keep it, later in the week here on the blog.

In the meantime, a quick report about the Utica Comets and their victory in game one of their AHL North Division Semifinal series with the Rochester Americans.

The Comets won 6-3 on the strength of a strong second period comeback and two goals from AJ Greer.

Rochester jumped out to a 2-0 first period lead at the Adirondack Bank Center in Utica when Arttu Ruotsalainen scored 2:21 into the game and JJ Peterka scored on the power play at 6:03 gone by.

The Comets roared back to tie things early in the second when Tyce Thompson scored 4:31 into the period off assists from Nolan Foote and Reilly Walsh.

Just a second under a minute later, at 5:30 gone by, Robbie Russo tied the game from Nikita Okhotiuk and Foote.

Ruotsalainen scored again at 11:37 to put the Americans back in front before Ryan Schmelzer tied the game on the power play at the 15:53 mark of the second. Greer and Walsh had the assists.

Peterka had been called for slashing at 15:33 to set up the man advantage for Utica.

The second period saw both teams rack up penalty minutes – although only Peterka’s penalty resulted in a power play. The rest were all matching minors (or double minors in the case of Sean Malone and Russo’s roughing penalties at the 20 minute mark of the period).

This tied the game at three and set up a third period that saw the Comets score three straight to win the game.

Joe Gambardella scored the game-winner from Fabian Zetterlund 9:29 into the third period.

Greer then added the next two, his first at 14:04 (with Aarne Talvitie getting the lone helper) and his second at 16:30 (unassisted) to ice the game.

Greer, with three points, was named the game’s first star while Gambardella was the second star with the game winning goal. Walsh was the third star with two assists.

Goaltender Nico Daws made 19 saves on 22 shots for the Comets while former Devil Aaron Dell stopped 34 of 40 shots for the Amerks.

Game two of the best-of-five series will be played on Saturday, May 14 in Utica.