Our third and final installment of a three-part series grading every draft pick made under general manager Tom Fitzgerald is below. You can read part one of the series here and part two of the series here.
2024 Draft
Round 1, Pick 10 – Anton Silayev (Defenseman)
Notable Players Picked After: Sam Dickinson, Zeev Buium, Jett Luchanko
It’s been a disappointing start to the season for Silayev who has only one point through his first 18 KHL games this season. However, scoring prowess isn’t the reason the Devils picked the Russian blue-liner with a top 10 pick.
Silayev is a 6-foot-7 lock down defenseman who can skate like he’s six inches shorter. Playing next to the likes of Simon Nemec or Brett Pesce seems like a dream come true for any team.
Grade: B
Round 2, Pick 49 – Mikhail Yegorov (Goaltender)
Notable Players Picked After: Nikita Artamonov
Goaltending is quite volatile, but the Devils seemed to have found their netminder of the future. After starting last season on the lowly Omaha Lancers of the USHL, where Yegorov was still able to put up a 0.912 save percentage, the 18-year-old Russian made the move to Boston University where he was one of the best goalies in the country over an 18 game stretch. Thus far, through five games this year, he has a 0.911 save percentage.
While we might not see Yegorov play professional hockey until next year or even the year after, the pick definitely seems like a hit thus far.
Grade: A
Round 3, Pick 85 – Kasper Pikkarainen (Winger)
Notable Players Picked After: Luca Marrelli, Kim Saarinen
Kasper Pikkarainen hasn’t played a ton of games since being drafted due largely to injury. Thus far, this year, he has two points while playing a limited role for TPS of the Liiga. It’s hard to give a grade to a guy who hasn’t played very much. There’s some upside, but hard to tell as of right now.
Grade: C+
Round 3, Pick 91 – Herman Träff (Winger)
Notable Players Picked After: None
Herman Träff had a good season in the SHL last year, scoring seven points in 25 games as an 18/19-year-old. Träff, similar to Pikkarainen, has upside, but maybe not quite as much.
Träff also is no longer in the Devils system. He was flipped as part of a trade for Brian Dumoulin at the 2025 trade deadline. Overall, a very middling third round for the Devils.
Grade: B-
Round 5, Pick 139 – Max Graham (Center)
Notable Players Picked After: Clarke Caswell
The Devils took a couple of swings on overagers, the first one being Max Graham in the fifth round. While Graham improved in his fifth WHL season last year, he still only had 35 points in 34 games.
Graham was then shipped to Pittsburgh in the deal for Cody Glass. He is currently in the ECHL with Wheeling.
Grade: D-
Round 5, Pick 146 – Veeti Louhivaara (Goaltender)
Notable Players Picked After: Luke Misa, Justin Poirier
The Devils decided to double dip on goalies in this draft. While Yegorov seems like a great pick, Louhivaara doesn’t. The Finnish netminder played 18 games at his nation’s junior level last season going 4-11-0 with a 0.902 save percentage. He has followed that up with a 0.863 save percentage across six Finnish minor league games this season.
Grade: D-
Round 6, Pick 171 – Matyas Melovsky (Center)
Notable Players Picked After: Joona Vaisanen
The Devils final pick of the draft was their second overager. This one seemingly is working out. Melovsky exploded for 83 points in 57 games last season and is continuing that success early on with the Utica Comets (AHL). Through four games, he has three points and has looked like one of Utica’s best offensive players already.
A sixth-round pick potentially being an NHL-level player is a win and Melovsky has the skill to potentially make that happen.
Grade: A
2025 Draft
Round 2, Pick 50 – Conrad Fondrk (Center)
Notable Players Picked After: Will Moore, Cole McKinney, Jakob Ihs-Wozniak
We had Fondrk ranked 71 in our top 100 prospects for this past year’s draft, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have talent. Injuries were a major issue for the young American in his draft year, but a potential top-six role at Boston University this upcoming season could show everyone that maybe he deserved to go even higher than pick 50.
Through four games at Boston University this year, he has three points. He entered the season as our eight-ranked prospect in the team’s system.
Grade: B
Round 2, Pick 63 – Benjamin Kevan (Winger)
Notable Players Picked After: Nathan Behm
Benjamin Kevan is a similar prospect to Fondrk, lots of upside, but a higher floor. Kevan has oodles of speed and skill which are the two most important things in transitioning to the next level in hockey. Kevan has two points through six games to begin his collegiate career at Arizona State. He entered the season ranked 10th on our preseason organizational prospect list.
Grade: B
Round 3, Pick 90 – Mason Moe (Center)
Notable Players Picked After: Cameron Schmidt
Mason Moe is the third forward out of the USHL picked by the Devils through their first three draft selections. Moe is more of a two-way forward than the other two picked. He’s really smart in his own end and is great at creating space for himself on offense. He has two points through four games at the University of Minnesota to begin his Big 10 career.
This selection may have a higher floor than the other two guys picked ahead of him, but the ceiling isn’t close to Kevan and Fondrk.
Grade: B-
Round 4, Pick 99 – Trenten Bennett (Goaltender)
Notable Players Picked After: Adam Benak
Trenten Bennett was literally the biggest pick in the 2025 NHL Entry Draft. The netminder stands at 6-foot-8 which makes him the tallest draftee this year. While Bennett mostly played in the Central Canada Hockey League prior to this season, the Devils clearly saw something in him as several did not even have Bennett on their respective boards.
Through his first four OHL games, Bennett has proved the team right by putting up a 0.935 save percentage.
Grade: C-
Round 4, Pick 114 – Gustav Hillström (Center)
Notable Players Picked After: Michal Svrcek
Gustav Hillström in the fourth round could end up being the best pick of the 2025 NHL Entry Draft for New Jersey. We had him ranked 58th in our pred-raft rankings, mostly due to his extremely high floor. Hillström has the skills and smarts to make an impact at the NHL level in the not-so-distant future.
Hillström has gotten off to a roaring hot start to his Swedish under-20 season this year with 13 points in his first seven games. As a result, he was promptly called up to the SHL club where he has skated in two games as an 18-year-old.
Grade: A-
Round 6, Pick 161 – David Rozsíval (Winger)
Notable Players Picked After: None
David Rozsíval gave a lot of hard-working minutes in the Czech under-20 league last year, leading to his selection in the sixth round. He’s a pretty good skater, but might not have the skill to be more than an NHL fourth liner at best. Still, for the sixth round, it’s a fine pick.
He made the move to the USHL this season, where he has four points through 11 games for Green Bay.
Grade: C-
Round 6, Pick 161 – Sigge Holmgren (Defenseman)
Notable Players Picked After: None
Sigge Holmgren is the biggest question mark of all the Devils 2025 draft picks given that he didn’t play at all last season. Despite this, general manager Tom Fitzgerald and company felt comfortable enough to pick Holmgren with their last pick in the draft. Finally back on the ice this year, Holmgren is ready to show that as an offense-minded defenseman he could be a diamond in the rough.
Through 11 under-20 junior league team games in Sweden, he has three points.
Grade: D+
Conclusion
When looking back at all of Tom Fitzgerald’s trades and signings the consensus was that a majority of them were good or better and very few were bad. His previous draft selections are more spread out, which is not exactly surprising given how much volatility is in the draft.
Here is a table showing where his draftees have graded out:
| Grade | Total |
| A+ to A- | 7 |
| B+ to B- | 15 |
| C+ to C- | 10 |
| D+ to F | 10 |
In all, 23.8% of Fitzgerald’s draft picks got a grade between the D-to-F range. However, 52.4% of his selections got a grade of B- or higher. So, more than half of every pick Fitzgerald has made has graded above average.
Additional Content
If you missed our recent series analyzing other work of Tom Fitzgerald, those articles can be found below:
Trade Series:
Signing Series:
Draft Series: