It’s finally here! The first half of our top 10 on this year’s Top 25 Under 25 Devils list. Look to see who rose to the top.
The big event of the summer is finally here. The top ten Devils under 25 are finally being released. Without further ado, on to the first half of the reveals.
#10th – Lenni Hameenaho – RW – Age: 19 – 2023-24 Team: Assat (Liiga) – 2023 Rank: 16 Elite Prospects Profile
Rocketing into the top 10 for the first time after a strong season in Assat is winger Lenni Hameenaho. It is not hard to see why. After a strong camp with the Devils, Hameenaho steamrolled out of the gate scoring 9 goals and 14 points in his first 18 games in the professional Liiga, putting him near the top of the league at the time.
Unfortunately, the good times would not last. Hameenaho’s meteoric offense fell back to earth later in the season and the hefty winger finished with 14 goals and 31 points in 46 contents, still good enough to lead low-scoring Assat in goals and fall only three points behind team-leading centerman Jan-Mikael Jarvinen. League-wide, Hameenaho finished with a far more modest tie for 47th in the Liiga in goals and 63rd in points according to Elite Prospects, which may not seem all that exciting on the page, but those 14 goals were second in the league for a teenager.
In short, Hameenaho had a really strong season overall, improving by 10 points and five goals over his draft season in five less games. More impressively, Hameenaho absolutely lit up the post-season, scoring 4 goals and 12 points in only 6 contests. Look for Hameenaho to continue to develop for Assat this season.
#9th – Paul Cotter – C/LW – Age: 24 – 2023-24 Team: Vegas Golden Knights (NHL) 2023 Rank: N/A Elite Prospects Profile
New Jersey fans welcome Paul Cotter to the Devils with the 9th spot on this year’s list. The Devils paid a hefty price to acquire Cotter, trading former-first rounder Alexander Holtz and Rangers-bane goaltender Akira Schmid for Cotter and a 3rd round pick in 2025. To put it mildly, many Devils fan’s immediate reaction to the trade was not entirely positive.
None of that should be seen as a knock on Paul Cotter though. As an already-established NHL-regular for two seasons with the Golden Knights, Cotter is a capable, hard-checking fourth liner who provides some secondary offense, finishing last season with 7 goals and 18 assists in 76 games. The year prior, Cotter shot ten percentage points higher in 2022-23, a factor in a doubled goal production of 14. A reasonable middle is to expect somewhere around ten goals in a full season’s of work from Cotter, which is not bad for a player who will likely be skating limited minutes on the 4th line.
Though it is certainly possible that Cotter ends up on Lazar’s wing on that line, the former Golden Knight provides valuable center depth to a team which frankly has little of it. Cotter’s main competition in camp for playing time will likely be Nolan Foote as one of Foote, Bastian, or Cotter will likely be pushed into the press box and Bastian has an edge in penalty killing and playing on his natural wing as a right-handed shot. Then there is the Kurtis MacDermid x-factor to consider. Frankly, given the price the Devils paid for Cotter, I would be highly surprised if he is the player who draws the short straw. Clearly, Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald is a strong advocate for his game. One should expect Cotter to be a fixture in the Devils bottom six for most of the season.
#8th – Nico Daws – G – Age: 23 – 2023-24 Team: Utica Comets (AHL) – 2023 Rank: 13 Elite Prospects Profile
Rising up into the top 10 for the first time is goaltender Nico Daws. It is an interesting jump as Daws is arguably coming off his worst season stat-wise. At least for the Comets, Daws’s numbers have been slowly degrading since he first began his professional career.
The netminder debuted strong in Utica in 2021-22 with a 2.54 GAA and .916 SV% to go along with a sterling 14-4-2 record. In 2022-23 Daws dropped to a still respectable 2.70 GAA and .904 SV% to go along with a 16-14-3 record. Last season, the netminder slipped further to a 2.89 GAA and .890 SV% to go along with a 2-6-2 record after returning from off-season hip surgery.
In the NHL, Nico Daws tends to be remembered for flashes of absolute brilliance such as the “goaltending clinic” (to quote AATJ recap writer Jackson Baird ) that he put on against the Flyers in the Stadium Series this past February. Daws is also remembered for being the best of the eight goaltenders in the crease carousel season of 2021-22 after Jonathan Bernier went down with an injury. At the time, Daws’s 10-11-1 record, 3.11 GAA and .893 SV% were honestly impressive for a young goaltender thrown to the wolves far too early in his career after a brief 10 game season with ERC Ingolstadt of the Deutsche Eishockey Liiga the year prior. That was then.
Flash forward to this past season. Nico Daws played in 21 games for the Devils in 2023-24. His numbers were very similar to that goalie carousel year Devils fans would all like to forget. Daws finished with a 9-11-0 record, 3.15 GAA and .894 SV%. As a comparison, much-maligned Vitek Vanecek had a 17-9-3 record, 3.18 GAA and .890 SV% last year before he was traded to San Jose.
It is not all on Daws. The Devils played laughably bad defense much of the season. That hurt all the goaltenders. In Utica, the Comets also had a weaker team, dropping from fourth place to sixth. However, the drop in the standings did not stop Issac Poulter from putting up a 2.55 GAA, 9.11 SV% while earning a 17-8-1 record for the same Comets, even while all the other goaltenders floundered. With two established goalies on the Devils roster for 2023-24, Daws should be platooning with the same Isaac Poulter in Utica this upcoming year. It will be interesting to see how things shake out between them. Right now Nico Daws seems to be the clear cut #3 goalie in the system after this summer’s departure of Akira Schmid in the Paul Cotter trade. He will need to have a strong season to maintain that position.
#7th – Anton Silayev – D – Age: 18 – 2023-24 Team: Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod (KHL) – 2023 Rank: N/A Elite Prospects Profile
Debuting at 7th is newly-drafted defenseman Anton Silayev. The Devils 10th selection in the 2024 NHL entry draft, many had the brutish Russian defender much higher on their draft boards. Coming in at a staggering 6’7 and 211 pounds as an 18-year-old, Silayev is no small prize for the Devils no-good terrible 2023-24 season.
In the days leading up to the draft, I wrote about Silayev here calling him a not-so-gentle giant. I would urge anyone interested to learning more about Silayev to read about him there as not much has changed since the draft. While three goals and eight assists in 63 games may not leap off the page, even making the KHL as an 18-year-old defenseman is impressive. Earning power play time, as Silayev did, is even more so. It is hard to gauge offense of young Russian defenders given their usage, but signs are that Silayev will at least be a contributor one day at the NHL level to go along with this smooth-skating, bruising back-end skills.
Silayev’s season has already started for Torpedo. Look for the blueliner to earn an increased role and develop a few more years before joining the Devils.
#6th – Seamus Casey – RD – Age: 20 – 2023-24 Team: Michigan Wolverines (NCAA) – 2023 Rank: 9 – Elite Prospects Profile
Rising up three spots is defenseman Seamus Casey. The 5’10’’ defender was the backbone of the Michigan Wolverines offense last season after the departure of Luke Hughes to the Devils last summer. Rising to the challenge, Casey increased his numbers from 29 points in 37 games in 2022-23 behind Hughes to 45 points in 40 games as the team’s offensive engine from the blue line.
Casey’s 45 points were good enough for third in the entire NCAA for a defenseman behind only Zeev Buium (50) and Lane Hutson (49). Devils fans have been excited about Seamus Casey’s potential for a long time and luckily will not have to wait much longer. Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald signed Seamus Casey in May to his three year entry level contract. Casey should start the season developing in Utica and will be one to watch closely.
The Rankings
AATJ Writers and Community
Pouring through the numbers, only two points separated sixth place Seamus Casey and 10th place Lenni Hameenaho so this was the closest group of five in the Top 25. Little under one point separated Hameenaho from 11th place Nolan Foote and a little over one point separated Seamus Casey from number five on our list.
Your Take
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