By MARK EVERSON
June 20, 2008
Declaring tonight's draft the deepest he's ever seen, Devils GM Lou Lamoriello raised the possibility of once more trading down to pile up picks and players.
"You'd always like to move up, but what's the cost? What's the cost?" said the GM, whose team is slated to pick 21st tonight in Ottawa. "We could even trade down. When you get to a certain point, you may think you could get more [value] by trading down. A lot's going to depend on what has already happened."
If he hangs on to his pick, this will be the earliest the Devils have chosen since the lockout. They grabbed Travis Zajac 20th overall in 2004 and Zach Parise 17th in 2003. They didn't have a first-round pick last June, shipped to San Jose to take on Vladimir Malakhov's cap liability on Oct. 1, 2006.
The Devils will conduct their traditional draft party tonight at 6:30 at Newark Arena, inviting the public gratis to view the proceedings on the big screen - and to bring their own skates for a spin around the practice rink.
Lamoriello traded down in 2006 (Matt Corrente), up in 2004 (Zajac) and 2003 (Parise), down in 2001 (Igor Pohanka and Tuomas Pihlman instead of Lukas Krajcek), up in 1998 (Scott Gomez) and down in 1990 (Martin Brodeur).
Parise, Zajac and Vezina Trophy winner Brodeur are the only current Devils regulars who were their own first-rounders. Brendan Shanahan (1987), Bill Guerin (1989), Scott Niedermayer and Brian Rolston (1991), Jason Smith (1992), Petr Sykora (1995), Mike Van Ryn and Gomez (1998) and David Hale (2000) are all playing elsewhere. Busts have included Adrian Foster (28th, 2001), goalies Ari Ahonen (27th, 1999) and J.F. Damphousse (24th, 1997), Lance Ward (10th, 1996), Vadim Sharifijanov (25th, 1994) and Denis Pederson (13th,1993). The jury is still out on Corrente (30th, 2006) and Nicklas Bergfors (23rd, 2005).
"When you draft where we have, you don't get those 'A' quality [prospects] you get in the early picks. But that's the draft position you don't want to be in. You don't want to be there," Lamoriello said.
"We'll still look at the best player available," Lamoriello said. "Certainly, if there are two comparables and we feel a need in a certain area, we'll fill that.
"There are a lot of defensemen, and the quality and quantity go hand in hand."
The draft isn't the end-all it once was, since free agency comes so quickly, but it is the basis of a team's talent pool. And the Devils haven't been the drafting demons they once were.
