New Jersey Devils general manager Ray Shero fully expects his team to keep the No. 1 pick in the NHL Draft.
Shero told NHL.com that despite receiving offers for the pick, nothing has quite caught his eye.
“I’ve gotten calls asking if there’s interest moving down and other calls where it’s been more specific and it’s something to think about,” he said. “But I haven’t called them back. The idea is we’ll probably be picking, but we’re open to a lot of things.”
The lack of a franchise-altering prospect in this year’s draft class (forwards Nolan Patrick and Nico Hischier are the consensus top two picks), has given some hope for fans eager to see some trade action on draft night. If it happens, it’s unlikely to involve the No. 1 pick.
The first pick hasn’t been traded since 2003, when Florida gave Pittsburgh the rights to draft Marc-Andre Fleury and the 73rd pick for Mikael Samuelsson and picks Nos. 3 and 55.
“What would it get me to trade the No. 1 pick outright? I couldn’t even tell you,” said Shero. “It hasn’t been done that much, but if we did do something like that it would be pretty apparent it was the right thing to do.
“You have to be ready for all different scenarios in moving up or down, and in this case down.”
As for who New Jersey will select between Patrick and Hishchier? We’ll have to wait until June 23 to find out, though Devils director of amateur scouting Paul Castron did give a brief report on the two prospects.
“I think Nico is a little better skater; they both are good defensively,” said Castron. “Patrick has the size edge and both are so smart. It’s all projection for us and we stress that in all our meetings.
“No matter what round we’re picking, the guy that scores 90 points and the guy that scores 60 points must be looked at separately because there are a lot of factors that come into play.”
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