The top of the New Jersey Devils system is a handful of names who can impact a roster. Eight through 12 is the next layer. Players who can still become NHL pieces if the next season goes right, and organizational depth if it does not.
They sit here in our 2026 Devils Prospect Rankings for the same reasons as everyone above them. Skating, puck skills, hockey sense, compete, and defensive detail first. Then production against age and league, trajectory, and a realistic NHL job.
This group has more questions than the top seven. It also has more paths to a roster.
8. Nikita Shcherbakov, LHD
Projects as a third-pair / penalty-kill defenseman
The Devils used the 44th pick in June on a 6-foot-5 left shot from Chelyabinsk. That is the first thing. Size like that does not walk into the building every year.
Nikita Shcherbakov spent last season bouncing between levels in the Salavat Yulaev system: a handful of KHL games with Ufa, 35 in the VHL with Toros Neftekamsk (4 goals, 6 assists), and more time in the MHL. The KHL minutes were limited. The VHL minutes were real. He already looks like a defender who can close space with reach and still move his feet.
He will not run a power play. That is not why he went in the second round. He is here because a mobile, rangy defender who can kill penalties and make the first pass has a job in the league if the strength catches up to the frame. He is still listed around 190 pounds. The next box is adding mass without getting heavy.
The ranking is a bet on tools and runway, not last year’s point totals. He is 18. He stays in Russia this year. If the VHL/KHL minutes grow and the physical game shows up, he moves. If he stalls as a big kid who does not impose himself, he slides toward the bubble.
9. Conrad Fondrk, C
Projects as a middle-six or strong third-line center
Conrad Fondrk was supposed to be the freshman who made Boston University’s lineup look different. A broken femur in March 2025 knocked that off course. He went 50th overall that summer anyway. Then he played the year at about half speed, missed time, and finished with 3 goals and 5 assists in 25 games. He was out again before the season ended.
That is not the player the NTDP put on film. The speed and the release were the selling points. Those have not vanished. They also have not been seen healthy for a full college season.
He is 18, 6-foot-0, close to 190, and still at BU with Mikhail Yegorov. This year is the reset. If the skating comes back and the points follow, the middle-six projection holds. If the injury year becomes the new baseline, he becomes a depth center with a loud draft slot. The tools are why he is ninth instead of outside the 15. The health is why he is not higher.
10. Daniil Orlov, LHD
Projects as a steady third-pair defenseman
Daniil Orlov does not ask you to squint. He moves the puck, finds the right lane, and defends with positioning more than chaos. Last season in the KHL he produced real numbers for a young defenseman playing men’s minutes. That matters more than a flashy junior stat line.
He is not Anton Silayev. He is not going to make a highlight package out of a retrieval. He is the type who can play a third-pair game and not make the coach nervous. In a system that has moved blue-line talent and still needs depth behind Dougie Hamilton, Brett Pesce, and the Luke Hughes pair, that profile has value.
The question is translation. KHL production does not always follow a player to the AHL. If he comes over and the first pass still works, he is a call-up. If the North American pace eats the extra half-second he has been used to, he stays a depth name. Ninth and 10th on this list are close. Orlov is here because the pro sample is already longer than most of the kids above the bubble.
11. Shane Lachance, LW
Projects as a physical bottom-six forward
Shane Lachance is 6-foot-4 and plays like it. The Devils got him in the Trent Frederic three-team deal, signed him, and sent him to Utica. He put up 10 goals and 15 assists in 62 games, made his NHL debut, and spent the year doing the things that get fourth-liners paid: net front, boards, a heavy stick.
He was the captain at Boston University. That did not show up as skill. It showed up as reliability. He is 22. The offensive ceiling is a handful of goals and a lot of dirty ice. The floor is a player who can take a bottom-six shift and wear people down.
Those players get chances because teams always need them in March. Lachance is 11th because the role is clear and the pro year did not scare anyone off. He is not 11th because he is going to outscore Lenni Hämeenaho. Different job.
12. Étienne Morin, LHD
Projects as a depth / third-pair option
Étienne Morin was a second-round pick because the skating and the puck movement were obvious. The AHL results have not caught up. The tools are still there when you watch a retrieval or a first pass. The defensive details have not been consistent enough to lock down a role.
That is a familiar story for mobile defensemen who arrive in the AHL and find out every forward is stronger than the ones they just left. Morin has time, but not endless time. A tighter gap, fewer extra plays in his own end, and a full healthy year in Utica would move him. Another season of tools without results drops him toward Vilen and the rest of the bubble left side.
He is 12th because the second-round pedigree and the skating still count. He is not higher because the production has not forced the issue.
What this tier is
Eight through 12 is not a star cluster. It is a group that can give the Devils NHL depth if two or three of them hit.
Shcherbakov and Fondrk have the most room to climb. Orlov and Lachance have the clearest jobs if they just keep being themselves. Morin is the swing: tools that still look like a pick, results that look like a project.
A year from now this section will probably look different. That is the point of putting them together. The top seven are the headliners. This is the wave that decides whether the pipeline is thin or merely quieter.
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