Livescore
The New Jersey Devils must be getting close to the record for the most former Ottawa Senators first-rounders to dress for an NHL club in a single season.
The Devils already have Ottawa’s 2011 and 2013 first-rounders as regulars in their lineup this season, and today, they called up the top pick from the Sens’ 2017 draft.
Stefan Noesen was one of Ottawa’s three first-rounders in 2011 (along with Mika Zibanejad and Matt Puempel), and in his second stint with New Jersey, he’s finally emerged as a serious scoring threat in the league. Noesen is second on the Devils in goal scoring with nine and fourth with 16 points in 21 games.
Curtis Lazar was the Sens’ top pick in 2013 and was once seen as an elite NHL prospect, captaining Team Canada to a 2015 World Junior title. However, his scoring ability never transitioned to the NHL level. Because he does everything else well, he has carved out a decent NHL career, mostly as a fourth-liner. The Devils placed him on injured reserve on Monday, retroactive to Oct. 27
To help pick up the slack, Jersey has recalled 25-year-old Shane Bowers, Ottawa’s 2017 first-round draft pick. Bowers was drafted the year before Brady Tkachuk and were teammates together at Boston University. Five months after drafting Bowers, the Sens packaged him up in the 2017 trade with Colorado for Matt Duchene.
Bowers is seventh in Utica AHL scoring, and he certainly never lived up to his first-round NHL billing. But like Lazar, with the Ottawa Senators now part of his distant past, he’s still hoping to create a fourth-line NHL niche for himself.
As for the Devils, they still have plenty of former Sens first-rounders out here to choose from. It’s hard to believe they haven’t picked up the phone yet to ask about Lassi Thomson, Logan Brown, Tyler Boucher or Colin White.
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