It’s Time: The NHL owes the Devils a Draft Pick Share this story Photo by Len Redkoles/NHLI via Getty Images I’m sure some portion of people are very confused by the title of this piece. For those folks, we will need a little bit of a history lesson before we get started on what exactly the nature of my gripe is with the NHL. Luckily, SBNation and AAtJ/ILWT have a fairly robust timeline of the events to journey through. The year is 2010. The Devils have just made the playoffs for the 19th time in 20 seasons with the help of mid-season acquisition Ilya Kovalchuk. Kovy is, at this point, the key superstar complement to Zach Parise that will enable the Devils to sustain their Cup aspirations beyond the retirement of the last few players from the pseudo-dynastic era of greatness (Elias and Brodeur). Kovalchuk is a UFA in 2010, though, so the Devils have a fight on their hands.