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Less than a month after parting ways with long-time Director of Scouting David Conte the Devils have found their new guy in Paul Castron.
After 16 seasons with the Blue Jackets - including the last nine as Director of Amateur Scouting - Castron will join Shero and the new-look front office to take on the same role in New Jersey.
Some thoughts on the hiring and some other tidbits:
- First and foremost I really like this move. The Blue Jackets have quietly built up a very good prospect pool and Castron surely had a lot to do with it.
While the Blue Jackets did address their lack of defense prospects at this year's draft they have been best known for their ability to draft high-end talent up front.
During Castron's tenure with the Blue Jackets they have drafted the likes of Ryan Johansen, Cam Atkinson and Boone Jenner, among others, as well as Marko Dano, Alex Wennberg, Sonny Milano, Oliver Bjorkstrand and Kerby Rychel more recently.
That's an impressive group of players.
New Jersey's organizational need - in a big way - is highly skilled forwards and Castron has done a very good job of identifying those players. He is an excellent addition for the Devils.
- One thing I like about the Castron hiring is that he's not coming from Pittsburgh's front office. Obviously familiarity is a good thing and it's nice for Ray Shero to work with guys he is comfortable with but he needs to have some fresh faces and opinions around him.
The Penguins have been a very good team for a while now but they, like all organizations, are not perfect. I think it is best to pluck highly qualified guys from a variety of teams rather than going to the same well over and over again.
- On a different note, Devils prospect Mackenzie Blackwood got the nod in goal for Team Canada against Czech Republic last night at the World Junior summer showcase and he fared very well. Blackwood wasn't tested a ton in the latter half of the game but saw a lot of rubber early and managed to hold the fort while leading Canada to a 7-1 victory. Blackwood stopped 26-of-27 in the win, which is good for a .963SV%.
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