Devils rookie minicamp - 7.15.2014

Steven Santini was the Devils' top draft pick last year.

(Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-Ledger)

The concluding session of Devils rookie camp at the AmeriHealth Pavilion in Newark had a last-day-of-school feel. The training regimen was scaled down. There were no drills on the schedule, just an open-ended, high-tempo scrimmage lasting for three periods. Later, the kids were going to be bused into New York to attend Friday night’s Yankees game.

After a week’s worth of instruction from the Devils coaching staff, the scrimmage amounted to a final exam for the 41 young players in camp, and once again Steven Santini showed he has the makings of a defensive anchor.

Santini is 19 years old, but has been playing defense from his introduction to hockey at age six. His prominent presence on the ice is partly due to his sturdy frame. Now he is six-foot-two and 207 pounds, and that size allows him to regularly leave imprints on opponents without ever being knocked off course himself.

In Friday’s exhibition, he churned forward powerfully to initiate an attack, jostled some invading forward away from the net on the penalty kill and barricaded an on-rushing skater from the puck so his partner could sweep up.

The beauty of Santini’s play is in the fine details, though. Again Friday, he was all action -- pointing to assign teammates a mark and shouting an alert when an opponent sneaked in towards the net. Even when the puck stopped, Santini was the first to skate over and tap his teammates on the pads to offer gentle encouragement.

“I don’t mind doing the little things that may go unnoticed but help you win hockey games,” Santini said. “There are so many little things that go into being a hockey player.”

Santini labeled those little things “non-talent skills,” and said his father, also named Steven and a college player at Maine, passed on an appreciation for them.

“You really can’t teach that and you can’t necessarily practice it either,” Santini said. “It’s more of a mindset and I just instill in myself that I may not be the most skilled guy out there but if I can take care of the non-talent skills and my body things will work out.”

Perhaps those skills were what Pete DeBoer was thinking of when summing up Santini earlier in camp.

"He had a couple big hits, but I liked how he played more than that," Devils coach said.



Santini is one of a new wave of Devils defensemen. You'd have to trace back to 2007 to find a draft in which the Devils didn't select a defenseman with one of their top two picks, a strategy that represents a long-term plan to restock the club's back line.

This season, dividends will start to show as Adam Larsson, Eric Gelinas and Jon Merrill are expected to hold down spots in the Devils' defense. Larsson was the No. 4 overall pick in 2011; Gelinas and Merrill are former second rounders. Damon Severson, the Devils' second-round pick in 2012, might also rise to the NHL this season.



Santini, a second-round in 2013, is next in line, along with Joshua Jacobs, his partner for Friday's scrimmage and a second-round pick in June. But Santini is rising quickly. As part of the U.S. Development Program, he played 70 games a year from 2011-13. During his freshman season at Boston College last winter, he played about 40, but made the Frozen Four semifinals.

Santini will train with the U.S. junior team in August, in anticipation of another trip to the world junior championships in December. But he will mostly spend the rest of the summer at his parents’ house in Mahopac, N.Y., a 90-minute drive from Newark across the Tappan Zee Bridge.

There, Santini will be on the ice nearly every day. His father owns a rink in Brewster, N.Y., where Santini played junior hockey as a kid. It’s safe to say he’ll have the run of the place until he leaves for Boston at summer’s end.

“I don’t have a problem with ice time,” Santini said, “that’s for sure.”