Devils acquire AHL scorer Amadeus Lombardi from Red Wings
The Devils paid the 108th pick for immediate AHL offense, landing Amadeus Lombardi after his best pro season in Grand Rapids.
The New Jersey Devils bought proven AHL scoring on Wednesday, sending the 108th pick in the 2026 NHL Draft to Detroit for Amadeus Lombardi. The move gives New Jersey a 23-year-old center with back-to-back productive seasons in Grand Rapids and a track record of driving offense at the AHL level.
Sunny Mehta announced the deal for New Jersey, which turned a fourth-round selection into a player who just finished his best professional season. Lombardi posted 16 goals and 26 assists for 42 points in 47 regular-season games with the Grand Rapids Griffins in 2025-26, then added three assists in seven Calder Cup Playoff games. For a Devils system looking for more reliable scoring depth, that is the kind of ready-made production that can reshape an affiliate lineup as much as an NHL call-up chart.
The numbers make the fit easy to see. Lombardi has 163 career AHL games and 109 points, including 40 points in 44 games the season before his breakout year. The AHL profile lists him at 5-foot-11 and 182 pounds, a left-shot center born in Aurora, Ontario, on June 5, 2003. His 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons gave New Jersey something more valuable than projection: a multi-year sample of top-six AHL offense, with consistent point production and a playoff touch.
That profile is exactly why the Devils paid the price. A fourth-round pick in the 2026 draft is a meaningful asset, but New Jersey used it to secure immediate help for its minor-league pipeline and injury insurance at the NHL level. Lombardi is not a long-shot development bet. He arrived with a recent 42-point season, a 40-point season before that, and a junior résumé that included 102 points in 67 OHL games for the Flint Firebirds in 2022-23.
Detroit’s side of the deal reflects the other end of the calculus. The Red Wings selected Lombardi in the fourth round of the 2022 NHL Draft, signed him to a three-year entry-level contract on December 23, 2022, and sent him from Flint to Grand Rapids on April 12, 2023. He never became a regular NHL fixture in the organization, but he did become a dependable AHL producer, finishing his Griffin tenure with career highs in assists, points, plus-minus, penalty minutes and game-winning goals.
Grand Rapids also named Lombardi its 2025-26 IOA/American Specialty AHL Man of the Year, a reminder that the acquisition is about more than box-score value. New Jersey did not just add a scorer. It added a player who had become a central part of a successful AHL team, on and off the ice.
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