Devils Backup Goalie Plan Should Be Obvious
Pro sports is a ruthless business. It has to be. NHL clubs, having to manage a hard salary cap, in particular often have to make difficult personnel decisions they wish weren’t necessary.
By all accounts, Devils backup goalie Jake Allen was well-respected by stakeholders on and off the ice. Since his acquisition at the 2024 NHL Trade Deadline, he has been steadily serviceable at a position that has tormented New Jersey for years, posting a 2.80 goals against average and a .904 save percentage over his 44 games as a Devil.
However, Allen, who turns 35 in August, is a pending free agent in an otherwise underwhelming goalie class. He’s going to get offered a nice contract. That’s fantastic for him.
But whether Allen’s new AAV is going to go up from $3.85 million (of which Montreal, Allen’s prior team, retained half upon the trade) to $4 million, $5 million, or higher, that’s too rich for the Devils’ budget. I understand why New Jersey General Manager Tom Fitzgerald continually emphasizes to the media that he’s willing to negotiate with Allen prior to the July 1 open of the free agent marketplace, but let’s take those as performative statements.
Re-signing Allen doesn’t make sense, both from a financial and a roster standpoint. Puckpedia.com has the Devils with approximately $14.4 million in cap space going into the new league year. Except that’s before restricted free agent Luke Hughes’ contract is extended, which could chop off about half of that room in one swoop. How can Fitzgerald justify paying Allen his market value when bringing more skill to his forward group is the greater priority?
Allen’s departure would undoubtedly be felt in the locker room and his combativeness in the crease was appreciated by the Prudential Center faithful, but let’s not overstate his contributions. In his 14 starts against teams that reached the postseason, he went 4-10 with a 3.36 GAA and a .885 save percentage. Not that those numbers factored into Devils Head Coach Sheldon Keefe’s goalie decisions last season; it was always going to be Jacob Markstrom’s net in the biggest games unless he couldn’t physically skate out there. Allen hasn’t even stepped on the ice during a playoff game since 2020.
It’s not like the Devils haven’t been preparing for this eventuality. Nico Daws, a 2020 third round pick, has 52 NHL games under his career belt, including four starts last season. He went 3-1, with the sole defeat coming in the season finale when New Jersey rested its top players. Though too small a sample, his NaturalStatTrick.com metrics were out of this world, including a 4.41 goals saved above average (25th out of 81 goalies who played at least four games) and a top-ranked .926 high danger save percentage.
Proper roster management requires replacing veterans with younger players under less expensive contracts where possible. Daws, who is in the final season of his 2-year, $1.625 million deal, has earned the opportunity to back up Markstrom in 2025-26.
If, by the end of this season, the Devils conclude they can’t trust Daws to step up if needed due to a Markstrom injury during the playoffs, they have the option of signing their 2024 second round pick Mikhail Yegorov following the end to Boston University’s campaign. Yegorov was terrific in leading the Terriers to the Frozen Four as a freshman.
Fitzgerald will be facing difficult conundrums in the next few days, including whether he should mortgage his better picks at Friday’s NHL Draft to bolster his bottom-six forwards whose anemic production last season was the proximate cause for the team’s underachievement. I know it’s unbelievable to some given the franchise’s recent history with the position, but what to do about Allen and the Devils goaltending situation is not one of those pressing open items.