HI!
Hope everyone had a lovely fake Spring and now real Spring so far. Not sure if you are all watching the playoffs, but there have been some fun games and fun young teams. I did not have Vegas beating Colorado in my bracket, let alone sweeping, so definitely pretty shocking. Although I had Ottawa beating Carolina so what do I know.
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As annoyed as I am that we are on the outside looking in, stress free playoff hockey can be the next best thing. Ok, I’m lying, it sucks, I cannot believe we are back here again – I’d much rather be a pasty ball of anxiety, ignoring my family and friends, work, life etc. Some of these young fun teams (Utah, Anaheim, Philly etc) got invaluable experience we should’ve gotten the past 2 seasons.
Back to the Devils. There have been a few major themes plaguing this team the past few years: scoring, injuries, and goaltending. Our scoring woes and injuries are interconnected; when your good players get hurt and you have worse players on the ice, those worse players are going to score less. Jack has obviously been the main problem here, but don’t discount how much other injuries affect scoring (Pesce playing playing half a season, Glass and Grits missing time). Goal scoring is the biggest issue this summer and I plan to get more in depth about scoring like I did here once the marketplace for players becomes a little more apparent.
So, that leaves goaltending which I do think can be talked about now to see if there are any viable paths to fix the goaltending. And by “fix the goaltending” I am talking exclusively about Markstrom as Allen is on a great contract and was mostly good in contained deployment. Daws will also be in the mix as an RFA with arb rights, and with his contract status I would be surprised if he isn’t in Utica again next season.
Quick Look at the Future
First, It is instructive to consider how our future goalie pipeline looks, with Yegorov and Malek projected to be good NHLers with Daws as a serviceable backup/1B. Now, obviously you can take “future looks bright in goal” with a grain of salt since Goalies are strange magical creatures and always very difficult to project.
Often it takes highly drafted/rated goalies until their D+5 or D+6 year year to pan out as NHL goalies, with the best coming up and staying around the D+4 year: Oettinger, Knight, Vasilevskiy, Gibson. On the other hand you can see the sheer volume of guys that never set foot in the NHL (blue/red) that were high picks and/or never really established themselves in the NHL.
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So if I were to guess if there was some sort of plan, it was to run Markstrom/Allen until Yegorov and/or Malek were ready. Or knowing Fitz, he was just going to extend Markstrom until the end of days, who knows if anything was an actual plan. In 2026-27, Jakub Malek will be entering his D+5 year and Mikhail Yegorov will be entering his D+3 year and will be returning to BU for his 3rd season, so we are close or at the “ready” portion of their careers if they are going to pan out. One thing I agree with Jared on, is that that both Daws and Malek should at minimum be qualified, and I would be surprised if either went anywhere.
Also, Environment Matters
I promise at some point I will get to what we could potentially do with goalies. But first, I think it’s also important to understand the environment in front of them. For the most part, goalies are a product of their defensive environment, and how good or bad the structure in front of them will have an outsize effect on the goaltending results.
Below is the 2025-26 season of xGA vs GA per/60 at 5v5 via JFresh’s hockeystats.com. xGA is a great proxy for “how good is this team defensively” since it accumulates and weights all of the chances given up, regardless of goalie. There is a linear correlation between xGA and GA – which is why defensive environment is so important. If your defense can’t prevent chances, you’re gonna get scored on a lot unless you have an all-world goalie (Washington Boston, Islanders) or you can get scored on a lot despite a stingy defense (Ottawa and Vegas).
2025-26 Devils Goaltending: A Retrospective
All of Tim’s fun math aside, we had two very differently performing goalies (I’m not including Daws for this exercise). Of Goalies with 30 or more games played, Markstrom was the 6th worst in terms of GSAA at -11.4 for a full season and -.27 per/60. Jake Allen, on the other hand, was 33rd at +9.8 and +.27 per 60.
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Below is how those numbers accumulated by game as visualized by hockeystats.com. I’m including because this site is awesome and I highly recommend playing around in it ($$). I’m also including it to note that a massive chunk of Markstrom’s cumulative -11.4 GSAA came in 2 games: Colorado in October (first game back from his early injury) and the infamous 9-0 Islanders game. Otherwise he was basically break even over the course of the season.
Now before I get dangerously into “defending Markstrom” territory by pointing that out, let’s take a deeper stroll into these numbers. In only 18 of his 44 starts was he positive for GSAA, so basically 60% of his games he was below league average. Further, he gave up 3 or more goals in 28 of those 44 games, and in ONLY 4 of those was he positive for GSAA. If he gets one more save in each of those 24 games (28 minus 4), we are having a different conversation (or no conversation).
Piling on a bit here – when your goalie gives up bad goals at bad times and you’re chasing the game it can be defeating. I am so tired of hearing “he battled” – I don’t want my goalie to battle, I want him to stop pucks. Batting implies it was a struggle, which it often seemed like it was. He gave up the first goal of the game in 24 of his starts, more than half his games, and the devils were 9-14-1 in those games. You can see this in his below goalie card under “quality starts” which is when he had a GSAA above 0. Also, don’t be fooled by the excellent start percentile, he had 2 in total (above 2.0 GSAA). He notoriously overcommits and often is flat out swimming out there – I can’t remember the last time I got so nervous so often for a wrister from the point. Maybe our TBD new goalie coach can have that conversation with him: “hey, you’re too old to rely on athleticism, so use your size more. You’re a giant Viking.”
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Further, the most glaring thing about Markstrom is his clear decline, as evidenced by his JFresh card. Take a look at the top right box which is his overall Wins Above Replacement (WAR) trend. Fitz decided 2 more years with this trend line was totally worth an extension. Extrapolating this through his new contract, he will be at -50% WAR by the end of 27-28:
I could also get into his low danger save percentage (26th percentile and 2nd to last) or his average goal distance against (3rd worst, 22.9 feet) but that would really be beating a dead horse.
There are a few ways to get out of Markstrom, and the second buyout window has been laid out here. We can also flat out waive him to the minors – his extension transitions to a modified NTC and is not an NMC starting in 26-27. Also, and while I highly doubt he is tradeable, but he does have a 20-team no-trade list in 2026-27 and a 5-team no-trade list in 2027-28.
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Here’s the problem, though. Finding an alternative upgrade that can start 50ish games this offseason could prove extremely challenging. We would obviously have to dig into the UFA/RFA/Trade market which means utilizing precious trade assets or cap space that we don’t have a lot of.
Also of note, I’m largely going to rely on JFresh cards as a snapshot of each goalie below. The “main number,” Proj WAR, is a three year weighted average, and the top right provides a WAR trendline. All percentiles for each stat are how they compare to the league.
UFA Options
I included a few more prominent UFAs below just for the exercise, but the overall list is pretty bleak.
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Stu Skinner – Honestly, not a terrible idea, he is better than Markstrom and only 25 and can handle the workload. He does come with some baggage, and when it goes badly for him it goes BADLY. However, in Edmonton he was largely a product of his environment and “Darnell Nurse” and he was mediocre at best for Pittsburgh.
Connor Ingram – He’s a backup and while he did take the starter job from Jarry in Edmonton, he is not a guy that can be relied on for 50+ games. I do like his age and potential and he’d be cheap.
Danil Tarasov – Career backup, and could be a possibility and was signed in Florida – basically the only reason I highlighted him amongst the UFA goalies. Every time Florida signed someone I always perked up, but they also signed Vanacek, so there’s that. If I were to guess, Florida basically ran the numbers and determined they could just find a warm body behind Bob for 15-20 games.
There are also a few non-NHL options and admittedly, I had to rely on the ole internet machine for the two below and the summaries are cut and pasted. But if you want to think outside the box, there are two KHL goalies that are regularly reported as the best in the league:
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1. Timur Bilyalov
Bilyalov is statistically one of the most efficient goaltenders in KHL history. He set the KHL record for the longest modern shutout streak (316 minutes, 9 seconds) and won the league’s Best Goaltender honors. His high-end .927 career SV% comes over a substantial heavy-workload sample size.
2. Daniil Isayev
Isayev has been the league’s top lockdown technical goaltender over recent seasons. He carried Lokomotiv to the Gagarin Cup finals behind an elite postseason where he averaged a tiny 1.65 GAA.
RFA Options
Similarly, it is slim pickings for RFA Goalies, and we are entering offer sheet territory here. As I will get into below, we are very light on legitimate trade assets, and coughing up assets and picks where our biggest need is scoring punch may be ill advised – and as Jared wrote here, offer sheets are fun in theory but rarely ever happen. However, Yegorov and Malek are no guarantees and finding a viable long term solution here could, in turn, make one of them a very valuable trade chip.
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Trade Options
I’m not bringing up Hellebuyck here, even though there was some offhand mentions of him after the Jets brutal season and they are in limbo moving forward. However, I don’t see a world or a mechanism where the Devils can take a run at him. What I did focus on was teams with crowded creases that will likely need to make decisions on their goalie room.
The other consideration here is our limited assets to actually swing multiple trades and I will scream from the rooftops that we need more scoring help first and foremost. Some of these guys might not need major packages, and a good baseline comp is Logan Thompson who was acquired by the Capitals for 2 3rd rounders from Vegas.
Anthony Stolarz – Stolarz is a popular name around the Devils fanbase, probably heavily influenced by sentimentality as he is NJ born and bred. He is an excellent goalie, but he has a hard time staying healthy and hasn’t made it through a full season – he has had 2 knee surgeries, a brutal concussion, a scary incident after taking a puck to the throat, and a groin injury this past season. He has a 4-year, $3.75MM extension kicking in next season and with Woll and Hildeby signed through 27-28, he is the guy that should fall out as Toronto retools. I would definitely take the risk knowing we have Daws and Malek as call-ups.
Alex Lyon – Lyon has 1 more year at $1.5MM and has shown time and again that he can rise to the occasion. He was the main reason Florida even got into the playoffs 2 seasons ago, and he took over for Lukkonen as the primary starter this season (although he lost the crease in the playoffs). With UPL signed long term, Ellis and Levi waiting in the wings, I can see a world where Lyon is the guy who falls out of the mix. He’s also a bit of a psycho which I enjoy.
Filip Gustavsson – Is Minnesota going to trade out a goalie? Rumors were abound that they have floated Wallstead in multiple trade offers, but he wound up taking over the net in the playoffs, so does that leave the Gus Bus on the outs? He has a 4-year $6.8MM extension that kicks in next season, so making this work would be difficult. Do they want to give the keys to Wallstead, and could we actually give Minnesota our own Swedish Goalie veteran mentor in return with a pick or two?
Sebastian Cossa – Cossa has been recently rumored as available according to several insiders, as the “Yzerplan” is going about as well as the “Fitzplan.” They already have Gibson signed as the starter and I have read that they see Augustine as the better prospect. I would absolutely take a look at him if he is really available. He has done nothing but win and stop pucks:
Devin Cooley – For some reason Cooley doesn’t have a JFresh Card, but he is a rising star in this league, put up a .909 sv pct for an atrocious Calgary team and is currently carrying USA’s D team to the knockout stage at Worlds (.930 sv pct). He has 1 more year at $1.5MM and with Dustin Wolf having 4 more years at $7.5MM, and Calgary in full tear down mode, I can see him getting an opportunity elsewhere.
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So, After All That
The goalie market isn’t great from a UFA and RFA perspective, but there are some intriguing trade options. The question then becomes, do we have enough assets to bring in more scoring help AND a goalie upgrade? If Sunny can pull off a Logan Thompson style robbery, I’m all for it but once we get into the 12th overall/Nemec/Mercer territory, I think I more inclined to stand pat for one more year and offload Markstrom after this upcoming season.
One thing I will also point out is the analytics community views goaltending as a means to an end, and not the lynchpin of a team – the best example of this is Carolina. I alluded to it above when talking about environment, there is a major correlation between how good the team in front of a goalie is, and the results that goalie sees with few outlier exceptions. So maybe just play better defense? Get Keefe on the phone, I cracked the code.
How about you, gang? Do we NEED to get out of Markstrom and find anyone else in your opinion? Do any of the above options intrigue you? Anyone on team “play better and our current guys will be fine”? Or are there any other goalies that are on your radar that I missed?
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Let me know in the comments!
LGD
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