Our free agency preview continues this week at All About the Jersey, and after taking a look at some of the bigger-ticket items last week, I thought it would be a good idea this week to dig a little deeper and look at some of the goaltenders who are up for new deals.
At the NHL level, there are no goaltenders up for new deals thanks in large part to one of our former GM’s final parting gifts, an ill-advised and poorly timed contract extension for one Jacob Markstrom. Barring some unforeseen transaction (more on that in a bit), the Devils appear slated to enter next season by running it back with the Markstrom and Jake Allen pairing in net.
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The AHL level is a different story though, as the two netminders who primarily saw time with the Comets this past season are due new contracts. Nico Daws and Jakub Malek are both pending RFAs with arbitration rights, and are both likely, at a bare minimum, to be tendered a contract.
Let’s take a look at both goaltenders, see how they’ve performed this past season, and determine whether or not the Devils will indeed bring one or both back.
Nico Daws
If you’re looking for a deep dive profile on Nico Daws. I have good news. I already wrote that when I previewed his RFA two years ago. You can go back and re-read that here if you so desire.
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One of my larger themes in that aforementioned article is that while Daws has potential, I didn’t think it was apparent that the Devils trusted him at the NHL level to the point where they were going to continue to go “big game hunting” and “fix their goaltending” with a more proven option. Shortly after writing that, the Devils indeed made their big acquisition in net when they traded a 1st round pick and Kevin Bahl to the Calgary Flames for the aforementioned Markstrom. Markstrom and Allen have primarily been the NHL tandem for the last two seasons. This has left Daws as the “break glass in case of emergency” organizational third goaltender, a role that he has performed well in in limited action.
With only seven starts (and nine appearances) total at the NHL level the past two seasons, Daws hasn’t played much for the Devils. But when he has played, he has generally looked good. He has a .925 save percentage over those nine games and has saved 5.3 goals above expected. Again, its a very small sample size, but even if he regresses off of that over a larger body of work, Daws certainly looks like a guy who could put up the “average goaltending” that is often wished for around these parts when someone writes the “what if the Devils just had average goaltending” article when the season goes awry.
Daws, who will already be entering his age 26 season, has plenty of experience at the AHL level. His save percentages of .890, .893, and .892 over the last three seasons at Utica don’t exactly jump off the page as someone who has mastered the AHL level, although a lot of that can likely be attributed to Utica mostly being a bad team for much of him time there. Still, with over 150 AHL games (including postseason), I don’t think he has much of anything left to prove at the AHL level. He has plenty of experience. He’s as NHL-ready as he’s ever going to be. The question is whether or not the Devils determine if he is good enough to hold down a role as part of an NHL tandem for a full season, or if he’ll always be a ‘tweener’ AAAA-type who might be too good for the minor leagues but not good enough for the major leagues.
Tom Fitzgerald seemingly decided at some point over the last few years that the answer to that question is no, he’s not good enough. Markstrom and Allen are blocking him at the NHL level, Fitzgerald extended both of them, and this presumably leaves no room for Daws to break through.
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But with that said, Tom Fitzgerald has been wrong before. Tom Fitzgerald never actually did fix the goaltending for the Devils despite his efforts to do so. Tom Fitzgerald is no longer the Devils general manager in large part because he failed to fix the goaltending (as well as other reasons). And with a new GM in Sunny Mehta comes, potentially, a fresh start.
I don’t know how Sunny Mehta will view the goaltending situation that he is inheriting, and he certainly didn’t tip his hand in regards to how he feels about any of the players when he met with the media a few weeks ago. Mehta didn’t draft Daws, nor did he trade for and sign Markstrom or Allen, so he has no preconceived notions or attachments to anyone on the Devils organizational depth chart in net.
What we do know, and what we’ve talked about in the past, is that the Devils salary cap situation is tight. If one is looking at areas where the Devils could stand to shave a few dollars off of payroll, it might be the $6M AAV goaltender who was dreadful last season that the previous regime committed to.
But is there a universe where Mehta looks at the Devils internal options and simply declares that Daws should be playing at the NHL level? Or at the very least, the Devils shouldn’t be willing to toss away Daws for nothing, whether that’s allowing him to sign overseas this summer or losing him on waivers? With two goaltenders in their mid 30s, maybe it makes sense for the Devils to be the rare NHL team that carries three goaltenders. Maybe having a younger goaltender dressing as the backup and giving the other, older goaltender a true day off on game days would make it more likely that Sheldon Keefe or whoever the coach is develops a quick hook if the starter “simply doesn’t have it” on any given night. It would require some forward, outside the box thinking, but if anyone seems capable of that, wouldn’t it be Sunny Mehta?
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The Devils, as an organization, seem to be in a holding pattern while they’re waiting for Mikhail Yegorov to maybe someday be “the guy” in net. That’s fine, but Yegorov will not be an option for the Devils on Opening Night five months from now. They have to find a viable option in net in the meantime. They have to find the best options to win games here and now.
The Devils made their bed with the Markstrom situation, and if they want out of it now before the contract even starts, its complicated as to how they could feasibly make that happen. It’s a mess that Mehta is inheriting. That said, would it be all that surprising if Mehta wanted to move on from a statistically bottom-five, aging goaltender that he didn’t sign in the first place. As annoying and painful as it would be to take on that dead cap charge for a contract that hasn’t even begun yet, it might be what’s best for the Devils in the short-term and long-term.
AFP Analytics is projecting a 1-year, $892,500 contract for Daws, which is a slight raise from his previous AAV of $812,500. If he’s back with the Devils, I could see him agreeing to something close to that. Of course, I say ‘if’ because Daws might be ultimately fed up with his professional career stalling in North America. He might be fed up with Markstrom and Allen blocking him and the Devils not trading him somewhere where he could potentially make the NHL roster. And perhaps when Mehta does his evaluations, he comes to the conclusion that he likes Markstrom more than Daws for whatever reason. Maybe Mehta accepts that he can’t really do anything in net for the time being.
I say all that to say it wouldn’t be surprising to me if Daws said “thanks, but no thanks” when the Devils likely qualify him and he signs somewhere in Europe.
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With the management change in New Jersey though, perhaps this is exactly the clean slate that Daws needs to finally carve out an NHL role with the Devils.
Jakub Malek
It’s hard to believe that it’s already been five years since Jakub Malek was drafted on a Zoom call at the NHL Network studios in Secaucus, but that is indeed the case.
Malek, the Devils 4th round pick in 2021, is well traveled. He played for VHK Vsetin of the Czechia2 league in 2021-22 and three seasons with Ilves of Liiga. The Devils actually signed him to his ELC on May 28th, 2024, but they wound up loaning Malek to Ilves for that aforementioned third season.
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This past season was his first professional season in North America, and while he did get into a couple of games with the Adirondack Thunder, he primarily split the net with Daws at Utica. Malek posted an .895 save percentage over his 31 appearances.
Malek has yet to make his NHL debut, but there’s little reason for the Devils to do anything to move on from him at this point. They still have three more years of organizational control before he’s eligible for UFA (versus two for Daws), and unlike Daws, Malek is still exempt from waivers. Malek should be one half of the Utica goaltending tandem for the upcoming season, and time will tell whether or not he develops into anything more than that.
AFP Analytics doesn’t even have a projection for Malek, but I could see him signing something similar to the two-year deal that Daws just completed. Two years, under $900k, and the second year is one-way where Malek is making the same amount of money regardless where he plays. Granted, Daws had nearly 50 games of NHL experience when he signed his deal versus zero for Malek, so maybe that’s wishful thinking on Malek’s part, but the larger point is that a Malek contract isn’t going to break the bank and the Devils will need someone to play the games at the AHL level.
Final Thoughts
There’s no doubt in my mind that the Devils extend a contract offer to both Daws and Malek. They’re both established AHL goaltenders, at a bare minimum, and there’s little reason for the Devils to go out and pursue a Louie Domingue-type to serve as the organizational third goaltender unless one or both goaltenders decides to return to Europe. I suppose an argument could be crafted that that makes sense for Daws if he doesn’t see a path forward in his NHL career. I don’t think that really makes sense for Malek.
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The only real question when it comes to whether or not the Devils should bring back Nico Daws and Jakub Malek is more of a big picture question on how do the Devils envision their goaltending the next few years. It’s not a question of “should they bring them back” because the answer to that question is yes. But we don’t know how Mehta will view things when it comes to the organizational depth chart.
I do think its worth mentioning that throughout Mehta’s time as an AGM in Florida, the Panthers consistently took a goaltender late in the draft. Devon Levi was a 7th round pick in 2020 who was ultimately flipped to Buffalo in the deal that saw Florida get Sam Reinhart. Kirill Gerasimyuk played in the VHL and MHL for years before coming to North America to play in the AHL. Tyler Muszelik played four years in college before signing an ATO with the Charlotte Checkers. The Panthers have since drafted Olog Glifford, Denis Gabdrakhmanov, and Yegor Midlak in the latter rounds the last three seasons.
I say all that to say if that philosophy sounds familiar, its not much different that the Devils approach to trying to find goaltenders by drafting one just about every season, something they’ve done since Ray Shero was the GM. It’s one of those things that could be something, or it could be nothing, but I don’t anticipate the Devils deviating from that approach. The main difference would be Mehta signing off on whoever the Devils are indeed picking going forward.
Even with all of that said though, the Devils still need guys who are capable at the NHL level of stepping in and playing at a moment’s notice. So while Daws and Malek might not necessarily be Mehta’s “guys”, there is reason to keep them around for the time being.
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