Goalie situation, summer 2022

[Bleedred]

I'm pretty worried Kuemper suffered a life/career altering eye injury at the moment given the rumors he took himself out of the game due to blurry vision, that would make Husso/Campbell basically the only feasible UFA targets that you can be reasonably comfortable with a starter's share of games.

I know smart teams stay cool and what not, but the goalie market might be like something we haven't seen in years, with a ton of open chairs and not nearly enough guys with track records to fill them.

I don't like Kuemper anyway. I think he's probably at the end of his peak, eye injury aside. He may have one more good year and maybe even two more, but I wouldn't count on him being healthy if he is good.

Kuemper is just one of the most random goalies to be one of the best in the league over the last handful of years. First part of his career sucked and he was a JAG backup in Minnesota that could never cut it as their starter. He goes to LA to be their backup and has what looked like a career (and outlier) year, but then he has a really dominant (but sometimes injury plagued) stretch of years on a bad team in Arizona. LA actually got Wedgewood back in the trade for Kuemper, but sent him straight to the AHL.

He kind of reminds me of Holtby in reverse, only Holtby was better/more dominant in his good years. He started to become good around the same age Holtby started to become not good.

 

[My3Sons]

If he sucks this year then he needs to go at the conclusion of the year.

We'd be f***in stupid idiots to re-sign him after 3 bad years in a row, as his contract is up.

I don't even know what his qualifying offer will be after this year, but I'm pretty sure it's like $3 million or something close. Someone can clarify that for me.

He's not even been worth a million a year these last two years. There's no way we'd pay him a raise from this contract or even the same amount if he has one more bad year.

What happens if he gets healthy and plays 50 games next year at a .915-918 pace? Sure, that's not going to happen, but if it did you'd have to keep an open mind. It's not worth getting worked up over his eventual disposition now. I think the chances he's on the roster in the fall are about 98% so hopefully he has a bounce back year and then NJ can see about a trade if there are any hard feelings left.

 

[Bleedred]

What happens if he gets healthy and plays 50 games next year at a .915-918 pace? Sure, that's not going to happen, but if it did you'd have to keep an open mind. It's not worth getting worked up over his eventual disposition now. I think the chances he's on the roster in the fall are about 98% so hopefully he has a bounce back year and then NJ can see about a trade if there are any hard feelings left.

If he has a .915%-.918% year I would take my chances on a bridge deal and at about the same AAV as he got on this deal and no more. 2 years at $6 million maybe.

It gets tricky though, as he's UFA eligible the year after.

It wouldn't surprise me if he's another Keith Kinkaid that's out of the league by 30. That's still 5 more years for him, but the NHL LOVES to recycle goalies and it takes a long time for a reputation to die.

Korpisalo hasn't had a good season in 7 years and he keeps getting deals. I know it's from the same team though. That was Korpisalo's only good season and he was a rookie and then he had one average season in his 7 year career in the NHL. I'm pretty sure he's been an .897% for 3 of the last 4 years or maybe even 4 of the last 5 at this point. Martin Jones should have seen enough in the NHL after the Sharks bought him out, but the Flyers were very quick to give him a one year deal for the NHL.

That's why I think Cory Schneider made a mistake jumping immediately to Lou a few days into free agency of 2020. He might have gotten much more playing time in the NHL on another team in these last two years.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

I don't like Kuemper anyway. I think he's probably at the end of his peak, eye injury aside. He may have one more good year and maybe even two more, but I wouldn't count on him being healthy if he is good.

Kuemper is just one of the most random goalies to be one of the best in the league over the last handful of years. First part of his career sucked and he was a JAG backup in Minnesota that could never cut it as their starter. He goes to LA to be their backup and has what looked like a career (and outlier) year, but then he has a really dominant (but sometimes injury plagued) stretch of years on a bad team in Arizona. LA actually got Wedgewood back in the trade for Kuemper, but sent him straight to the AHL.

He kind of reminds me of Holtby in reverse, only Holtby was better/more dominant in his good years. He started to become good around the same age Holtby started to become not good.

Yeah but you don't like any goalies .

 

[Bleedred]

Yeah but you don't like any goalies .

It's hard to believe he's 32 already, but that's how old he is.

And I think the reason it's hard to believe that is because he spent parts of 5 years toiling in mediocre play in Minnesota.

 

[HugeInTheShire]

Blackwood WAS a 1b. It remains to be seen if he can be one again, but he certainly has not a god damn thing in the last 2 years that would even be considered a legit NHL backup goalie.

The most benefit of the doubt you give him is calling him a backup and that's it.

I would say a legit starter is what we need.

I hope he can be more than a backup but I'm not convinced he can either, I also don't see any legit staring goalies available right now, just buy at Blackwood's level or slightly ahead of him.

Guys like Campbell and Husso haven't really shown much more and I'd be very hesitant to hand them 4 or 5 million a season.

No idea what the fix is though, I was sure hoping it was Blackwood, but it doesn't look likely any more

 

[ninetyeight]

If he sucks this year then he needs to go at the conclusion of the year.

We'd be f***in stupid idiots to re-sign him after 3 bad years in a row, as his contract is up.

I don't even know what his qualifying offer will be after this year, but I'm pretty sure it's like $3 million or something close. Someone can clarify that for me.

That's fair, yeah I think his QO is 2.8M. What would be even worse is that he somehow has a career year and then goes back to this season form after we've extended him to a 5M+ deal.

 

[Peter Sidorkiewicz]

The unsexy move would be either Samsonov or Vanecek for a 2nd.

Are they better than Blackwood at his peak? Probably not. But they are young so injury risk is less and are competent backups at worst.

In Vanecek's case, he has shown he can share no.1 duties and put up respectable numbers. Samsonov has better potential but is frustrating inconsistent. He was better in the playoffs than Vanecek.

Either one of them is probably my 3rd choice if we can't swing a deal for Lehner or Ullmark. Ullmark has a NMC.

I was looking at Adin Hill as well but decided that NJ shouldn't trade for a goalie coming off an injury that is still rehabbing in offseason.

 

[Bleedred]

The unsexy move would be either Samsonov or Vanecek for a 2nd.

Are they better than Blackwood at his peak? Probably not. But they are young so injury risk is less and are competent backups at worst.

In Vanecek's case, he has shown he can share no.1 duties and put up respectable numbers. Samsonov has better potential but is frustrating inconsistent. He was better in the playoffs than Vanecek.

Either one of them is probably my 3rd choice if we can't swing a deal for Lehner or Ullmark. Ullmark has a NMC.

I was looking at Adin Hill as well but decided that NJ shouldn't trade for a goalie coming off an injury that is still rehabbing in offseason.

Samsonov sucks.

He hasn't even shown as much potential in the NHL as Blackwood has.

His only good season in the NHL was the season that he had to sit backseat to placate Holtby when they already kind of knew they weren't gonna re-sign him anyway.

Blackwood-Samsonov sounds like one of the sturdiest tanks you can build.

At the very least, I think a Blackwood for Samsonov trade would be acceptable, but we'd still have to find our starter because Samsonov has gotten worse every year.

I'd probably rather keep Blackwood than trade him for Samsonov, but it's certainly from our perspective a fair trade with two 25 year old goalies that need a change of scenery.

I suspect Washington's comment about acquiring a veteran goalie the offseason did not have Blackwood on the radar.

 

[Guadana]

There is a rumor that Florida shoping Bobr with 50% retain. I can't understand why he will agree for transfer, because of Florida taxes and he has house in Miami, but if the deal is real, I'm in, if we are not trading best assets.

If Florida will put him on waivers, will it burn his nmc, if no one will claim him?

 

[hidek91]

There is a rumor that Florida shoping Bobr with 50% retain. I can't understand why he will agree for transfer, because of Florida taxes and he has house in Miami, but if the deal is real, I'm in, if we are not trading best assets.

If Florida will put him on waivers, will it burn his nmc, if no one will claim him?

No, because of NMC he can't be sent down to AHL or moved to the other team so I don't even know if he can be waived at all.

 

[markog]

There is a rumor that Florida shoping Bobr with 50% retain. I can't understand why he will agree for transfer, because of Florida taxes and he has house in Miami, but if the deal is real, I'm in, if we are not trading best assets.

If Florida will put him on waivers, will it burn his nmc, if no one will claim him?

He has 12m salary with 6m bonus this year and 10m with 5m bonus next year - nobody will take that. Maybe Toronto if they're desperate.

 

[Maine Fan]

I would like to see if we could keep all Devils goalie discussion here for this off-season. Good points have been made about going with Blackwood and someone else, the idea being you don't need a great goalie to win. Also, it isn't easy to find good goalies if there are any.

My problem is I am done with waiting for the Devils to be a playoff contender, not Cup but playoff. Sure we need wings now, and we also have spots to fill in the defense. I am uncomfortable giving Blackwood another year. I don't trust that he is a starting goalie.

 

[TBF1972]

I would like to see if we could keep all Devils goalie discussion here for this off-season. Good points have been made about going with Blackwood and someone else, the idea being you don't need a great goalie to win. Also, it isn't easy to find good goalies if there are any.

My problem is I am done with waiting for the Devils to be a playoff contender, not Cup but playoff. Sure we need wings now, and we also have spots to fill in the defense. I am uncomfortable giving Blackwood another year. I don't trust that he is a starting goalie.

Blackwood can be part of the solution, but you can't insulate him. If the workload piles up, he can't stay healthy and if he plays through pain, he breaks. That's what we can learn from the past four seasons.

Coaches, who play a rookie goaltender like Daws more than once in back to backs in a relative short time, also don't help. Not trusting a backup is human, but not very clever. But destroying the starter with an unhealthy workload, is stupid. You end up with goalie, you don't trust in the first place, without an alternative.

 

[Team Concept]

I would be willing to roll with Blackwood this season. He has one year left on his contract. It should motivate him to more than double his salary somewhere in the 5.0-6.0 range if he posts average leaguewide stats.

I only wish we knew his physical condition at the moment. Is he 100% ready to go?

The only way I would mortgage our future is a trade for Spencer Knight as the Panthers have Bobrovsky at 10 million per season locked up through 25-26. No team should be willing to help Florida out of that mess as they let the promising Knight rot on the bench. He went 10-3-1 .921 2.23 after the all-star break.

 

[My3Sons]

I would be willing to roll with Blackwood this season. He has one year left on his contract. It should motivate him to more than double his salary somewhere in the 5.0-6.0 range if he posts average leaguewide stats.

I only wish we knew his physical condition at the moment. Is he 100% ready to go?

The only way I would mortgage our future is a trade for Spencer Knight as the Panthers have Bobrovsky at 10 million per season locked up through 25-26. No team should be willing to help Florida out of that mess as they let the promising Knight rot on the bench. He went 10-3-1 .921 2.23 after the all-star break.

Hard to see FLA move Knight at this point. Based on the reports, they want to get rid of the Bob contract. I'm skeptical they can overcome his trade/movement protection and they likely resort to playing him less to make him want to leave so I expect Knight to start playing this season.

 

[TBF1972]

I would be willing to roll with Blackwood this season. He has one year left on his contract. It should motivate him to more than double his salary somewhere in the 5.0-6.0 range if he posts average leaguewide stats.

I only wish we knew his physical condition at the moment. Is he 100% ready to go?

The only way I would mortgage our future is a trade for Spencer Knight as the Panthers have Bobrovsky at 10 million per season locked up through 25-26. No team should be willing to help Florida out of that mess as they let the promising Knight rot on the bench. He went 10-3-1 .921 2.23 after the all-star break.

the devils should try to get a 1b or above average back up in the off season. i don't trust bernier to be healthy enough and we shouldn't rely on the young ahl goaltenders for larger stretches.

but most of all i don't want to ever see again jon gillies except when we play the rangers. he is allowed to be their starter.

 

[Bleedred]

I would be willing to roll with Blackwood this season. He has one year left on his contract. It should motivate him to more than double his salary somewhere in the 5.0-6.0 range if he posts average leaguewide stats.

I only wish we knew his physical condition at the moment. Is he 100% ready to go?

The only way I would mortgage our future is a trade for Spencer Knight as the Panthers have Bobrovsky at 10 million per season locked up through 25-26. No team should be willing to help Florida out of that mess as they let the promising Knight rot on the bench. He went 10-3-1 .921 2.23 after the all-star break.

Wait a minute, if he has just an average stats season then his next contract will be $5 million-$6 million a year?

Yeah, I already don't want him here in that case beyond this coming year. We'd be f***ed paying him that much after the last two horrible seasons.

I think if he has just an average season he shouldn't even get a raise from this contract. That's still not enough to cancel out the last two years of horrible, rickety, unplayable slop.

Now, if he has a REALLY GOOD season, I could see giving him a raise, but certainly not $5-$6 million a year.

Goalies with Blackwood's resume (that's even assuming he'll have a GREAT season) do not get paid $5-$6 million.

Ottawa made a HUGE mistake giving Matt Murray $6 million a year after just one really horrible season in Pittsburgh, but we all know that he's overrated because he won those back to back cups as a ''Rookie'' and he's the only goalie in the history of the league to win two cups as a rookie. What a dumb statement that was in any kind of serious context lol. ''Won a cup in both rookie years'' Gimme a break.

I don't even know if a Vezina win could DOUBLE his current salary. Like, maybe if he had the season Igor Shesterkin just had?

Blackwood on a $5-$6 million a year deal starting in 23-24 with any kind of term to it would probably be enough to get someone fired VERY quickly if he didn't repeat whatever he did in 22-23 to get that much money.

 

[TBF1972]

@Bleedred: i hope you laughed about the rangers part. the rest of my post was dead serious.

 

[Bleedred]

@Bleedred: i hope you laughed about the rangers part. the rest of my post was dead serious.

Definitely the Rangers part lol.

Honestly, I'd rather see Gillies play in the NHL next year (not for us) than Louis Domingue after that HORRIBLE Rangers playoff series where he had to play for Pittsburgh.

I don't even want to see Domingue get the satisfaction of seeing another NHL payday after that shit.

Spicy ramen it is!

 

[Team Concept]

Wait a minute, if he has just an average stats season then his next contract will be $5 million-$6 million a year?

Yeah, I already don't want him here in that case beyond this coming year. We'd be f***ed paying him that much after the last two horrible seasons.

I think if he has just an average season he shouldn't even get a raise from this contract. That's still not enough to cancel out the last two years of horrible, rickety, unplayable slop.

Now, if he has a REALLY GOOD season, I could see giving him a raise, but certainly not $5-$6 million a year.

Goalies with Blackwood's resume (that's even assuming he'll have a GREAT season) do not get paid $5-$6 million.

Ottawa made a HUGE mistake giving Matt Murray $6 million a year after just one really horrible season in Pittsburgh, but we all know that he's overrated because he won those back to back cups as a ''Rookie'' and he's the only goalie in the history of the league to win two cups as a rookie. What a dumb statement that was in any kind of serious context lol. ''Won a cup in both rookie years'' Gimme a break.

I don't even know if a Vezina win could DOUBLE his current salary. Like, maybe if he had the season Igor Shesterkin just had?

Blackwood on a $5-$6 million a year deal starting in 23-24 with any kind of term to it would probably be enough to get someone fired VERY quickly if he didn't repeat whatever he did in 22-23 to get that much money.

Your right. I did some investigative work and that would be a massive raise. Jusse Saros went from a 1.5 million contract to 5.0, but he was coming off a top 10 Vezina season and he has been pretty consistent over the years.

 

[Maine Fan]

the devils should try to get a 1b or above average back up in the off season. i don't trust bernier to be healthy enough and we shouldn't rely on the young ahl goaltenders for larger stretches.

but most of all i don't want to ever see again jon gillies except when we play the rangers. he is allowed to be their starter.

I don't trust Blackwood, I have said that before. Yeah, Bernier, is a problem and he has a year in contract.

 

[Devil made me do it]

How about trading Holtz and Smith for Knight? Throw in even Blackwood. I'd be down with that.

 

[Bleedred]

How about trading Holtz and Smith for Knight? Throw in even Blackwood. I'd be down with that.

I know I'm about to probably get some trash, a couple hot dogs and maybe even a beer or two hurled at me for what I'm about to say, but I am skeptical Spencer Knight will play well here (or anywhere) while playing 50-60 games in a season. And are we gonna go throw that much to get him here to play 30-40 games with god knows who backing him up?

For some of last year (and I know I'm cherry picking and split snooping which is something I get on everybody else for) Spencer Knight was really not doing much better than Nico Daws (who's actually just a few months older?) was at the NHL level. I mean, for A LOT of last year it looked like Knight really should have been in the AHL and that he wasn't quite ready for the NHL yet.

As has been pointed out, he had a VERY strong run in the last I wanna say two months of the season? And that pushed him up by season's end. And as we all know, Nico Daws (who was not anywhere near NHL ready but DUHHHH!!!!!) trended in the other direction when it was clear that Nico Daws was not only not (yet) NHL caliber, but not even ready for any more spot duty.

Knight ended the season with a .908% save percentage and a goals saved against league average of +0.5. .907% was the league average last year. So by the end of the year he was just breaking even over 32 games played.

Don't @ me in a year from now if Spencer Knight goes on a HUGE tear, takes the starting spot from an aging Bobrovsky in Florida and takes them on a deep playoff run and even potentially a cup win. Because I wouldn't be at all surprised by that happening either. But what I'm just saying is that Knight as it currently stands has really not proven at the NHL level to be worth that kind of haul or proven enough that he's now ready to be a starting goalie at 21 years old. Even if he played GREAT, I gotta think he'd hit some kind of a wall. And Ruff likes to run goalies into the ground, so he's either gonna get whipped like a dying race horse or potentially the old pole starts standing again for Blackwood and he winds up playing too many games anyway because 21 year old Spencer Knight couldn't handle the 50 game workload in the NHL and then he starts getting punished for the shitty vet in Blackwood. I keep forgetting Blackwood was part of your proposal, but in that case we'd still need a backup because the AHL guys aren't for shit and Bernier is too much of a question to even be healthy enough to rely upon to play anything.

Spencer Knight is a tremendous prospect, but this is a trade we would be doing based more on POTENTIAL and not RIGHT NOW.

Knight would probably do more to help us in 2-3 years from now than he would as soon as this coming season.

 

[Bleedred]

Blackwood can be part of the solution, but you can't insulate him. If the workload piles up, he can't stay healthy and if he plays through pain, he breaks. That's what we can learn from the past four seasons.

Coaches, who play a rookie goaltender like Daws more than once in back to backs in a relative short time, also don't help. Not trusting a backup is human, but not very clever. But destroying the starter with an unhealthy workload, is stupid. You end up with goalie, you don't trust in the first place, without an alternative.

This is where Ruff really comes into question. I'm not saying there aren't at least 20 other head coaches in the NHL doing the same thing, but he don't think nothing of playing a guy 3 in 4 nights or back to backs.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes you NEED to play your starter in a back to back. Especially when the other guy is bombing out, but Ruff was badly reaching with how much Daws (Who was not at all good, but was merely better than the alternatives) was playing, especially in the last 1-2 months of the season. It was only about halfway into his total game log for this year (or maybe even slightly before that) when Daws showed he was in over his head, but in a desperate, cockamamie attempt to save his job (and it WORKED! Or at least it helped) he kept chanting ''MUSH! MUSH! MUSH! MUSH!'' to get Daws across the finish line. The never-ending blowout parades with Gillies and Hammond only kept him in there longer and longer.

Look at how many games he played Blackwood before they SHUT him down? He even publicly stated he played him sick one night because he really wanted to play.

And the sad part was that Gillies didn't even play a bad game before Blackwood got shut down. I mean, he only played 2 games for us before Blackwood got shut down, but they weren't terrible. He allowed 3 goals on 20-something shots in both of them, which were against the Penguins and Islanders. I even called for Gillies to play more before we found out just how brutal he could be, but nope, we had to keep throwing Blackwood out there.

And I think he might have even sat out on the covid protocol lists in one of the early starts Gillies got here.