New Jersey Devils fans have bigger things to worry about than Jacob Markstrom’s next chapter.
That’s the simplest way to look at it. The Devils are heading into the season with a goalie setup that’s already unusual, and the whole plan only makes sense if the people in charge are willing to move on from Markstrom entirely.
New Jersey is trying to build a three-man rotation, with Nico Daws back on a two-year deal and David Riitich added to help handle the workload. Daws has shown he can be decent in the NHL, but consistency has been the problem.
Riitich, meanwhile, was basically two different goalies for the New York Islanders last year. If the Devils get the version he showed in the first half of the season, this could at least have a chance.
To get there, new Devils GM Sunny Mehta had to make the hard call and cut ties with Markstrom without any real safety net behind him.
That’s because Markstrom was simply not getting the job done in New Jersey. The Devils sent him to the Florida Panthers for Jesper Boqvist and Evan Rodrigues, and that should have been the end of the story from a Devils perspective. It wasn’t, though, because plenty of people are still looking at Markstrom as a bounce-back candidate.
Devils fans should tune that out.
Even if the Panthers get a revived version of Markstrom and he suddenly looks like a Vezina Trophy contender again, that doesn’t change what happened in New Jersey. He was beyond fixing there. He had stretches where he looked fine, but he kept slipping back into the same frustrating pattern: the goalie who couldn’t make the stop when it mattered.
Nobody in New Jersey needs to spend much time trying to figure out why his play fell off so badly. The more important point is that the Devils reached a point where they could no longer wait around for him to solve it.
Markstrom has been through this before, too. His track record includes some brutally bad seasons, and last year wasn’t even the worst of them.
That came in 2022-23, when he posted a -18.4 goals saved above average. The season before that was his worst, even though it was also the year that turned him into a Vezina-caliber name and changed the conversation around him.
That’s the Markstrom cycle. He can look like one of the league’s best, then follow it with a season that leaves everyone stunned, and somehow the reputation sticks anyway. He’s the kind of goalie who can make you tear your hair out because you know the ceiling is there.
So if Markstrom gives Florida everything it’s hoping for while it tries to replace Sergei Bobrovsky, fine. Good for him. Devils fans only need to care about one thing now: as long as the Panthers don’t knock New Jersey out of a playoff spot, the rest is water under the bridge.
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Simon Nemecs departure has added a different layer to the conversation, even after the recent trade that sent him to the Calgary Flames. In a recent interview, the defenseman said he wants to prove his former team wrong about his potential, which gives the move a little extra edge as New Jersey keeps building around its core. The Devils may feel good about their centers, but the debate over what they gave up and what Nemec becomes elsewhere is likely to linger for a while. [Read more 🡒]
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For Devils fans, McMullens recognition carries a familiar kind of resonance because his influence helped shape where hockey could take root in New Jersey. While Hughes was among the names considered, he was not selected this time, leaving the spotlight on a figure whose connection to the franchise and the state still feels overdue. [Read more 🡒]
Devils Blue-Line Debate Gets Interesting With One Intriguing PTO Option
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For New Jersey, the appeal would be less about splash and more about depth on a blue line that can always use another dependable body. Stanleys underlying numbers are part of the conversation too, since they suggest there may be room for improvement if he gets more ice time, but the real question is whether the Devils see enough upside to make the move worth exploring. That is what keeps this possibility interesting, and unresolved, heading into the next stretch of roster building. [Read more 🡒]