The Devils’ waiver claim of Remi Poirier looked like a smart bit of business when it happened right before the season. Since then, though, it’s turned into a strange holding pattern.
Poirier hasn’t gotten real practice time with New Jersey, and he hasn’t played a game for them either. Even when the Devils needed help early on because Nico Daws and Jake Allen were not good to start the season, the door never really opened. Poirier, who comes with a strong track record after the way he’s played with the Texas Stars over the past two seasons, has mostly been left waiting.
Now the situation is even murkier. Poirier is back in Dallas, and the Devils’ trade for Connor Hellebuyck changed the picture completely.
Daws was moved in that deal, but Hellebuyck is the kind of goalie who is going to absorb most of the starts, with Allen handling the rest. Short of an injury, there doesn’t appear to be any route to playing time for Poirier.
He dressed for the Devils’ previous game against the Los Angeles Kings, but he never got into the action. And according to Nicholas Kingman of 100 Degree Hockey, Poirier said he still hasn’t been practicing much. Kingman described one skate as an optional, light conditioning session in which Poirier faced a couple of shots from a single shooter.
Poirier told Kingman that it’s “been hard to be part of stuff.” He also seems to be wondering why New Jersey claimed him in the first place.
The logic of carrying depth makes sense on paper, but a goalie needs repetition, and that doesn’t just mean game appearances. Practice work matters, too, especially if the Devils are trying to have someone ready in a hurry.
This is the kind of insurance that only works if you can actually use it.
That’s the point of claiming a goalie and stashing him for emergencies. If the premium is worth paying, the coverage should be there when the moment comes.
And goalies can go down in a flash. A tweak in warmups, a skate to the pad in a scramble, and suddenly the next man up is needed in a hurry.
Poirier made it clear he’s a “field guy,” someone who does his best work facing live shooters and reading real plays, not just going through drills and having a coach direct traffic. That matters even more when you consider his workload last season: 52 games for Texas, one of the heavier AHL assignments around.
He went from that rhythm to waiting around in a track jacket, adjusting to new teammates and new names almost overnight. By his own account, he packed only the basics because everything happened so fast at the end of preseason.
The simplest fix would be obvious: get him into practices. Hellebuyck missed the preseason and most of the first month of the season, but he doesn’t need much runway to get ready, and the same goes for Allen.
There’s value in facing the best in practice, sure, but Poirier isn’t just a warm body. He’s a real goalie, and the Devils need to make the situation make sense.
In Other News...
Connor Hellebuyck Just Exposed What Rivals Still Think Of Devils Fans
Connor Hellebuycks move to New Jersey has already stirred up more than the usual trade chatter, because the goalie arrived after a contentious exit from Winnipeg and into a market that still seems to draw outside assumptions about its fanbase. The Devils paid a real price to bring him in, with multiple players and draft picks changing hands, so the attention on the deal has been about more than just the roster fit. It has also reopened the familiar debate over how rivals view Devils supporters, especially when the conversation starts drifting north into Canada.
For New Jersey, the reaction matters because it speaks to the bigger picture around the teams place in the league. The piece gets at how Hellebuycks arrival has been received in both markets, and why the response says as much about lingering misconceptions as it does about the trade itself. Even now, the part of the story that feels most revealing is not what happened on the ice, but what his move seems to have exposed about the way some people still talk about Devils fans. [Read more 🡒]
Former Devils Forward Is Already Proving New Jersey Right
When the Devils passed on extending Paul Cotter a qualifying offer, it looked like a clean roster decision and nothing more. He left as an unrestricted free agent, landed with the Vancouver Canucks, and got off to a strong start in his new home before the season began to tilt the other way. In New Jersey, the front office moved on quickly, reshaping that spot in the lineup with Jesper Boqvist and Amadeus Lombardi.
Now Cotters early surge in Vancouver has given way to a tougher stretch, one that has even landed him in healthy-scratch territory. For the Devils, it is at least a reminder that the bet they made on their own depth chart is holding up so far, even without the player who once seemed like a straightforward part of the forward mix. [Read more 🡒]
Former Red Wings Prospect Is Making Detroit's Trade Look Risky
Amadeus Lombardis arrival gave the Devils another intriguing young piece to watch after a busy offseason that saw the club reshuffle its forward depth and add more scoring options. Picked up from the Red Wings, the former Detroit prospect wasted little time getting his first taste of the NHL with New Jersey, making his debut in the 2026-27 season opener and then following it up with his first points shortly after.
For a Devils team that has leaned into movement and flexibility around its roster, Lombardis early progress is the kind of development that can make an acquisition feel especially useful. He did spend a brief stretch as a healthy scratch before getting back into the lineup, and that up-and-down start is part of the early evaluation here, with Detroits side of the trade now looking more complicated as he begins to settle in. [Read more 🡒]