With the news that Scott Wedgewood would need to go through waivers to return to Albany, the New Jersey Devils now have to make a difficult choice and risk losing one of their goaltenders.
For those who may not have heard, it was recently learned that Scott Wedgewood would need to go through waivers in order to return to Albany this season. Normally, this would not be a problem, but now it puts the New Jersey Devils in the position of having to choose which player will backup Cory Schneider and whoever has to return to Albany can potentially be picked up off waivers. Both goaltenders have limited experience in the NHL, with Wedgewood making his NHL debut this past season and putting up impressive numbers, but both have proven they can be very capable backups to Schneider. This raises a key question: What should the Devils do?
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In a perfect world, the Devils keep one and trade the other and possibly get a return. However, it is no easy task especially if other teams know that there’s a good chance that the player will be waived anyway. Because of this it is safe to assume that one of the two will be on the waiver wire in the coming weeks leading up to the regular season. Which one though? Let’s take a look at some statistics.
Starting with Keith Kinkaid, going back to the 2012-2013 season when he made his debut, Kinkaid has managed to put up a decent .909 save percentage along with a 2.71 GAA. While these numbers aren’t terrible per say, they aren’t anything to feel too confident about. This past season while Cory Schneider was injured, Kinkaid had his opportunity to make an impact and only managed to win 9 of his 20 starts last season. While it’s true that the Devils as a whole weren’t exactly going through their best patch of the season, he needed to play better if he wanted to secure himself a spot on this team in the future. Interestingly enough though, and this might mean nothing, he has been a big part of the Devils social media over the summer in terms of getting fans involved and generating buzz. He even had a pad contest that allowed fans to design his pads for the upcoming season. While this could very well mean nothing, why would the organization allow for this to happen if they knew there was a good chance he would be waived in September?
That aside, let’s move onto the other goaltender Scott Wedgewood. Wedgewood made a big splash last season coming in when Cory Schneider got hurt and he played extremely well right from the get-go. In his 4 games for the big club, he managed a very impressive .957 save percentage and 1.24 GAA. Obviously the sample size is very small, but the numbers are absurd especially for rookie coming into his first few NHL games. Even outside of the NHL, Wedgewood had a phenomenal year in Albany last season leading them to the second round of the AHL playoffs when the A-Devils were eliminated by the Toronto Marlies. His numbers in the playoffs dwindled a little bit but during the regular season he had a .933 save percentage and a 1.55 GAA in 22 games played. Wedgewood’s recent rise in play does make this decision a lot more complicated because at age 24, he could end up having a lot more value than already 27 years old Keith Kinkaid.
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What choice is the right choice? In my honest opinion I believe that Wedgewood would be the better choice down the road. Kinkaid has more NHL experience but he has proven on many occasions that he does not have what it takes to be a good NHL goaltender. At 27, there isn’t as much room for him to grow and he will likely never be more than just a mediocre backup. Wedgewood on the other hand has time on his side and he does seem to be the more skilled of the two. The few games we have seen him in he looked calm and composed, providing much-needed stability in the absence of Schneider. With that said, I think that Kinkaid is going to be the backup for the upcoming season. I do think that NHL GM’s value experience very highly and Kinkaid is already acclimated with playing in the big league whereas Wedgewood may not be.
Whichever choice is made, it is always possible that the player that ends up being waived clears waivers there is no problem. But, there is always a chance that the Devils could end up losing a solid goaltender for nothing and that’s never a good thing. With all of this said, preseason is in full swing and Devils hockey is back.
Boy is it good to have Devils hockey back.