The New Jersey Devils have some new-found cap space for a backup goalie.
The New Jersey Devils announced on Saturday that their big free-agent signing Corey Crawford was retiring from the National Hockey League. It doesn’t matter his reasoning behind the retirement, but the Devils do have to deal with it. The Devils have four goalies under contract right now. That’s fine for the first month of the season, but they need to get someone in the building before the AHL season starts.
The best option is probably to either wait for someone to go on waivers or to bring Nico Daws in on a contract (if his OHL season is indeed canceled) and then push either Evan Cormier to the taxi squad or put Gilles Senn as a backup to Mackenzie Blackwood. However, if the Devils are still committed to bringing in a veteran behind Blackwood, there are options. Obviously, Jimmy Howard is still on the free-agent market, but he was so bad last season that Scott Wedgewood might be a better option.
However, before the Devils signed Crawford, there was talk they could go after one of the highly-priced veteran goalies in the trade market. The goalie trade market wasn’t as fruitful as some thought. The only goalies who were traded were Matt Murray from Pittsburgh to Ottawa, Devan Dubnyk from Minnesota to San Jose, and Jake Allen from St. Louis to Montreal. Two of those came with surprising returns (the fact that the Wild and Blues got anything for those goalies is phenomenal).
To be clear, the Devils aren’t giving anything up to get these high-priced trade targets. In fact, if they don’t get a draft pick along with the asset, it might be better to target the waiver market. However, this is just looking at all the options before making a final decision.