Should New Jersey Devils Trust Jonathan Bernier Next Season?

The New Jersey Devils goaltending situation got worse on Tuesday when Mackenzie Blackwood was placed on injured reserve. He’s been dealing with a heel injury all season, and it’s clearly been impacting his play. The Devils likely felt they had no choice but to keep playing Blackwood in an attempt to save their season. In reality, losing 10 of 11 games was the end of the Devils season in the middle of December. There was no coming back in a ridiculous Eastern Conference.

The reason that Blackwood had to play so often despite playing on a bum heel was the Devils big goalie acquisition from the offseason was on the injured list. Jonathan Bernier tried himself to play through a hip injury, but he was shut down and had surgery that ended his season. Now, the Devils will likely go into next season with two question marks. Bernier is going to try to work his way back, and he has $4 million reasons to do it.

Should the Devils go into next season with a newly healed Bernier and Blackwood in net? We’ll tell you what, only the most optimistic Devils fans will have hope if that’s the case. We personally think that Blackwood has a good chance to rebound after some terrible injury and sickness luck, but we’ve dealt with hip injuries before.

Cory Schneider kept Devils fans and to be completely honest Devils brass on the hook for a few seasons as he tried to continuously come back from a bad hip. It eventually ended his career as a regular NHL player. Could Bernier look at the same thing?

Goalies and hip injuries go together like peanut butter and Spam. Goalies use so much range of motion, that hip injuries at the joint are common. However, that hasn’t stopped them from really bringing down the level of play from the players at the position. We hear a lot about younger goalies who had hip surgery and returned to new strength. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen had hip surgery in 2019. Thatcher Demko had it back in 2015. They were both in their early 20s. Bernier is 33 years old.

As someone who is also 33 years old, things just aren’t the same. No, I’m not a professional athlete, but things don’t heal the same. There is evidence that things just get harder to recover from as athletes age. Since a goalie’s career ends between 35 and 40 years old, Bernier is way closer to the end than the beginning. There is no telling how his hip will react to the hip surgery.

The options for the Devils are pretty bleak. Can they really afford to buy out another goalie as they still have to pay $2 million to Schneider every year? It’s actually not a terrible buyout. The Devils would save $3.1 million next season and then only have to pay $1.55 million in 2023-24. That is actually an intriguing option, but the Devils would have to see if Bernier was even healthy enough for this option.

A healthy Bernier would have been great for the Devils, but it wasn’t in the cards. Without the buyout, the Devils have roughly $24 million in space, but that will be much closer to $15 when they sign Jesper Bratt. How important is the space to the Devils, and do they think it makes sense to invest in their third goalie in as many years? It’s definitely a question.

The Devils backup goalie position has ruined them for years now. If they have any question marks about Bernier, they need to have at least a very solid backup plan. If it’s Nico Daws or Akira Schmid, it might be another rough season. That’s how important this position is with Blackwood looking to bounce back.