5 New Jersey Devils Players With Biggest Question Marks Heading Into Next Season

Vitek Vanecek

Obviously, the Devils are steeped hard in the goaltender trade market. There were directly tied to Connor Hellebuyck, but that sounds like it’s not going anywhere for now. At this point, the Devils are going into next season with Vitek Vanecek as its starter. And why wouldn’t they? He’s the only goaltender not named Martin Brodeur to win 30 games in a season. He took over for Mackenzie Blackwood pretty quickly, and he has two more years at a very reasonable contract.

Well, the main reason people lost faith in Vanecek was his awful playoff performance. He was literally the second-worst goalie in the playoffs. On any team. According to Natural Stat Trick, only Jake Oettinger had a worse goals saved above average than Vanecek’s -6.43.

It wasn’t just the analytics. Vanecek looked awful in net. He was frantic, lost, and couldn’t make the easy or the hard save. Everything went wrong for him, and the Devils might have been swept in the first round if he stayed in net. He was frankly bailed out by Akira Schmid.

Vanecek has to show that the playoffs were an outlier. To be honest, he won’t be able to prove anything until the playoffs start. His confidence in the postseason has never been great. In his career playoff starts, he has more below .800 save percentages than he has above .900. That needs to change.