Devils rolling some dangerous dice with their goalie situation

New Jersey Devils GM Sunny Metha deserves a ton of credit for moving Jacob Markstrom when he did. He got three decent pieces while dumping all of Markstrom’s $6 million cap hit on the Florida Panthers.

That said, the move left a significant question mark: Will the Devils target another goaltender?

The answer to that question seems to have been answered on Thursday. It seems the Mehta is fine with rolling with a tandem of Jake Allen and Nico Daws if that's what it comes down to.

"We know what Jake (Allen) can bring. ... I'm pretty excited about the opportunity in front of Nico (Daws) because he hasn't really been given that sort of runway and that path," Mehta said during a virtual press conference on Thursday.

Okay, so we know that Mehta is a pro poker player. Is this his way of bluffing? Is he trying to tell the league that he doesn’t care about getting another goalie? Most importantly, is Mehta playing it cool so no one else will try to fleece him?

Those are all plausible explanations. Mehta knows that any inkling of desperation on his end could lead another organization to try and take him to the cleaners. Plus, there aren’t many options out there in free agency.

So, if Mehta really wants another goalie, he’ll have to turn to the trade market. And that’s where things could get iffy.

Trade market doesn’t offer much hope for Devils

The trade market for goalies doesn’t offer a ton this summer. The Toronto Maple Leafs, for instance, had a bit of a glut. They’ve since shed three goalies thus far. The Buffalo Sabres moved Devon Levi, while the Boston Bruins jettisoned Joonas Korpisalo to the Rangers.

Aside from Connor Hellebuyck, there doesn’t appear to be any other number-one goalie on the market. There was one rumor about the LA Kings looking to move Darcy Kuemper. Perhaps that’s something the Devils might look into at some point.

Beyond that, the NHL is goalie-starved at the moment. The league has a bit of a crisis of high-end netminders. Unless there’s a deal brewing somewhere, say, taking a flyer on Vancouver’s Thatcher Demko, there might not be much on the radar.

Ultimately, it makes sense that Mehta would roll the dice with an Allens-Daws tandem. What other choice does he have? It’s either going with a solid goalie like Allen and a bit of an unproven backup like Daws, or overpaying for a guy like Demko.

Perhaps Mehta hopes that Jake Allen can turn into something like what Scott Wedgewood became in Colorado.

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