On Tuesday night, Jacob Markstrom played his 538th game in the National Hockey League. He has been the starting goalie for four different franchises, and he came to the New Jersey Devils to solidify their position. As he returned from injury against the Colorado Avalanche, he did something he’s never done in his career.
Markstrom allowed eight goals to the Colorado Avalanche. Don’t get us wrong, they played a really good game on Tuesday, but they didn’t do enough to score eight goals.
The Devils did take six penalties, but the first penalty was at the hands of Markstrom. With no reason to rush and just seconds into the game, he sent the puck into the stands for a delay of game penalty. The Avalanche scored on the ensuing power play, and the race was on.
The Avs eventually went out to a 5-0 lead, but the Devils roared back. They scored four goals in a little over four minutes. The Devils punched the Avalanche back, and they had all the momentum.
Then, Timo Meier ran into Nathan MacKinnon, and it was back to the penalty kill. Markstrom allowed another pretty simple goal off the rip by MacKinnon.
We don’t need to go through each and every goal by the Avalanche. There were eight of them. Let’s look deeper into the numbers.
The Devils defense, who was playing without Brett Pesce for the first time, gave up 3.9 xG (expected goals). So, to put it in laments terms, Markstrom was supposed to stop at least four of the goals he gave up. A 3.9 xG is not good, but it was so much worse than the final score.
Is there a reason to be concerned for Jacob Markstrom?
It’s still very early in the season, but we haven’t seen a good Markstrom performance yet. The Devils were outplayed to open the season against Carolina, but Markstrom didn’t help. Then, against Tampa, the Devils tried to give him as little work as possible, but Markstrom still gave up three goals.
Our main concern is what Markstrom looked like in the 2022-23 season. That year, he had -18 goals saved above average. He was one of the worst starting goalies in the league that season. The Devils cannot afford to lose another contention year to bad goaltending.
This is especially true when the Devils have two great goalies already. Nico Daws once again proved he was worthy of his time in the NHL, and Jake Allen has been legitimately one of the best goalies in the league this season. Markstrom has time to work his way into shape, but he needs to do it fast. If the Devils have better options, they need to use them.