The New Jersey Devils made a surprising move right before the season started. They claimed goalie Remi Poirier off waivers from the Dallas Stars. And that was the last time we got a significant update about Poirier’s status with the Devils.
His time with the Devils hasn't even included practice time. And it’s not like there hasn’t been an opportunity. Nico Daws and Jake Allen were not good to start the season. Poirier is a player who has a high pedigree, playing incredibly well with the Texas Stars the past two seasons. And yet, the Devils are letting him just kind of chill.
Poirier is back in Dallas again, and things have gotten even worse for his situation. The Devils just traded for Connor Hellebuyck, one of the best goalies of this era. They did move Daws in the deal, but Hellebuyck is the type of goalie that’s going to take most of the starts. Veteran Allen is going to take the rest. We now have no path, barring an injury, to Poirier getting playing time.
He did dress for the Devils’ previous game against the Los Angeles Kings, but he didn’t see game action. Heck, he’s not even seeing practice action.
Nicholas Kingman of 100 Degree Hockey caught up with Poirier in Dallas, and the guy said he hasn’t been practicing much. The one skate Kingman described was an optional, light conditioning session where Poirier faced a couple of shots from a single shooter.
Poirier told the Stars blogger that it’s “been hard to be part of stuff.” That’s not exactly what the Devils want to hear. It seems Poirier himself is a little confused about the “why” when it comes to why the Devils claimed Poirier. It’s good to have depth, but goalies rely on repetition. Even if it’s not game reps, getting a goalie warmed up with practice time is a useful strategy in case anyone gets hurt.
This is not how you do insurance
Poirier is the insurance policy. That’s the whole reason you grab a goalie off waivers and keep him around. And if you’re paying the premium, you’d probably like the policy to work when you need it.
Goalies get hurt in weird, fast, no-warning ways. A guy tweaks something in warmups. Someone takes a skate to the pad in a crease scramble. Suddenly it’s Tuesday night, there are 17,000 people in the building, and the next man up is a guy who’s seen about as many live pucks this month as we’ve seen from our desk.
Poirier basically handed the Devils the answer. He told Kingman he’s a “field guy,” someone who does his best work on the ice, reading live plays against real shooters, not in drills where a coach tells him where to look.
And remember, this is a guy who played 52 games for the Texas Stars last season, one of the busiest workloads in the AHL. He went from playing nearly every night to standing around in a track jacket. That’s a shock to the system, and he’s doing it with new teammates, new names, and a car still parked in Frisco. By his own account, he packed just the basics, since everything happened so fast at the end of preseason.
Just put the guy in practices. Hellebuyck needs some time to ramp up since he missed the preseason and most of the first month of the season, but he doesn’t need much to get ready. The same goes for Jake Allen. There’s something to be said about the Devils practicing against the best, but Poirier isn’t an EBUG either. He’s a legit guy who deserves to be in the NHL.
The Devils need to make it make sense for the former Star, especially as he watches his former franchise take the ice against what he thinks is his new one.
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