Nico Daws has suddenly become a hot take machine among New Jersey Devils fans. If he was great last season, it would have solved the Devils biggest problem and they might be in the playoffs. Yes, it is that simple. However, he was inconsistent coming off a hip injury (that kept him out of action until December), and the Devils clearly felt there were better options (trading for Jake Allen and Kaapo Kahkonen) at the NHL Trade Deadline.
This offseason, the Devils made moves to make the path to the NHL harder for Daws. They traded for Jacob Markstrom, who still has two years left on his deal. They also already have Allen signed for another year. This gives Daws the ability to spend an entire season in AHL, acting as their starter and playing the bulk of the minutes. He’ll split time with Isaac Poulter, who was pretty good last season. He even earned himself an NHL contract.
The Devils also drafted what they think will be the future in net. Not only did they take Mikhail Yegorov with the 49th-overall pick, but they traded defenseman John Marino to the Utah Hockey Club to get said pick (and a second-round pick next season). We heard that executive vice president of hockey operations Martin Brodeur asked Tom Fitzgerald to get him a pick so he can take Yegorov, who many draft evaluators love for his size and ability.
Even with all that said, fans and the organization should not overlook Nico Daws. He’s still shown he has a skill set to play incredibly well in the NHL.
Last season, he had a better than .920 save percentage in a game 10 times. That should have been better since he played 21 games, but it’s truly not awful. If he had two more such games, this season looks completely different for him.
In January, we discussed how well Nico Daws was playing against high-danger chances. He actually led the league (although it was admittedly a small sample size) in the stat according to Natural Stat Trick. Even with the pretty disastrous end to the season, Daws was still 37th in high-danger save percentage, .001 points behind Stanley Cup-winning goalie Sergei Bobrovsky (at 5v5). He actually stopped more high-danger shots per attempt than Igor Shesterkin.
Devils fans should keep faith in goalie prospect Nico Daws.
Meanwhile, Vitek Vanecek had the worst high-danger save percentage of all players with more than 500 minutes played.
Daws has his back against the wall, but we just saw what happens when the Devils give up on a player. They don’t mind finding them another place to play. They just threw Akira Schmid into a deal involving Alexander Holtz to bring in Paul Cotter and a third-round pick. Schmid literally won the Devils a series the year before. We did hear there were contract issues last offseason, but that should be easily fixable for a young player.
Daws is currently under his own contract negotiations, but the Devils just need to decide how to handle his situation going forward. Will they commit to him with a multi-year contract, possibly one that includes a one-way deal later on? Daws will be an NHL goalie. He just needs a normal situation for once. Don’t ask him to save the season. Ask him to play as a backup. Let him rest. Don’t only call him in times of desperation. Call him in times of development.