Daniel Amoia
Just hours after New Jersey Devils GM Sunny Mehta spoke to the media, he got back to work. According to PuckPedia, the team has signed 33-year-old veteran netminder David Rittich to a one-year, one-way contract worth $1,000,000.
Rittich was solid in 30 games for the New York Islanders last season, with a 2.76 GAA and .894 SV%. One of his 14 wins came against New Jersey in December when he stopped 31 of 32 against them (.969%). For his career, he’s 6-1-0 in seven games against the Devils — a .925 SV%.
Earlier today, Mehta made it clear that he’s excited for Nico Daws to get an opportunity. However, he didn’t necessarily close the door on acquiring another goalie(s). More insurance certainly never hurts. Rittich has been there and done that — and the analytics back up the fact that he still has something left in the tank:
His +4.2 goals saved above expected (GSAx), per Moneypuck, ranked 26th among 51 eligible goalies (min. 30 GP). That was just behind Connor Hellebuyck (+5.5 GSAx), who took 27 more games than Rittich to reach that total. In other words, he did what was needed of him. Not much more and not much less.
For reference, Jacob Markstrom ranked 43rd out of those 51 goalies with minus-11.9 GSAx. Even if the Devils don’t sign another netminder and run some combination of Daws, Rittich and Jake Allen, they’re seemingly in a better spot than last season. Plus, Markstrom’s contract being off the books gives them some extra cap room to upgrade in other areas.
It will certainly be interesting to see how the Devils approach the situation in net as the season nears. As it stands, they’ve already meaningfully improved their bottom-six and still have $7,627,500 in cap space.
