The New Jersey Devils are rolling and finding footing under new head coach Sheldon Keefe. New Jersey’s game is coming together defensively, but it also helps when you have a confident goaltender between the pipes. Jacob Markstrom has given the players in front of him the confidence to play the style Keefe wants them to play night in and night out.
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Goaltending was an issue for the Devils last season. The trio of Vitek Vanecek, Akira Schmid, and Nico Daws did not cut it. Everyone knew the Devils needed a goaltender heading into the 23-24 season, but that area was not addressed. The goaltending for the Devils that season was poor because of a young defense and injuries. Unlike the Colorado Avalanche, who overhauled their goaltending early into the 24-25 season, the Devils addressed it later with the additions of Jake Allen and Kaapo Kahkonen.
Kahkonen is no longer with the club, while Allen remains and is part of one of the best duos in the NHL. Along with Jacob Markstrom, whom the Devils acquired from the Calgary Flames, that trade was in the works for a while but finally completed in the summer. Markstrom has been the number-one goalie the Devils have needed for a long time.
As Devils President and General Manager Tom Fitzgerald discussed last season, he wanted someone to make timely saves in the big moments. Markstrom has done that for the Devils this season. As Fitzgerald said this past week, Markstrom gives the team a chance to win every night.
“He’s given us a chance to win every night,” Fitzgerald said on Monday. “That’s all you ask for from your goaltender.”
Well, Markstrom has done that and more for the Devils over his last couple of starts against the Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues. Many of his save sequences have led to offensive goals or scoring chances for the Devils. Again, it is about coming up with timely saves in the big moments of hockey, especially when the workload might not be the highest.
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Go back to the game against St. Louis on Tuesday night, Markstrom came up with several huge saves in the first period, which led to Ondrej Palat’s goal to open the scoring for the Devils. Markstrom was locked in all night, earning his sixth victory in seven games. That number rose to seven wins in his past eight games, with the win on Saturday night against the Penguins.
As head coach Sheldon Keefe mentioned post-game, the Devils did not have the best start. But Markstrom, who only faced 12 shots, kept the Devils in the game, allowing them to take over in the third period with goals from Stefan Noesen, Nico Hischier, and Timo Meier.
Jacob Markstrom, similar to what Connor Hellebuyck does, knows how to stay in the zone. Whether he faces 39 shots or 12 shots, Markstrom comes up with big and timely saves for the Devils. Go to the second period, where he robbed Penguins forward Sidney Crosby on the doorstep to keep the game scoreless. Again, Markstrom will make the save when there are breakdowns in the system. It is similar to what Martin Brodeur did for the Devils when they also had breakdowns in their defensive system.
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Markstrom is not on the Brodeur level, but you need your goalie to be on point, especially when they do not face a lot of shots. However, Jacob Markstrom was getting high praise from his coach following the game.
“Probably from a goalies’ perspective, keeping chances against are important, but keeping shots down is not ideal for a goalie,” Keefe said post-game. “It doesn’t get you a lot of work, those free and easy touches to get comfortable and confident in the game, starts to mess with your save percentage… all of these things are challenging for a goaltender, but he’s dialled in. We did make some mistakes here today and he had to track the puck, he had to be good for us.”
Not only did his coach praise him, but also his teammates. They know where they would be without him.
“He’s been incredible, Dillon said. “This entire room knows what we’ve got in him. Again we are going to make mistakes, and we are not a perfect team; when we do, it’s nice to have a guy like him back there who can bail us out.”
“I think Marky made a bunch of huge saves for us to keep us in the game,” captain Nico Hischier said post-game.
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Ever since Jake Allen fell to an injury, Markstrom has taken the reigns as the number-one guy in New Jersey. He has been coming up with timely saves for the Devils, and his numbers continue to back it up. Over his last nine starts, he has been 7-0-1 with a 1.50 GAA and a .929 save percentage.
Over his last four starts, Jacob Markstrom is 4-0-0 with a .952 save percentage and a 0.76 GAA. He has not allowed more than two goals in regulation since the game against the Detroit Red Wings back on November 29th. In that game, he gave up four in a Devils victory. The last time he gave up two goals in regulation over this stretch was against the Seattle Kraken on December 6th.
Markstrom is dialled in, and there is a reason why he was named as one of the goalies for Team Sweden in the Four Nations Faceoff. He has been everything and more for the New Jersey Devils this season. As Markstrom has stated, he wants to improve each and every day, and he is doing that for his teammates.
