The New Jersey Devils are next to ride the goaltending carousel, acquiring Vitek Vanecek from the Washington Capitals. They will also receive pick No. 46 in today’s draft, while sending picks No. 37 and 70 to the Capitals.
For a little bit of draft capital, the Devils have found an answer in net, or at least someone to potentially pair with Mackenzie Blackwood as he looks to get his career back on track. Like Ville Husso when he was traded earlier today, Vanecek is without a contract for next season and will need to work out a new deal with New Jersey in the coming days. A significant difference, however, is that he is a restricted free agent that can’t get to the open market if the Devils extend him a qualifying offer (which they will).
That qualifying offer only needs to be $787,500 but Vanecek’s NHL history to this point would certainly land him more than that in arbitration. Since entering the league in 2020, the 26-year-old netminder has posted a .908 save percentage in 79 games, going 41-22-10 in the process. At his age, any multi-year extension would be buying out UFA seasons, thus making a deal more expensive.
Despite only ever playing for the Capitals, this actually isn’t the first time Vanecek has been traded. He was also the Seattle Kraken’s expansion selection, only to be traded back to Washington last summer. By moving him now, the team has recouped at least part of the value they had to give up in that trade, while also opening a spot for a goaltending upgrade.
Though Capitals’ general manager Brian MacLellan admitted that Vanecek and Ilya Samsonov would both get qualifying offers, it was clear that he wanted to upgrade the position in some fashion. A plan for that appears to be in place; the only question will now be whether Samsonov is also moved out, or if he partners with a newcomer for next season.
nice pickup by NJ.
Campbell and kuemper for edm and Toronto. question is which bites first as the last guy remaining may be squeezed out of a large pay day
Prediction:
Leafs just say screw it and trade for Reimer and sign Holtby as backup for a combined $4M for both goalies.
Weird for a franchise that went from Brodeur (HOFer), to Cory Schneider (great), to a revolving cast of mediocre-to-terrible goalies. And apparently that trend will continue, as Vanacek wasn’t even good enough for the Caps to care.
Better than what we had should not be the standard…good enough to win should be.
This is a bad move, but it was by a division rival so…great job, Fitz.
Yeah. Jersey seemed like a team primed to make a nice postseason run if they could just shore up a few roster spots, and had the cap space available to do so.
Goalie seemed like the spot they really needed to upgrade, and I was sure they would be all in on one of the stronger options out there this year, but this move is underwhelming at best.
Vanecek is a fairly average goalie but with a high floor (record is boosted by playing on a very good offensive team). He should be able to deliver fairly predictable average level performance for NJ. Samsonov is very mercurial, he can dominate and then he’ll let in a goal half of us reading the comments here could have stopped…High ceiling, low floor, overall average. Caps could still use an upgrade, maybe trading Samsonov and going with an upgrade with Fucale as a backup. I cringe at the prospect of the Caps going into 2022-23 with Samosnov as clear #1…if they do this I hope to be proven wrong but I took 2021-22 as the season where the #1 job was Samsonov’s if he could take it and he couldn’t/wouldn’t.
Vanecek is an excellent backup goaltender and he can start for awhile if necessary, but he’s not (to this point) a #1 on any staff. Depends how NJ plans to use him. As for Samsonov specifically, he has had and squandered opportunity after opportunity since Holtby left both on and off the ice. He has been given so many chances and I think the team needs to start seriously entertaining the ever more likely possibility that he’s a bust. He’s not a #1, he’s like Vanecek; an excellent backup. We have nothing in the system that can be a #1 that I can see at least not yet. The Caps absolutely must address this if they’re serious about opening a new window here because the current one is done. Over. Closed.
I think the Caps need to make some trades. This core needs to be shaken up and made younger and faster. John Carlson should also be dealt and I’d even eat half his contract to increase the returns. He’s one of the best offensive D-men in the league and there will certainly be teams chomping at the bit to get him for 4M a year, but he’s average at best defensively. He’s slow as molasses, turns the puck over too much and is not physical, intimidating or hard to play against at all.
The Caps should move on from Carlson and listen to offers for everyone not named Ovechkin or Wilson. The Backstrom situation is just devastating as his career is likely effectively over as an elite player. There’s too many problems with this team to just add a piece here or there. There needs to be a huge shake up because this core isn’t even playoff caliber IMO. The only reason this team made the playoffs in 2022 is because of the bad start the Islanders got off to. If they had their typical season, the Caps don’t even make the playoffs.
The window on this team and core is over, closed. Done. Now is the time to make changes and bring in young, hungry blood that can play a full 60 minutes every night. I’m not saying trade everyone, but we should at least be listening on just about everyone.