Thursday evening, it was reported that the New Jersey Devils are “expected” to sign goaltender David Rittich. The news was first reported by PuckPedia. The Devils then formally announced the move Friday morning. The contract is a one-year deal worth $1 million.
Rittich joins Jake Allen and Nico Daws as the three top goaltenders with the organization. In total, the three of them are set to make a combined $3.9 million in 2025-26. For context, former goaltender Jacob Markström was set to make $6 million this upcoming season. This provides the team with valuable flexibility to continue to add elsewhere.
What The Teams Getting In Rittich
Rittich, 33, has played in 260 career NHL games across 10 seasons serving primarily as a backup in recent years. He owns a career 0.903 save percentage and is a winner of 122 games. Last season he played 30 games for the New York Islanders posting a 0.894 save percentage. His best year was in 2023-24 where he appeared in 24 games and had a 0.921 save percentage.
The 0.894 save percentage he had for the Islanders last season is very deceiving. This is evident by the fact he posted a 14.34 goals saved above expected (GSAx) which ranked 31st among 91 qualified goaltenders last season according to Evolving Hockey. A deeper dive into the numbers show just how bad that Islanders’ defense was. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Islanders allowed the fourth-highest expected goals for against per 60 minutes. They also allowed the sixth-most scoring chances per 60 minutes at five-on-five and the third-most high-danger shot attempts per 60 minutes. Their goaltenders were in constant distress.
For those unaware, goals saved above expected is a figure that attempts to isolate goaltending play from the defense in front of the goaltender. It is the amount of goals a goalie is expected to stop based off the chances the individual faces. For example, compared to Rittch’s 31st ranking in GSAx Jacob Marktröm ranked 77th.
Staying with the trend of GSAx, Rittich has been extremely strong in two of the last three seasons. Back in 2023-24 he posted a 18.34 figure. That ranked 11th among 96 qualified goaltenders that season. With that being said, Rittich did have a very tough 2024-25, where he posted a -10.39 figure which was the sixth-worst in the league. Additionally, prior to the aforementioned 2023-24 season, Rittich posted a negative GSAx in his first seven seasons.
Final Thoughts
If the Devils get the 2023-24 or 2025-26 versions of Rittich, a duo of him and Allen, who was performed admirably since coming over from Montreal, would be more than serviceable. They will also have Daws ready to go in case of injury. Not to mention, the price tag of those three allow the team a lot of cap flexibility to still address the roster elsewhere.
With that being said, there is certainly some risk here. Outside those two aforementioned years, Rittich has been somewhat underwhelming throughout his career. Time will tell, but one thing that is for sure, the thought process does make a lot of sense.