New Jersey Devils 2026-27 Season Preview Part 3: Goaltending

For Devils fans, goaltending remains one of the most important conversations surrounding the team. The position has been a carousel ever since Cory Schneider 's prime ended due to injuries and GM Sunny Mehta has already made his mark on the team in the offseason by augmenting most parts of the Devils' lineup, including to some extent, in net. The starting goaltender has changed, with Mehta shipping Jacob Markstrom out to Florida where he's already doing Markstrom things . In his place is…well, about that…

The good news for the Devils is that Jake Allen is back after another strong season as the backup. While Allen had some stinkers of games, he did post a .904 save percentage and a 2.74 goals against average in 37 games, which was far superior to what Markstrom posted in his 44 games. While only 17 of those appearances were wins, some of the blame for the 20 losses is shared by the team and their overall performance. The goals against and save percentage and basically in line with his career averages, so while I'm sure Allen, the team and the fans all would have preferred some better results, at least statistically speaking Jake held up his end of the deal for the Devils in 2025-26.

The difference for Jake right now for 2026-27 is simply the fact that for the time being at least, he's penciled in as the team's starter. Again, going off of stats, that's already an improvement from what Markstrom gave the team last season as the starter. The concern here has to be that at this later stage of his career, the larger Allen's workload is, the more he seems to struggle, and that could result in him posting some Markstrom-esque stats. Hopefully with the other improvements the Devils have made and with a healthy team to start the season, it will be enough to help Jake shoulder an expected increase in his workload.