NJD Key to success is Goaltending

you need to find your next Brodeur
you wasted a pick trying to make it Schneider hoping to avoid a rebuild post Marty .

Blackwoods good but he's a Tandem Goalie so if he's your starter you need to sign a guy like Lehner who's one of the best Tandem goalies available and is used to learning new teams systems at this point in his career . NJD would have to sign him 5-6 years to get him and at a competitive rate but he'd be key to Blackwoods success during his final years before he hits his Prime. Halak's good but he's to old to undertake the committment Blackwood would need in a tandem partner .

If you're looking to Replace Marty in the sense of getting a true #1 goalie.
this years draft could see the first goalie since Price to go top 10 and he's the best young Russian goalie i've ever seen .
If NJD was smart you'd be targeting him as your systems are always built on solid D and phenominal Goaltending (atleast the NJD teams that won were)
Its to bad you didnt draft Primeau a NJ native because he's gonna be our successor to Prices crown . (we'd never trade him )

Don't understand the Henrique trade. I know we miss him but it doesn't make sense to deal one of our stud young defensemen for an older bottom 6 player who doesn't exactly fit into the lineup

LOL ahahhaha as an Oilers fan, I totally understand.

Fair enough. Definitely a bit sentimental for Henrique but they could really use a quality veteran winger (better scorer than Simmonds) even if its not actually Henrique. As for Bahl, hopefully he will become a quality D-man but who knows? If Smith develops well and we draft a D early this year or have one of our D prospects turn out well he isnt that necessary. If they develop poorly then, yea, we definitely are gonna need him.

I think goalie is the most important position without a doubt and I'd love nothing more than to find another Marty but that is far easier said than done. As for Blackwood, he has been on fire recently and if you talk to most Devils fans they will tell you hes been their best player most of the season. Will he turn out to be a quality #1, who knows, but his play thus far doesn't rule out him being a top tier goalie as he progresses. His stats have been subar (though not terrible) in large part due to playing behind a poor team but fans who watch him play on a nightly basis realize the starting goalie has not been the Devils problem this year.

The team is shaping up to be much more of an offensive team than the Devils of decades past. Gusev, Hughes, Bratt, etc. all offense first. They can't afford to try to play a trap 2.0 in 2020, it just doesnt work in todays NHL. If I'm the Devils I am focusing on building a better defense to protect Blackwood instead of going goalie hunting. I'd be cool with Lehner but someone is going to overpay for him and I prefer it's not NJ.

He's been a big problem at the start of the season - now he's one of a few sthrengts this team has.

I mean that's kinda the story the 19/20 Devils are writing.. Guys only stood up after they really had to. Blacky after Schneids got waved, The whole team after Shero hot rid of H&H.

But as another user above already mentioned we need to sign a1b/tandem goalie next summer. Regardless of Schneids potential buyout. Blackwood's workload is absurd right now because we don't have another goalie to trust at the NHL level (We still only have one win from a backup!!!)

NJD

I actually thought he wasn't terrible at the beginning of the season- the team was playing like hot garbage in front of him. But he definitley wasn't playing like a true #1, so it has been nice to see him turn it on in recent weeks. His workload is really absurd and not sustainable. You are right that we need to invest in a backup because Schneids is not reliable at this point. If I'm Shero I'm throwing big money at an older goalie for short term. Make it impossible for other teams to match since we have the cap space. And then keep it short to make sure they're off the books by the time we need to resign Hughes, Goose, and other FA's.