Goalie market heats up quickly at 2022 NHL Draft ahead of free agency
Oilers, Sabres among teams looking at position when signing period opens Wednesday
They were not alone.
The Devils, Detroit Red Wings, Minnesota Wild and Colorado Avalanche made big pushes toward firming up their goaltending depth for next season with moves prior to and during the 2022 Upper Deck NHL Draft at Bell Centre on Thursday and Friday.
"When you talk about UFAs, starting on Wednesday, you put your list together, you can't control what the potential ask is, you don't know until that day," Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald said. "I just personally didn't feel like we should wait. I just wanted to really lock the position up, feel comfortable and start getting a good night's sleep."
The Avalanche turned on the goalie carousel before the draft floor started to fill up Thursday by acquiring Alexandar Georgiev from the New York Rangers for three draft picks.
Georgiev, a pending restricted free agent, is expected to sign with the Avalanche soon and will be No. 1 on their depth chart ahead of Pavel Francouz, general manager Joe Sakic said.
Getting Georgiev also meant the Avalanche were publicly announcing their intentions to move on from Darcy Kuemper, who can become an unrestricted free agent Wednesday after helping Colorado win the Stanley Cup.
And that got the ball rolling.
Marc-Andre Fleury might have been interested in the Avalanche if they were an option. Instead, he re-signed with the Wild to a two-year, $7 million contract on Thursday.
Fleury and Cam Talbot will again be the Wild's goalies next season, just as they were at the end of this season after Minnesota acquired Fleury from the Chicago Blackhawks prior to the 2022 NHL Trade Deadline.
"You have to have good goaltending and I feel like we've got very good goaltending now," Wild GM Bill Guerin said. "Any night we play we're going to put a top end goalie in net."
The Red Wings felt the pull to get something done in the goalie market too, so they jumped the queue on a pending UFA, giving up the No. 73 pick in the 2022 draft to acquire the rights to Ville Husso from the St. Louis Blues before the second round began Friday.
Husso was signed to a three-year contract with the Red Wings before the draft ended.
It'll be Husso and Alex Nedeljkovic in Detroit next season.
"We feel comfortable that this makes us a better team, and we had the cap space and the contract isn't seven years or anything like that," Yzerman said. "It's a very reasonable term for us, and we think they'll play well. There's not a lot of goalies out there, and we felt like we better get one."
Fitzgerald had the same feeling, which is why the Devils acquired Vitek Vanecek in a trade from the Washington Capitals during the draft Friday.
Vanecek and Mackenzie Blackwood project to be the Devils goalies next season. New Jersey used seven goalies this season with Blackwood leading the team with 24 starts.
"We don't want to go through that again," Fitzgerald said. "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. It's been a goal to get a goalie] from the get-go."
***[RELATED: [NHL Trade Tracker]*
It remains a goal for several other teams too, which is why the goalie carousel is still turning, only with fewer options available for teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs, Edmonton Oilers, Buffalo Sabres and Capitals, who are now in the market for one after trading Vanecek.
They have Ilya Samsonov, a pending RFA, but will add another goalie through either a trade or free agency.
"We've been trying to change our goaltending up a little bit, this is the first step in doing that," Capitals GM Brian MacLellan said. "We've still got some work to do to fill out our goaltending duo."
Kuemper will be an option Wednesday.
Jack Campbell could be too, unless the Maple Leafs re-sign the goalie who was an All-Star for them last season, going 31-9-6 with five shutouts, a 2.64 goals-against average and .914 save percentage.
They have a better chance of getting that done after adding cap space by trading goalie Petr Mrazek and his $3.8 million cap charge to the Blackhawks on Thursday.
Matt Murray is also available in a trade from the Ottawa Senators.
"After we made the deal last night and got more space every team that had someone was coming up to us this morning," he said. "So, there just seems that there is a greater surplus in that [trade] market than there is in free agency but there is usually something you have to pay on that end as well. It's just measuring the cost versus what we expect to get from the goaltender."
The Oilers are in the same situation. They have 40-year-old Mike Smith signed for next season, but nobody else at the NHL level.
"A goaltender is at the top of our list," Edmonton GM Ken Holland said. "Don't know what else to say. It's an obvious goal of ours to get one."
The Sabres know they need a goalie to play with 41-year-old Craig Anderson and potentially ahead of 23-year-old Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.
But they're preaching patience after watching the goalie market go into a frenzy.
"We have a plan, we're going to stick to our plan," Buffalo GM Kevyn Adams said. "You can get emotional, or you can make quick decisions and I don't think that's how we want to run our business. We want to be disciplined in what we do. We want to be intentional."
There's no debating that the Devils, Wild, Avalanche and Red Wings were intentional.
They just didn't want to wait.
"You know the teams that need goalies, you know the number of goalies that are out there," Yzerman said. "There's more teams that need goalies than actual goalies that are available."
