Jacob Markstrom checks a lot of boxes for New Jersey Devils

At long last, GM Tom Fitzgerald has gotten his hands on an undisputed No. 1 goaltender. And the cost of acquisition was plenty reasonable.

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The New Jersey Devils have finally found a legitimate starting goaltender.

Wednesday they pulled the trigger on a trade that sent Kevin Bahl and a top-10 protected 2025 1st round pick to the Calgary Flames in exchange for Jacob Markstrom.

The Flames also retained 31.25% of Markstrom’s $6 million cap hit, meaning he’ll cost the Devils just $4.125M each of the next two seasons.

Markstrom is a high-floor, high-ceiling starter who has proven to be able to handle large workloads on a consistent basis.

He’s averaged 53 appearances over the past seven years, which is a pretty hefty number; especially when you consider one year was a 56-game season and another was cut short due to COVID.

Markstrom is coming off a strong season with a bad Flames team. Although his .905 save percentage doesn’t look eye-popping, it was well above the league average of .898.

It’s also worth noting his numbers really tailed off down the stretch. I don’t think that is concerning when you consider a) Markstrom was unhappy about being asked to waive his no-movement clause, only for the rug to be pulled out from beneath him and; b) the Flames sold off high-impact defenders like Noah Hanifin and Chris Tanev at the deadline.

An unhappy Markstrom playing behind a bad team that completely blew up its defense core is not a recipe for strong numbers.

Prior to the deadline, Markstrom was as good as it gets. He saved 32.68 goals above expectation between opening night and March 8th.

That put him a touch behind Connor Hellebuyck for the league lead and, on a per-game basis, Markstrom actually graded out better.

Even factoring in Markstrom’s declining numbers down the stretch, he still managed to finish 3rd in GSAE over the whole season. He was worth +28.93, bested only by Hellebuyck and Jordan Binnington.

What Markstrom gave the Flames vs. what the Devils got out of their rotating cast of characters is night and day.