Rangers 3, Devils 1: Time to pull the plug on Nico Daws

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A few notes following New York’s 3-1 win over the New Jersey Devils:

Nico Daws has run his course

Another game, another subpar showing from Nico Daws. He did his best to keep the team afloat and, for a while, he did. A decent chunk of his starts were good and he generally rebounded after each off night he had. That time appears to have passed.

Daws has allowed at least three goals in eight of his last nine showings. It’s not because he’s facing a lot of rubber, either. He has posted a sub .900 save percentage in seven of the nine games and finished below .905 in eight of nine.

He owns a .855 save percentage since the middle of March, which ranks him dead last among 36 goaltenders to play at least 300 minutes during that spell.

We’re at the point now where Daws is allowing at least one bad goal each time out. I’m not talking a ‘maybe he could’ve had that’ type of goal. He’s letting in goals where the shot ending up in the back of the net shouldn’t even be a thought.

And you know what? I’m not even going to blame the kid. He played 10 hockey games last year. 10. He has appeared in more than 22 games once from 2017-21. He is not used to playing a lot of hockey.

Yet the Devils have kept Daws up with the big club and given him a starter’s workload. I mean, he played three sets of back-to-backs within two weeks at one point. Igor Shesterkin, for example, has played both legs of a back-to-back *checks notes* zero times this season and fatigue seems to be kicking in even for him.

There is absolutely no point in continuing to trot Daws out there. He looks tired, he looks to have lost his confidence, the season is long lost, and it’s at the point where he’s not even giving you a real chance to win.

Last night the Devils gave up four shots over the final 40 minutes to an established playoff team. The Devils were out-scored 1-0 in that time.

Put another way, the he jokingly serious ‘if the Devils don’t let up any shots they’ll win’ doesn’t even hold true. There’s no path to victory with Daws spent like he appears; especially not without Jack Hughes leading the offense.

I know the Devils want to win games down the stretch. I get it. But their skaters are dropping like flies, they don’t have goaltending, and the power play remains useless. There isn’t really a path to victory anymore.

The team might as well trot out Jon Gillies and/or Andrew Hammond each night and take it on the chin. They’re only five points out of last place in the NHL. Negative results, unfortunately, help more than positive ones at this point.

Let Daws go back to Utica, handle an easier workload, and enjoy playing on a successful team.

Keeping him around, in my opinion, would be a disservice to him.