The New Jersey Devils have acquired Jake Allen from the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for a conditional third-round pick. The pick turns into a second-rounder if Allen reaches 40 games played between this year and next season. The Canadiens have retained 50% of Allen’s $3.85 million contract. He has one year remaining on the contract after this season.
Allen has played 21 games for the Canadiens this year, putting up a record of 6-12-3 with a 3.65 GAA and .892 SV%. He was originally acquired by the Canadiens prior to the 2020-21 season from the St. Louis Blues. He had some initial success in Montreal but hasn’t been able to find his groove since then. Over the last four seasons in Montreal, Allen has a combined record of 41-68-15 on a rebuilding Canadiens’ team.
Allen was a member of two Stanley Cup finals teams. Once with the Blues in 2019 (they ended up winning the cup), and once with the Canadiens in his first season there in 2020-21. However, he didn’t play a major role in either of those runs, ceding the crease to Jordan Binnington and Carey Price, respectively.
The 33-year-old netminder has played 416 games in the NHL between the Blues and Canadiens and has a record of 189-162-41 in his career. He hasn’t been a legit starter since 2018 and the Devils are hoping he can regain some of that magic this year.
All three Devils’ goaltenders have struggled this year, with none of them having a save percentage of .900 or higher. The trade raises some questions about the necessity of this move. The Devils are currently out of the playoff spot and aren’t particularly close to getting back into it. And while their goaltending has been the biggest problem this year, it’s hard to see how acquiring Allen solves that.
His statistics are not any better than what the Devils already have and he has no better a chance of turning it around than Vitek Vanecek, Akira Schmid, or Nico Daws. However, he does have one year remaining on his contract so the Devils are already starting to think about next year.
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