By trading Casey DeSmith on Tuesday, the Canadian solved most of his overpopulation problem in front of the net.
The training camp which begins this week nevertheless leaves an element of mystery to the goalkeeper position. Cayden Primeau will obviously attract attention as he tries to finally break through the lineup. But another question, more delicate than it seems, will arise for the coaching staff: what role to give to Jake Allen?
The veteran is an influential figure in the Montreal locker room. Very popular with his teammates and his bosses, he is known for his calm and leadership. A reassuring presence, in short… but less and less so on the ice.
Until Tuesday, the Habs had an anomaly among its masked men, namely two goalkeepers aged 32 and over. A compilation of The Press indeed confirms the obvious decline in the number of goalkeepers in their thirties since 2018 across the league.
For the sake of argument, we compared all the goalkeepers from the last five seasons who played at least 10 games during the same campaign (or seven during the short 2020-2021 season). Their age is established as of December 31.
In 2018-2019, all teams combined, goalkeepers aged at least 30 got half of the starts. Five years later, in 2022-2023, we were talking about a third.
It’s not new that, after the age of 30, NHL goaltenders get fewer and fewer starts. The most marked break occurs, consistently, between the ages of 32 and 33. However, the group aged 33 and over has particularly declined in recent years. He now only starts 14.6% of matches, compared to 24% five seasons earlier.
Various factors unrelated to on-ice performance may explain part of the decline. The birth of the Seattle Kraken created two new jobs and the near-fixed salary cap of recent years has increased the value of cheap young players at all positions.
The trend, nevertheless, is serious. The star of the oldest guardians fades. And Jake Allen just turned 33. Not only is it getting older, but it is increasingly difficult to categorize it.
Paid dearly
In total, 19 goaltenders currently on an NHL contract will be at least 33 years old by December 31, 2023. Among these, we know right away that Carey Price will not play. Robin Lehner, probably not more.
Of the remaining 17, three (Dustin Tokarski, Keith Kinkaid and Troy Grosenick) may not play a single game, even though they appear, at best, as the third goalie on their respective teams. Martin Jones and Alex Stalock could be added to the list.
Of the remaining 12 masked men, three are unambiguously identified as deputies: Jonathan Quick, James Reimer and Pavel Francouz.
A final group of nine veterans is divided into two subcategories. The starters: Sergei Bobrovsky, Jacob Markström, Darcy Kuemper, Cam Talbot, Frederik Andersen and Marc-André Fleury, although the latter may have had his position stolen for good by Filip Gustavsson. And the “luxury” assistants, regularly called upon to play an increased volume of matches: Semyon Varlamov, Antti Raanta and Jake Allen.
In this subcategory, Allen is doing well. Statistically, firstly, he has largely been supplanted by Varlamov and Raanta, who play for better teams, it is true.
In terms of salary, then, Allen (3.85 million) is treated much better than his two colleagues – 2.75 million and 1.5 million, respectively. The New Brunswicker, in fact, finds himself rather in the range of the oldest starters in the league, far behind Bobrovsky, Markström and Kuemper, certainly, but ahead of Fleury and Andersen.
Which role ?
For a goaltender his age, one might conclude that Allen is an assistant paid at the price of a starter.
But is he really perceived by the organization as an assistant? Samuel Montembeault’s performances last season, superior to those of Allen, left the idea in the collective perception that the Quebecer had become the number one in the organization.
However, management has never explicitly decided in this direction. And the use that was made of the two goalkeepers does not confirm this hypothesis either. Even though he had to miss a nine-game stretch in January due to injury, and didn’t play again after March 27, again because he was out of sorts, Allen nevertheless obtained 41 starts, two more than Montembeault.
Only three times has Montembeault started at least two games in a row when his teammate was healthy. Allen scored 15 doubles, without his partner ever being injured.
What role will we entrust to it in 2023-2024, then? We won’t know more for a few days. What is certain is that the Canadian has, in Jake Allen, a goalkeeper who is getting older, probably overpaid for his status, under contract for two seasons… and who had a miserable 2022-2023 season.
At five-on-five, he stopped barely 89.6% of the shots aimed at him, one of the worst performances in the NHL, far behind Samuel Montembeault (91.6%). Trading him would make sense, but who would want that?
If Cayden Primeau has an ordinary training camp, the pieces will fall into place easily. But if he was amazing, how far-fetched would it be to consider Jake Allen the extra man in a menage a trois in net?
If he wasn’t the “damn good veteran” that Martin St-Louis praised last week, the dilemma probably wouldn’t be one.