2023-24 Season in Review: Alex Nedeljkovic

Nedeljkovic finished out the 2023-24 season as the Penguins’ starting netminder. Has the pending UFA earned another contract in Pittsburgh?

Vitals

Player: Alex Nedeljkovic
Born: January 7, 1996 (28 years old)
Height: 6-foot-0
Weight: 208 pounds
Hometown: Parma, Ohio, U.S.
Catches: Left
Draft: 2014 — Round 2, Pick 37 (Carolina Huricanes)
2023-24 Statistics (NHL): 38 games played, 18-7-7 record, 2.97 GAA, .902 SV%
Contract Status: Nedeljkovic played with the Penguins on a one-year, $1.5 million deal for the 2023-24 season and is heading into the summer as an unrestricted free agent.

Monthly Splits

From Yahoo! Sports

The splits make it obvious how hard the Penguins leaned on Nedeljkovic during the race for the final Wild Card spot in the East during the final two months of the season. Nedeljkovic was in goal for the team’s final 13 games during their playoff push. After only starting 14 games from the beginning of the season through the end of January, he would start 19 games during February, March and April.

Story of the Season

Nedeljkovic started out the season as the No. 2 goaltender to Tristan Jarry. He watched Jarry start the first two games before making his Penguins debut in a win over the Calgary Flames.

He was then hurt in his second start of the season on October 24th against Dallas. Though he finished that game, a knee injury that sidelined him for almost a month. Nedeljkovic returned from that injury in great form, for perhaps his best performance of his season with a 38-save shutout over Vegas on November 19th.

Despite that great game, the man they call Ned settled back in as Jarry’s backup throughout the majority of the season, before Nedeljkovic was elevated to starter as the Penguins made a late-season sprint for a playoff spot.

The ultimate tipping point came on March 22nd, Jarry got pulled in the third period of a game against the Dallas Stars after allowing four goals in 44 minutes on 20 shots. Jarry had gotten the hook in three of his previous seven starts, and as it turned out that would be Jarry’s last start of the season.

For full context, it shouldn’t have been the end of Jarry, an illness caused Nedeljkovic to have to play both ends on an April 1-2 back-to back that Jarry would have played a game if not for being ill. But as it turned out, Nedeljkovic took over the starting position and never left. He ended up finishing out the campaign with 13 straight starts.

The Penguins went 8-1-3 over the stretch to come within three points of a playoff spot, although Nedeljkovic saw some rough patches as his workload increased and Pittsburgh’s defense struggled to protect him. He recorded a .898 SV% and 2.92 GAA and was pulled twice over those final 13 games.

Regular season 5v5 advanced stats

Data via Natural Stat Trick. (The ranking is out of 41 goaltenders in the league who qualified by playing a minimum of 1,500 minutes.)

xG against: 70.77 (36th)
G against: 74 (34th)
High danger save percentage: 77.2 percent (41st, lowest among qualified goaltenders)
High danger GAA: 1.72 (40th)
Average goal distance: 17.51 feet (41st, shortest among qualified goaltenders)

The Penguins’ defense wasn’t reliably able to protect Nedeljkovic from high-danger chances, and it showed. While Nedeljkovic earned points for battling and helped to change the tone around the team late, it almost gets lost in the shuffle that statistically he wasn’t exceedingly impressive. He wasn’t a red hot goalie who often stole games, he made timely saves and got his team to believe in him.

Charts n’at - Via HockeyViz and JFresh Hockey

As a backup, Nedeljkovic had to deal with long periods of inactivity followed by getting leaned on as the hot hand. Everyone knows and remembers the final 13 games of the year, but he also started four out of five games from December 13-23 (posting a 3-0-1 record) before fading into the background and getting only four starts for all of January.

By and large, most goals scored in the NHL come from right in front. No shock here besides illustrating that Nedeljkovic didn’t steal many goals over the course of the season. He just did his job for the most part.

Pretty good on Nedeljkovic to allow less than expected in totality on deflections. That’s not easy to do. He didn’t stack up as well on backhanders or wrist shots from in close, which checks out for how goals tend to go in.

WAR isn’t too impressed by Ned. But it does like his rebound control and consistency. Overall his save percentage is rarely going to blow anyone away, but there’s signs with his PK that he will scrap and offer his team the chance to stay in games. For a 1B or backup type, that’s all you can ask.

Highlights

Nedeljkovic made AHL history in his lone Wilkes-Barre/Scranton game of the season, a conditioning stint during his November injury recovery that saw him become the first goaltender in league history to score two goals in his career:

Two days later, Nedeljkovic earned his first Penguins shutout with a 38-save performance against the Vegas Golden Knights:

A few other highlight-reel Nedeljkovic saves from throughout the season:

Questions to ponder

The Penguins trusted Nedeljkovic to take over as starter when games mattered the most, over the goalie they’re paying over $5 million a year to for the foreseeable future. Even when the Pens were eliminated from playoff contention in the last game of the season, it was Nedeljkovic’s net to finish out the year. Will that kind of foothold on the spot be enough to push the Penguins to re-sign Nedeljkovic when they have an up-and-coming prospect in 2020 draft pick Joel Blomqvist?

From Penguins team reporter Michelle Crechiolo, on Kyle Dubas’ end-of-season interviews:

Dubas said Nedeljkovic has been vocal about his views on coming back, saying he would love to return to Pittsburgh. Dubas told him yesterday that they have a situation where the Penguins have a young goaltender who is pushing in Joel Blomqvist. Pittsburgh’s 2020 second-round pick has had a terrific first season in North America. The Penguins want to use this next stretch of weeks to see how Blomqvist performs, particularly in the playoffs with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League.

“How does Joel play, can he assert himself at that level? And then we will have more information on how we want to go ahead with our goaltending,” Dubas said.

Though not necessarily all on Blomqvist, he lost both playoff games in a quick elimination. If that venue had heightened importance that Dubas suggested, it’s impossible to see any positive traction from it. Dubas also said he is “excited to see how Tristan responds” to finishing out the 2023-24 season as backup next fall. Jarry is heading into the second season of a five-year deal, so it’s safe to assume he’s returning to Pittsburgh.

Despite the playoff failure to launch, Blomqvist played very well Wilkes-Barre in 2023-24. He finished his first full AHL season with a .921 SV% and 2.16 GAA in 45 regular-season appearances. Has Blomqvist convinced the Penguins he’s ready for a shot at the NHL? If so, Pittsburgh could decide to let Nedeljkovic walk.

Nedeljkovic’s run at the end of the year might position him for a multi-year and multi-million dollar contract in the goalie-hungry NHL world of 32 teams these days. The last time Nedeljkovic had that type of contract ($3.0m annually for two years with Detroit), he played so poorly he was waived and sent to the AHL. Does he have the consistency to be worth what it would likely take to bring him back?

Ideal 2024-25

Ideal for Nedeljkovic: playing behind a stronger defense, in a situation where he isn’t the only available/reliable option. Ideal for the Penguins: Tristan Jarry plays a full, consistent season and allows whoever Pittsburgh’s second goaltender is to slot in as No. 2.

Bottom line

Nedeljkovic stepped up when the Penguins’ needed him most. His ability to take over when Jarry was unavailable was a key reason the Penguins had any playoff hopes at all. But his spot on the Penguins’ roster is in question given his contract status combined with the team’s commitment to Jarry and hopes for Blomqvist.