New Jersey Devils: No Need to Worry About Cory Schneider

Cory Schneider’s performance last season for the New Jersey Devils has some people worried. His performance last year makes it understandable, but I’m here to tell you to relax.  Schneider certainly had his worst year of his career but it was more of a reflection of the team than the goalie.

Cory Schneider wasn’t good last year, but maybe it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. For comparison sake I decided to take a look at Schneider and two other elite goalies from the metropolitan division.  We’ll look at Schneider, Ben Bishop, and Henrik Lundqvist.  Advanced analytics have certainly improved in the NHL over the past couple years, and they’ll help in evaluating Schneider against some of his peers.

Both Bishop and Schneider are 30 years old and officially took over as starters in the 2013-14 season.  Stephen Burtch took a look at when goaltenders decline and how they progress here.  Generally speaking, age 30 is when most goaltenders start to regress.

With Schneider and Bishop both at 30, they both showed regression last year.  However, in both cases I think it was more about the team in front of them opposed to their actual performances.

The main stats looked at evaluate goalies previously that we’ll complete ignore today are Goals Against Average and Wins.  Neither truly reflect a goaltenders performance but instead a team performance.  Instead we’ll use even strength save percentage, save percentage, quality start percentage, goals for per 60 minutes, and goals saved above average.

We’ll go through each of these stats in depth throughout this post.

Save Percentage

Save percentage is a nice stat, but the issue is that it doesn’t reflect the differences between a goalies 5v5 performance and shorthanded.  We’ll look at both overall sv% and 5v5 sv% to get a better overall outlook.

As you can see, all three goalies have very similar save percentages over the past four years.  The biggest takeaway from these numbers is that Schneider posted the highest 5v5 sv% in 16-17 and the lowest overall sv%.  The simple answer here is that Schneider was a better goalie in 5v5 situations and struggled for whatever reason shorthanded and on the powerplay.  Ideally, if the Devils penalty killing improves, Schneider should see his overall sv% return to somewhere in the 92 percent range.  Even though he posted his worst overall sv% in his time with the Devils, he was only .2 away from both Lundqvist and Bishop.

Quality Starts

(A really good explanation of quality starts can be found here.)

Generally speaking the league average for quality starts is about 53% and a good percentage is anything above 60.  As you can see Schneider had his best year as a Devil 15-16 and saw a steep drop off last year.  What Schneider’s QS% emphasizes for me is that he was extremely streaky.  To have such a poor percentage and still post such high 5v5 sv% numbers is actually impressive.

The biggest takeaway from this is that Schneider needs to be more consistent.  Maybe adding a familiar goalie coach does that, maybe the improved offense helps take some pressure off and the defense improves.  Either way, consistency is king.

Goals for per 60

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This is the most telling stat for the Devils.  Cory Schneider has no goal support.  Ideally the additions of Nico Hischier and Marcus Johansson will change that and realistically the Devils offense can’t get much worst.  The biggest takeaway from this stat?  Schneider needs help.  His numbers are comparable or better than Lundqvist and Bishop except for GF60.  The Devils have consistently been a bottom 3 scoring team for Schneider.  That needs to change and I think Ray Shero made the right moves to address it.

Lundqvist ended up winning 31 games and Bishop 37 last year.  This is with numbers very similar to the ones that Schneider posted.  Schneider on the other hand only won 20 games.  Again, the biggest difference between their numbers was their GF per 60.

Goals Saved Above Average

Arguably the best stat for evaluating goalies is GSAA.  Essentially GSAA calculates how many goals a goalie has saved or in let in compared to the rest of the league.  This is a stat that Schneider excelled in in previous years and really reinforces how rough his year was last year.
According to GSAA  Schneider cost the Devils almost 9 goals last year.  Combine that with one of the lowest offensive outputs in the league and that’s how you end up with the #1 overall pick.  The positive from looking at these stats is that Schneider isn’t the only elite goalie that had a rough year last year.  Both Bishop and Lundqvist posted their worst GSAA of their careers as well.

Can Schneider Bounce Back?

I personally have a lot of faith that Schneider will return to form.  If he doesn’t, they will certainly be in trouble this year. Devils GM Ray Shero did bring back Keith Kinkaid who posted very respectable numbers for a back up last year.  As for Schneider the best comparison that points to him posting a bounce back year is Pekka Rinne.  While Rinne is currently 34 his worst two years were his age 30 and 31 seasons where he posted GSAA’s of -2.03 and -7.42 respectively.

Rinne is notoriously streaky but bounced back after two poor years (one the lockout shortened season) to post a 14.23 GSAA the next year.  As we all saw this year despite being 34 he still had the capability to backstop his team to a Stanley Cup Final appearance.

I have faith Schneider will bounce back.  With a 5v5 sv% of 92.1 Schneider’s poor year last year was statistically impacted by penalty killing.  The Devils were in the top 10 in penalty minutes per game and had a bottom 10 penalty kill in the league.  That certainly wears on a goalie and Schneider posted his lowest PK sv% of his career.

I would fully expect those numbers to change.  The Devils had a top 10 penalty kill in 2015-16 and even minor improvement would likely see them return to a middle of the pack PK team and boost Schneider’s numbers.  Schneider’s performance on the penalty kill was awful but can’t be held solely against him.  The addition of Brian Boyle (who had 70% of his starts last year in the defensive zone with Toronto) should provide a much needed boost to the penalty kill.

The Devils even went so far as to hire Schneider’s old goalie coach from Vancouver Roland Melanson.  An added comfort level, an improved team, and possibly even some more rest with Kinkaid being re-signed should lead to an improved Cory Schneider this year.