New Jersey Devils: Keith Kinkaid Will Excel in Larger Role

Cory Schneider left the New Jersey Devils game against Ottawa after the second period. Keith Kinkaid came in and stopped all nine shots he faced to backstop the Devils to a huge come-from-behind victory.

Details on Cory Schneider’s injury haven’t emerged beyond the classic NHL “lower-body injury.” Although I expect he’ll be back after this mini-bye week, I don’t think there’s a significant drop off from Schneider to Keith Kinkaid at this point.

If Schneider does have to miss a significant amount of time, the biggest drop off would likely be whoever replaces Kinkaid as the Devils backup goalie. With that said, even Scott Wedgewood has performed very well in his limited NHL time.

Kinkaid played over 40 games a year in his two years with Albany, so he’s shown he can handle a higher workload. He’s certainly passed the eye test through 1 1/3 games so far this year. His numbers over the past year are exceptional.

I’ve gotten all my stats from Corsica.Hockey. It’s an awesome resource if you’re looking to delve deeper into the analytics of hockey.

Kinkaid has posted a GSAA (Goals Saved Above Average) of 6.39. That’s highly sustainable GSAA, it doesn’t blow you away but will keep the Devils in the game. That’s generally all you ask of a backup.

The biggest numbers I wanted to look at were his save percentages. We all know Schneider had a down year last year along with the entire Devils team. It’s possible that age is catching up with him, I don’t think so, but over the past year in his limited performances Kinkaid has arguably been the better goalie.

I feel the need to point out that he played almost 2,000 less minutes over that period before we go deeper into this.

Next: New Jersey Devils: Steven Santini Shows He Belongs

As you can see from the chart above Kinkaid has been slightly better than Schneider in a much more limited role over the past year. He’ll get his second start tonight against San Jose, a team averaging 2.6 goals a game on 32.4 shots.

The biggest takeaway for me is that Schneider and Kinkaid have posted almost identical High Danger SV%’s. Other than that, Kinkaid’s numbers are better in every category.

Unfortunately, there’s no stat tracking twitter game recaps because Kinkaid would certainly lead the league in that category.