The New Jersey Devils lost the game against the surging Florida Panthers, but Cory Schneider looked good in his return. He will be crucial down the stretch.
I will start out with this, I was very worried about Cory Schneider coming into this game. He hadn’t played a game since January 23rd, when he hurt his groin against the Boston Bruins. The New Jersey Devils were forced to go on without him, and they did a masterful job staying solidly in the playoff race.
The big issue is the nature of the injury. A groin may be the most important body part on a goalie’s body. Their ability to move side to side is crucial to them making big saves at the right time. Especially on this Devils team, which does give up too many 2-on-1 chances, the ability is what will keep this team in games.
One particular save should make Devils fans happy with what they saw tonight.
Evgenii Dadanov was able to skate past the defense on a breakaway, where it was just him and Schneider. He was able to stretch into a split, and stop his shot with just his skate. Those saves are what we’ve expected from Schneider.
Obviously, the game ended in a loss. In the loss, Schneider gave up three goals. On paper, that looks bad, but this was anything but Schneider’s fault.
And this isn’t even like “the defense failed him” not his fault, this was literally just bad luck.
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On the first goal of the game, Nico Hischier and Aleksander Barkov crashed into the net. He made the original save, but the puck hit off both players, the sent everything past the goal line. Unfortunately, that included the puck. No goalie, not Carey Price or Pekka Rinne, could stop that shot.
On the second goal, the flukeness went up a level. Maxim Mamin was just trying to throw the puck in front of the net from behind Schneider. The puck hit off John Moore’s stick, rolled on Schneider’s letters, and fell off his back into the net. What even was that?
On the third goal, Schneider tried stopping Barkov on a 3-on-2 and failed. It wasn’t an impossible stop like the last goal, but it sure isn’t someone one would call “soft.”
Schneider looked as good as one could hope, even in a loss. If he can continue to play this way, and get a little luck, then the rest of the Devils season will have more happy moments than sad ones.