New Jersey Devils: Top 5 Saves This Season

Number Five

Cory Schneider on Patrick Marleau, game 17

After a shot from the point rattles around in front of Cory Schneider, the puck squirts loose and slowly rolls towards goal. Patrick Marleau sees the puck and makes a beeline to the net to try to hammer home the puck. Cory Schneider reaches behind him and snatches the puck with his glove before Marleau could hammer home an empty-netter, and then somehow keeps the puck under his glove and out of the net as Zach Hyman and Patrick Marleau dig at the puck.

Schneider has both the reflexes to gobble up the puck with his glove, beating out the goal-hungry Marleau, and the strength to keep his glove on the ice and out of the net. Perhaps this is not the flashiest save or the one that will make the save-of-the-year highlight reels, but a save like this tells you more about a goalie then the type of save where the netminder hopelessly dives across to make a save and lucks out when the puck hits the blade of his outreached stick. This is a save that requires smarts, skills, and reflexes. Not many goaltenders in the world would have been able to keep the puck out the net on this play.