Cory Schneider has fallen off the map thanks to broken confidence and injuries the last two seasons. However, despite the struggles he has stretches of greatness. The New Jersey Devils need to treat him differently next season to keep him healthy.
The New Jersey Devils goaltender situation is an interesting one. Currently, the team has two goalies with exact opposite seasons. Keith Kinkaid was absolutely terrible in the first few months of the season. Coming into 2018, Kinkaid boasted an .893 save percentage. Then, after Cory Schneider got hurt, he started to turn it on.
Meanwhile, Schneider fell off a cliff after his injury. He went from one of the best goalies in the National Hockey League, to a guy you couldn’t trust for cleanup duty. He had a .915 save percentage through December, including two straight months of .923+. Then, after January 1st, Schneider had zero starts with over a .900 save percentage.
That tells me one thing, it’s time to start protecting Cory Schneider.
Schneider fell off a cliff after a stretch where he played nine games in 18 days. That December stretch, where he was great, probably changed his season completely. He clearly needed more rest, especially now that he’s on the wrong side of 30.
Last year, something similar happened. Head coach John Hynes road Schneider into the ground in the first month of the season, and he was never the same. Kinkaid only played one game in the first month of 2016-17. Schneider was clearly tired from overuse.
Meanwhile, the best month of that season was January. Both Schneider and Kinkaid played to an 11-6 game split. They posted a .928 and .925 save percentage respectively. However, when the coach leaned on one side or the other it had terrible ramifications.
Hynes needs to learn from his mistakes. He loves to ride the hot hand, but he can’t do that anymore. He has to give his goalies rest. They will constantly run out of gas, or worse get injured, if he plays one goalie or the other every single night. There needs to be some trust, especially during those less than crucial months before the turn of the calendar.
Sure, Hynes riding Kinkaid at the end of the season was probably the right decision, but it was clear Kinkaid was running on fumes in the playoffs. Schneider, meanwhile, came in and tried to pull the Devils out of a hole.
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This was all spurned on the unsubstantiated rumors that the Devils should seek to trade Schneider. That shouldn’t be the case. There is no heir apparent to take over the Devils net. Ken Appleby, MacKenzie Blackwood and Giles Senn have a long way to go to be true NHL players. If Ray Shero decides to draft a goalie this year, it will take years for him to develop.
While the Devils could get a first-round pick from the New York Islanders, is it worth taking a big step back? Just look at what a lack of a goaltender is doing to the Isles. They have a great team, but don’t come close to the playoffs. Even though I would take Kinkaid over Jaroslav Halak at this point, I’m not confident he can do it by himself. It’s much more valuable to keep Schneider as a one-two punch.
Schneider deserves one more shot, where he isn’t worked into the ground. Give him closer to 65 games in a season and see how it goes. Obviously, his recovery from hip surgery will help ease him back, but there are still ways it can go off the rails. Don’t play him on back-to-back nights in November. Allow him the proper rest when the season is still young. I have no doubt it will do wonders for his play.