New Jersey Devils: When Will We Know If Cory Schneider Is Back?
By Nick Villano
New Jersey Devils goalie Cory Schneider finally won his first regular season game in over a year, then repeated his performance nights later. How long until we can pronounce him back from whatever ailed him?
Well, the tank took the weekend off for the sake of New Jersey Devils goalie Cory Schneider. He helped the team lead a three-goal comeback to the Minnesota Wild on Friday night, then stopped 34 of 35 shots against the Buffalo Sabres on Sunday.
Outside of last year’s playoffs, where somehow Schneider went against the best offense in the league in the Tampa Bay Lightning and posted .900+ save percentages in each game, he hasn’t posted back to back games stopping more than 90 percent of his shots against since 2017. Yet, more than one year later, he’s back to doing that.
It was a true turn-back-the-clock performance by Schneider against the Sabres. He faced some really good shots, and stopped all but one. He stopped all four high-danger chances against him, and stopped 10 of 11 medium danger chances. There were no soft goals, a problem Schneider’s been facing throughout the year.
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It was really nice to see Schneider play this way, but is it sustainable? Only time will tell whether he can keep this type of play going, but just like with the playoffs last season, it’s even nicer to know he still has these types of performances in him.
This obviously could be a one-off performance, and the Schneider who was allowing five goals a night could be around the corner. So, when will we know if Schneider is the old Cory or not?
We have the whole season to figure that out. Keith Kinkaid is a free agent at the end of the season, and with Mackenzie Blackwood ready to make the jump to the NHL, there’s almost no chance they bring him back. That means Schneider should get the majority of the starts so he can get plenty of play before next season.
We won’t know who the real Schneider is until we see him play as the starter for a few weeks. He doesn’t need to hold every team to just one goal, but as long as he’s making the stops he’s supposed to and keeping rebounds going to corners instead of right out in front of him, that will go a long way.
The reality is, even with a few good performances in a row, it’s likely we’ll never see the Schneider that carried the Devils during his prime. However, in today’s NHL he can still help this team win. With him signed for three seasons after this one, it’s important to see this to get some kind of return on investment.