New Jersey Devils: Cory Schneider Leads The Devils To Victory

The New Jersey Devils got some really good play from Cory Schneider, who led the team to another preseason victory over the New York Rangers.

The New Jersey Devils have a lot of hype. They are coming off of one of the greatest offseasons in team history. Yet, their biggest question going into the season was that of their goaltending. They have Cory Schneider coming off a really tough stretch in his career and MacKenzie Blackwood who is an up and coming young goalie. They both are going to need to play well this season if the Devils are going to have a chance, and Schneider is off to a good start. Schneider and the Devils defeated the New York Rangers for their second preseason victory.

He only played in the first two periods of the game, but he looked really strong. He made 27 saves on 29 shots for a .931 save percentage. The fact that he faced 29 shots in only two periods of the play shows that he was peppered at times. The Rangers had some grade-A chances on the power play and were stoned by Schneider on most occasions. He gave up one goal to Michael Haley at even strength and Artemi Panarin on the power play. He was strong in both situations as he turned away 18 of 19 shots at even strength and then had nine saves on ten shots on the power play.

The power-play goal by Panarin was an all-world one time shot that most goalies would have given up most of the time. The even-strength goal he gave up, was scored simply because there was a miscommunication between him and defenseman Ty Smith. This is what the preseason is for and hopefully, the communication rectifies itself and goals like that don’t happen again. Outside of that little blip between Schneider and Smith he was really good.

The Devils had goals scored by Nico Hischier, Mikhail Maltsev, Nikita Gusev, and Brett Seney in this one to give the Devils the 4-3 preseason victory over their arch-rivals. Hischier was a monster in this game, as he generates chance after chance for the Devils. Gusev also scored his first goal of the preseason, showing that all the hype surrounding him was warranted. It won’t matter if he plays with Jack Hughes or Hischier, he is going to have a great year regardless.

Maltsev scored the prettiest goal you will see all preseason long. He earned himself another day with the team as they start to make cuts. The fourth line players also generated a goal for the Devils. John Hayden had a really good game all around, and he made a nice play that led to a tap in for Seney. It was a game that had some great play and some sloppy play. The fact of the matter is that the Devils beat the Rangers and that is fun no matter what time of year it is. Cory Schneider is back and hopefully, he can keep it going into the regular season.