5 Players Key for a Successful New Jersey Devils Season

The New Jersey Devils season is almost upon us. This is the time of year when everyone is excited to see what their team has to bring to its fans this year. Those offseason moves and tweaks to the team, will they work out or not?

That’s what makes the beginning of the NHL season so enticing for us Devils fans. This season, we have an opening night to look forward to with a sense of excitement that hasn’t been around this organization in years. We have a lot of different things that we can look forward to seeing on the 4th of October, from the rookie sensation Jack Hughes to our biggest acquisition in years in P.K. Subban.

With all this new energy and excitement surrounding the Devils this year can we really narrow down the 5 most important players to their success this year? Of course, we can!

Cory Schneider:

Let’s start out with the most obvious one, shall we? Cory Schneider is a great goalie when healthy. He’s also shown to be an outstanding teammate. He always does what he’s asked, even when that was taking a seat on the bench for another goalie. Another very less-talented goalie at that.

That is just who Schneider is and that’s a huge reason why so many of us are rooting for this guy to have a great year. The obvious reasons for team success aside, we just want to see him get back to that top-level goaltending that we became accustomed to seeing from the man before injuries hampered him for so long.

Schneider has looked very good this preseason, of note the game at Madison Square Garden where he had to fend off a very heavy attack from the Rangers at multiple points during the game.

The thing in question about Schneider at this point in his career is not his level of play, we know what he is capable of, but it’s his own mental state. He seems to get inside his own head and tends to let the pressure get the better of him. This year appears to be different for him because he knows the potential of this team is there.

That will keep him poised and block out any pressure that may get to him. In his position pressure is just part of the job. Cory is coming into a point of his career that will suit him perfectly and the performance will show that to be the case. Let’s just hope he stays healthy.