New Jersey Devils: 5 Greatest Cory Schneider Games

On Monday, the New Jersey Devils announced that CorySchneider was heading to waivers, meaning his time in New Jersey could be done. We look back at the best games of his career here.

Well folks, it happened. The New Jersey Devils have placed long-time goaltender Cory Schneider on waivers. It was a long ride, that was sometimes fun, but mostly sad. It’s sad because when the Devils finally got through an extremely long rebuild, years of punishment finally ruined Schneider’s skill. A combination of broken confidence and nagging injuries took our Vezina level goalie who filled the gap after the greatest of all time Martin Brodeur after he retired. (We refuse to acknowledge any other uniform.)

Schneider has been with the Devils for seven seasons. Three of those season he was an elite-level goaltender that should have been playing the postseason. He was the type of goalie that teams could ride to the Stanley Cup. We’ve seen many instances of it in the past, but the Devils just didn’t have the team that could stay competitive in the regular season.

The Devils traded the pick that ended up being Bo Horvat to the Vancouver Canucks at the 2013 NHL Draft. Looking back, some are upset with the deal since Horvat is a really nice player for the Canucks and the Devils were forced to put Schneider on waivers on Monday, but that’s revisionist history. The Devils would be in a bad way for a long time without Schneider. Maybe that was better, but watching teams as bad as they’d be with, say, Scott Wedgewood and Keith Kinkaid in net would be rough.

Let’s take a look back at Schneider’s time with the Devils, by considering his five best games. We take a long look at his tenure as Brodeur’s successor, and look at the games that made him great.