New Jersey Devils: 5 Greatest Cory Schneider Games

5. 03/17/2015 vs. Pittsburgh Penguins

Cory Schneider was great in his first season as starter in 2014-15. He went into the March 18th matchup with the Pittsburgh Penguins with four shutouts already, and he was about to get his fifth. The Devils were still hanging on to a semblance of contention at the time, just three weeks before the season was set to end. They needed something great to happen, and Schneider did that against one of the best teams in the NHL.

This is the dire straits they were in at the time, Jacob Josefson scored the Devils only non-empty net goal that night. Schneider had to keep a peak Sidney Crosby off the board. Evgeni Malkin actually missed this game with an injury.

The Penguins offense was doing a good job on this night. The Penguins sent 35 shots Schneider’s way, more than half the game where it was a 0-0 tie. Josefson scored with just over three minutes left in the second period. Then, Adam Henrique scored an empty-net goal with 49 seconds left. So, Schneider was making save after save while knowing that one mistake would lead to a tie game.

Looking at the shot chart for this game, one can see that a ton of those shots by the Penguins were on or under the red circles. Schneider faced some of the hardest shots in a while, but he stopped every single one of them.

Unfortunately, Schneider would not win another game that season. That was the first instance of Schneider falling apart under the weight of carrying this entire team, but he also fell victim to a terrible offense that could not get any goals for Cory. Still, on this night Schneider was elite.