Akira Schmid
This season has gone literally as off the rails as possible for Akira Schmid. Sounds a lot like what the Devils themselves have gone through. Schmid was traded from the Omaha Lancers of the USHL to the Sioux City Musketeers of the same league. His stats got worse, and he hasn’t played a game since the middle of February.
This, after Schmid was one of the best goalies in that league just last year. His numbers dropped from a .926 save percentage last year to a .890 save percentage this season. That’s an unprecedented drop. The real scary thing about Schmid is there’s talk of a possible hip injury. We can’t confirm that for sure, but if that’s true, that could cut down his career in an instant.
Schmid was quickly looking like the goalie of the future, but now his entire career is uncertain. What does he do next? He has a lot of options if he’s still the goalie he was in 2018-19, but those options dwindle if he’s got a major hip injury. He lost NCAA eligibility when he played that one disastrous game for the Lethbridge Hurricanes. So, he can either sign with the Devils to play in the AHL/ECHL or he could go back home to Switzerland and continue his career there.
The Devils have Evan Cormier and Gilles Senn in the AHL right now, along with newly acquired Zane McIntyre. It looks like Schmid would have to play in the ECHL, at least to start. That hip injury is scary, and the Devils might say “no thanks” after everything hips put them through with Cory Schneider.