One of the NHL’s hottest goalies will be in action again tonight. New Jersey’s Cory Schneider is 3-1-2 with a 1.13 goals-against average and .958 save percentage in January, and he’ll be between the pipes for the Devils when they host struggling Washington.
Schneider’s last start couldn’t have been much easier to win. Finally, he got some goal support, as the Devils hammered the Blues, 7-1, on Tuesday. Head coach Peter DeBoer had previously joked that all Schneider had to do was “pitch a shutout” to get a win. Four times this season New Jersey has failed to score a single goal for the 27-year-old.
“He’s battled through a lot of unsupportive nights,” DeBoer said after the Blues game, per The Record. “Not for lack of effort. It was just that the puck wasn’t going in. So it was nice to give him a little bit of a cushion.”
Schneider’s overall numbers (.926 SV%, 1.88 GAA) are quite a bit better than New Jersey’s other netminder, future Hall of Famer Martin Brodeur (.905, 2.36). It should be interesting to see if the younger goalie gets significantly more starts down the stretch as the Devils try to chase down a playoff spot, and what impact that may have on the older goalie’s future.