The NJ Devils Goaltender Thread

[billingtons ghost]

Right now there are many more problems than goaltending, but goaltending played a huge role in taking us out of contention by about December.

If you delete 'huge' I agree with you.

Let me turn this around. If Blackwood starts the year as the 1a and plays more games - are we in contention?

My assertion is that our defensive troubles burst his bubble just as quickly as it burst after 4-5 games and he's back in the A, nursing his ego and trying to win back his confidence.

I've never put Schneider in the top teir of goaltenders because of all of the holes in his game - but I think the fact that we have zero defensemen who know how to clear rebounds out of the crease and lift sticks turned an average goalie into a horror show - whereas having those guys before helped make him a .920 Vezina candidate.

 

[Scooooooooooooot]

One game means nothing. It's like saying Kevin Rooney has 1 goal in his last 1 game. I just don't understand why we're supposed to eat crow on a player after having a good one game or even a good stretch of games. Especially when I never ruled out that Cory could have a hot stretch to close the year. In fact, I've said I wouldn't be surprised if he played at a .920% level the rest of the year, but that doesn't mean he's back to .920% and good again. It just means he's progressed to the mean of what he is now, which really isn't as bad as the .850% goalie we saw to start the season.

I would say there is a big difference between rooney scoring on one play and how Cory played last night. I'm also just busting chops.

 

[Bleedred]

If you delete 'huge' I agree with you.

Let me turn this around. If Blackwood starts the year as the 1a and plays more games - are we in contention?

My assertion is that our defensive troubles burst his bubble just as quickly as it burst after 4-5 games and he's back in the A, nursing his ego and trying to win back his confidence.

I've never put Schneider in the top teir of goaltenders because of all of the holes in his game - but I think the fact that we have zero defensemen who know how to clear rebounds out of the crease and lift sticks turned an average goalie into a horror show - whereas having those guys before helped make him a .920 Vezina candidate.

Schneider is a worse goalie at stopping the first shot now than he used to be. It’s not his rebound control that has tanked him and flushed his career. He allows a lot of short side goals, many leaky goals because he now has more holes and just leaves the short side open too much. Even you saw it in the highlights of one of the AHL games and agreed with me.

As far as your question about Blackwood I’m gonna say I’m just not sure. We don’t know enough about Blackwood to answer that either way. He could not be good at all. He looked very good, but we didn’t get an extended enough of a look to say for sure.

 

[haak84]

Right now there are many more problems than goaltending, but goaltending played a huge role in taking us out of contention by about December. It was more Cory than Keith at that point, as Cory was downright unplayable and Keith was the only serviceable goalie until Blackwood got called up. But before Hall got injured we were around 15th in goals per game. That's probably down quite a bit now. We may finish in the bottom 5 or lower in scoring when all is said and done.

Jason Labarbera barely played an era before Kinkaid. He's 9 years older and his NHL debut was 9 years prior. Well, he did play one game in relief in 00-01 where he faced 2 shots and stopped both in 10 minutes of play. He's 9 years older (9.5 to get technical) and made his full time debut in the league 9 years before Kinkaid. Maybe Johnson is the best comparable. 3 years older than Kinkaid, debuted 4 years before Kinkaid. He actually didn't play more than 4 games in a year until the season before Kinkaid's full time debut and first NHL start. The biggest difference to me between Kinkaid and Montoya/Johnson/LaBarbera is that they all bounced around and were journeymen, whereas Kinkaid will likely have only played with one NHL team before by his 30th birthday, but they're very similar.

And how do you figure there are more LaBarbera's in the league than when he was playing? There's always been loads of guys like that. Looking from roster to roster, the LaBarbera goalies to me are Domingue, Brossoit, Dell, Korpisalo, McElhinney Stalock (at best). Allen, Neuvirth, Markstrom, Kuemper. Johnson, Nilsson and Kinkaid. So that's 13 right there. I guess Greiss, Khudobin and Reimer are close enough, but maybe slightly better, as they have better seasons more often than most of those guys do. Other guys that I didn't name are either too new to really properly grade yet and are still fairly young (Rittich, Sparks, Copley, DeSmith, Ullmark, Binnington, Hart, Georgiev, Koskinen, Delia, Campbell). Malcolm Subban is kind of still new and not enough games into his career yet, but he's probably edging closer toward the career backup only spot. Then there are guys that were once starting goalies, that have now regressed to backup status (Smith, Niemi, Halak, Elliott, Talbot). Saros is one guy that seems like he has a bit of a ceiling and could take over for Rinne as the starter in the next couple years.

So you're right that there are a lot of them, but I think there always have been. Terreri was like that when he was with us at the end, only he was really bad by that point. He was a decent 1b over a several year span, I think he was better than Kinkaid. Corey Schwab was also another guy like that, but he was on the very lower spectrum of it all. He was actually a very bad goalie, outside of his random 6 or 7 games with the Devils between 02-03 and 03-04. He was not as good as Kinkaid. And they played so long ago that you definitely can't compare because of the era's.

Labarbera definitely played in a different era. The league is much different than in 2009. The usage of goalies has changed as well. Maybe it’s not so much there are more labarbera’s now as there is there are much fewer reliably starting goalies who play 60+ games. There’s just no comparing to how goalies are relied on and utilized today as they were 10 years ago.

 

[None Shall Pass]

I'm not rushing to judgment either way, but I can say with certainty that Cory LOOKED a lot better last night than he has at any point this season. His movements were sharper, he was seeing through screens, and he was using his glove with confidence. Numbers being whatever they are, last night was nothing but encouraging. How he played last night is exactly what anybody who thinks he could still be a decent-to-good goalie needed to see.

That exact game being played in December sees Cory give up at least three goals besides the one he gave up.

It was a good first step.

 

[haak84]

I'm not rushing to judgment either way, but I can say with certainty that Cory LOOKED a lot better last night than he has at any point this season. His movements were sharper, he was seeing through screens, and he was using his glove with confidence. Numbers being whatever they are, last night was nothing but encouraging. How he played last night is exactly what anybody who thinks he could still be a decent-to-good goalie needed to see.

That exact game being played in December sees Cory give up at least three goals besides the one he gave up.

It was a good first step.

Agreed. He looked great.

 

[Bleedred]

I'm not rushing to judgment either way, but I can say with certainty that Cory LOOKED a lot better last night than he has at any point this season. His movements were sharper, he was seeing through screens, and he was using his glove with confidence. Numbers being whatever they are, last night was nothing but encouraging. How he played last night is exactly what anybody who thinks he could still be a decent-to-good goalie needed to see.

That exact game being played in December sees Cory give up at least three goals besides the one he gave up.

It was a good first step.

I think it's definitely safe to say that his last two games (his final AHL start and last night) were the best two games he's played this year. They were two games where I thought he stopped everything he should or could have and maybe even more.

 

[Bleedred]

I never said "goaltending is not a problem".
I said "goaltending is not THE problem".

Everything you write above is true. I'd cast Kinkaid one little tier higher than putting him on par with the guys you mention. I think those guys' success was almost entirely situational, and I think Kinkaid is more of a Hedberg compatible, where:
He's not a #1 goalie by any stretch, but on a good team he's an above-average backup. He's an adequate backup on an average team and he's a bad backup on a bad team.

I think Hedberg is actually not a bad comparable, but his career was slightly different in that he didn't break into the league until he was just about 28 years old, whereas Kinkaid made his NHL debut at 23 (in relief) and has his first start and first full season in the league at 25. Hedberg had one pretty decent season (for 01-02 standards) as a 66 game goalie with Pittsburgh. Remember, he also made it to the conference finals as a 28 year old rookie in 2001, the year before. Where they lost to us in the ECF. In his second full season, he played 41 games and the results weren't as strong as the 66 games the year before. Much like what I think Kinkaid is going through this year. Hedberg had some poor backup years, before having a pretty good 47 game season with Atlanta the year before we signed him. He usually wound up playing more games than he should have throughout his career in many seasons, but his 11-12 was one of the best years we had gotten from a backup (not including the 08-09 Clemmensen season when Marty was hurt) since Mike Dunham in the late 90's. Vanbiesbrouck and Corey Schwab had good seasons, but they didn't play many games at all, so it was hard to get a good read.

A really similar parallel to Hedberg and Kinkaid is that in 11-12, Hedberg was great for about 2-3 weeks as the starter while Marty was injured. Then the very next year Marty got injured and Hedberg looked awful by the first week of Marty's injury that year and never recovered. Much like Kinkaid last year having a good season when Cory was injured/came back and was poor and then turning around this year and not repeating it. Only he looked fine until December. Although with Hedberg he was 39 years old and this could be attributed to old age.

 

[billingtons ghost]

Schneider is a worse goalie at stopping the first shot now than he used to be.
As far as your question about Blackwood I’m gonna say I’m just not sure. We don’t know enough about Blackwood to answer that either way. He could not be good at all. He looked very good, but we didn’t get an extended enough of a look to say for sure.

First part true.

The answer to the second is: it wouldn't matter if he was the next Vasilevskiy - he'd be back in the A anyway after getting spitted and roasted.

 

[Edmonton East]

Today should be interesting. I'm not reading too much into 1 good start when the ice looked awful that game. And he's just been bad for so long, obviously.

 

[Richer's Ghost]

LMAO.

 

[MadDevil]

Figured I'd put this here so people don't flip out about it in the GDT.

 

[NJDevs26]

No he kind of is back to being bad lol, or he never really got off of being bad. He had one solid game in the AHL and one good game here. I'd like to see two good games here in a row before we talk about any kind of 'progress'. These two games were the very definiton of one step forward, two steps back. That goal today was a typical Cory momentum killer, the only time we actually had any momentum all day after midway through the first.

 

[None Shall Pass]

The list of NHL goalies who never gave up a soft goal is zero goalies long.

He didn't have a bad game otherwise today; not great, but not bad. To me, that is progress. No goals in the first five minutes, and outside of the softie, none of the goals against I saw were unreasonable at all (I thought the game started at 2 and missed the first period so I missed the first GA). Not every game is going to be good or bad - everyone can have average games, goalies too. The sad part of Cory's season is that we are sort of forced to accept an average game from him as progress.

Our current defense, with Vatanen being out and Lovejoy soon to be traded, is not going to be doing any of our goalies any favors. It's going to be hard on Cory and Kinks for the rest of this miserable season.

 

[NJDevs26]

The first goal...depends on how hard you want to be on Cory, it was largely caused by him losing his stick in traffic which may or may not be on him.

 

[None Shall Pass]

The first goal...depends on how hard you want to be on Cory, it was largely caused by him losing his stick in traffic which may or may not be on him.

Yeah I just watched it from the NHL's game recap. He lost his stick in the chaos and then got beat stickside. I really can't put that on him. The shooter was completely unmolested shooting on a goalie in a vulnerable position. That's a time where you want your team to cover for you. No one even followed Foligno around the wraparound. Awful.

The second goal was the Parise deflection, and that thing was a work of art. No goalie in the league is stopping that.

The third goal was just bad luck. If you watch it, he's coming out aggressively (Which he hasn't been all season!) and is square to the shot. And he would've been right, but it bounced off someone skating in front and landed on the opposite side for a tap-in.

Not saying he had a good game, but if one is trying to make the argument that Cory is done, this isn't the game to do it with. He wasn't the best player today, but he was far from the worst.

 

[MadDevil]

It's been two games and he's given up one softy. That alone is improvement for him.

The last two games have kind of been a microcosm of his Devils career. In one he plays well, gets no goal support, loses in a shootout. The next game he gives up a softy at about the worst time possible after they pulled to within one. His bad timing is almost impeccable.

 

[glenwo2]

No he kind of is back to being bad lol, or he never really got off of being bad. He had one solid game in the AHL and one good game here. I'd like to see two good games here in a row before we talk about any kind of 'progress'. These two games were the very definiton of one step forward, two steps back. That goal today was a typical Cory momentum killer, the only time we actually had any momentum all day after midway through the first.

At this point, with no Playoffs in sight, the Devils have nothing to lose by playing Cory often the rest of the way.

Might as well.

 

[Satans Hockey]

At this point, with no Playoffs in sight, the Devils have nothing to lose by playing Cory often the rest of the way.

Might as well.

Doesn't matter which goalie is in net at this point, this team isn't going to win many games anyway.

 

[glenwo2]

Doesn't matter which goalie is in net at this point, this team isn't going to win many games anyway.

Exactly. That is why I said to just go with Cory.

 

[Emperoreddy]

It's been two games and he's given up one softy. That alone is improvement for him.

The last two games have kind of been a microcosm of his Devils career. In one he plays well, gets no goal support, loses in a shootout. The next game he gives up a softy at about the worst time possible after they pulled to within one. His bad timing is almost impeccable.

Team in front isn’t exactly playing with much urgency lately. That with the injuries and I am not sure if we are going to be able to make many assessments on anyone for the rest of the way.

 

[Bleedred]

No he kind of is back to being bad lol, or he never really got off of being bad. He had one solid game in the AHL and one good game here. I'd like to see two good games here in a row before we talk about any kind of 'progress'. These two games were the very definiton of one step forward, two steps back. That goal today was a typical Cory momentum killer, the only time we actually had any momentum all day after midway through the first.

Either way, he's definitely a bad goalie now. But bad goalies go on hot streaks all the time. Just look at Anders Nilsson since he was traded to Ottawa, who by the way, easily has a worse defense/team than the one we've been icing for most of the season. Only difference is that Anders Nilsson was never good like Cory used to be. The question now is if he's just a bad but still barely NHL caliber goalie, or if he's a bad and more often than not unserviceable goalie. For some reason, it almost seems like there's more hope with him than there was with Marty at the end, which is kind of understandable, as Marty was ancient and Cory really is not. But I really have no reason to believe that Cory of 2019 is any better than Marty of 2014, if even that good. At the very best, he's only as bad as Marty at the end.

Even though it seemed like he wasn't serviceable at the end, Marty was still serviceable (probably not by his standards), but he wasn't good anymore. The scary part is that Marty's last 100 games in his NHL career, his save percentage was literally identical to Cory's last 100 combined games. That includes playoffs from last year for Cory and the 2012 playoffs for Marty.

All in all, I don't blame him much for today's loss, as it's very hard to win with some of the clowns in today's lineup and only getting 18 shots against a Wild team that's been getting beat a lot lately and while they had the lead for a good part of the game. Not even score effects could help us out today. The fourth goal was a typical super softy on Cory, but I thought he had little to no chance on the others before that. So even if he stopped the softy, we lose by one. The Seney goal on Dubnyk wasn't much better than that last goal on Cory. We were definitely outplayed by a wider margin today than in almost any of the games since the break ended. Outside of that one Montreal game that Blackwood won, which was similar to today's game, only we generated a few more chances.

 

[haak84]

Since 12/27/17 cory has been on a whole different level of bad. It’s really not about goal support.

The difference between the worst goalie and the second worst goalie is almost as great as the 2nd worst goalie and the 10th. Just insane. I know he’s injured but that’s wild.

 

[Bleedred]

View attachment 185353 Since 12/27/17 cory has been on a whole different level of bad. It’s really not about goal support.

The difference between the worst goalie and the second worst goalie is almost as great as the 2nd worst goalie and the 10th. Just insane. I know he’s injured but that’s wild.

It's probably up to .880% or slightly under if we add the playoff series to those. Which is still really bad over 26 games. That feature doesn't allow you to add in overall games, I don't believe. Just playoff games.

I don't even know how to embed that table on here, but if you go back to 11/17/16, it's .902% in 99 games played and 96 games started. That's regular season only. Playoff series might bring it up to .904% or so. Last time I looked this up it was .901%, so I guess the last two games slightly brought that up. If you look at it from the day before that game started and to the start of his career, Schneider was tied for the league lead in save percentage since then with Andrew Hammond (LOL) and Tuukka Rask at .925%.

Out of goalies that have played at least 50 games since that date, Johnson (out of the league after this year likely), Pickard, Niemi (likely out of the league after this year), Mrazek (scrub), Korpisalo (low level backup) and Darling (out of the league) have been worse. Cam Ward also has a .902% since that date and has played in 116 games since then.

Just looking at Marty's last 99 games played in the league, you have to go back to February of 2012. He had a .906% (regular season only) from then until his last ever game played in the NHL on January 2nd of 2015. Sadly, when I put in those dates, the guy who pops up as tied for first in save percentage for those dates is Cory Schneider at .925%.

 

[New Jersey]

beginning to think a lot of these goalie arguments are rooted in “NO I’M RIGHT BECAUSE I’M THE SMARTEST DEVILS FAN EVAR”

seriously our goalie situation is trash but we won a game today anyway. arguing about cory and keith, who will likely BOTH be gone in a year, this vehemently to where it borders literal insanity is peak hfdevils.

i mean, why is this a thread again? and for 16 pages? jesus.