Since I talk enough about Cory's save percentage over the last however many games, Keith's have been dropped into a minefield since about the second week of December. They've been pretty bad since around Thanksgiving actually, but he was still at a league average save percentage through December 15th after 26 games. It was a .906% and the league average was .907% on that date. His save percentage is .865% over his last 14 games since that date. His season save percentage seems to sink a point or two almost every game, outside of a couple 1 and 2 goal games since then. It even came up with the Pittsburgh and Carolina games, then went right back down.
It seems while there's a group of people who believe Cory will be useful again, there's possibly an even bigger (or at least more vocal) group that use the defense as an excuse to absolve Kinkaid of blame.
And I do think it's perfectly reasonable to cut him a bigger break than Cory. He's paid much less, he's actually had an extended streak of good hockey in the last year, where Cory really hasn't. We're probably in Cory's best 4 game regular season streak since December of 2017 right now. And he didn't sign up for this job. When he got his deal it was to be the backup, but this run is just proving that a backup is all he is and we need to be happy that we didn't prematurely jump the shark by giving him a 2-3 year extension for $2.5 million (or more) per year after how hot he was from February of 2018 until about November or December of 2018.
I personally think we cooked him. He's not a goalie that you can get favorable results with while using 30-40 games in a season two years in a row. I do think he could be a decent to even a strong backup for a few more years in the league after this, but this season really is gonna stain his resume and lessen the benefit of the doubt if he has another poor season a couple years down the road, which could lead to the shortening of his shelf life and lack of interest from suitors around the league as he gets into his 30's. It's also cost him a good contract after this year. I can't see anyone going two years for him after this or a raise from his current deal.