At abound 11 AM this morning, the Devils sent out a tweet that they would place goaltender Cory Schneider on waivers at noon and, should he clear, he would be sent down to Binghamton of the American Hockey League.
In addition, the Devils announced that they had recalled Louis Domingue from the Binghamton Devils.
Domingue, according to the Devils’ website, “started four games with Binghamton” this season, going 2-1-1 with a 2.25 goals against and a .914 save percentage.
They touted his 21-5-0 record last season with the far-superior-than-the-Devils Tampa Bay Lightning. He had a 2.88 goals against and a .908 save percentage there.
I only mention that the Lightning are a better team than the Devils, not to demean Domingue in any way, but to put things into context and temper a lot of the Devils’ own hype. He is a good goalie at the NHL level, but Tampa was a juggernaut last year, let’s not forget that.
On the subject of Schneider, head coach John Hynes had this to say, according to an article by Marc Ciampa on NewJerseyDevils.com: “The way the schedule comes now, we didn’t see him getting into a lot of games in the next couple of weeks.”
Ciampa said that, basically, Hynes wants him to get into games. “When a player, particularly a goalie, if you’re not going to have an opportunity to play it’s hard to get the game reps and confidence that you need,” Hynes told Ciampa.
Hynes mentioned to Ciampa about Cory’s stint last year in Binghamton: “We had a similar situation with him last year, he came back and played well for us at the end of the year.”
Hynes cited the World Championships, where Schneider represented the United States and training camp as reasons to believe that Schneider will get things back on track. As he said to Ciampa: “If he does clear waivers and go to Binghamton, it’s not the end of the road for us here.”
Schneider has battled recurring injuries and confidence issues since suffering problems with his hip and knee a while ago.
Hynes told Ciampa that “He had a very good World Championships, I was there with him [Hynes was an assistant coach with Team USA], had a good training camp, good start to the year but unfortunately wasn’t at a level consistent enough to find ways to win games. That’s why we’re going to give him the opportunity to do that and it’s proven in the past that he [sic] has helped him.”
Hopefully Cory gets things sorted out. He is a great guy and a good teammate, someone that you really root for to do well. He has had a rough go of it the last few seasons, whether it’s injuries or just losing confidence in his abilities (where one may lead to another here). It goes even down to suffering the cramps in the season opener this year against Winnipeg when he was playing pretty well. I am sure that most fans are hoping that this is not the end for Cory Schneider in New Jersey.