Schneider gives Devils different look for Game 3 against Lightning

Cory Schneider hasn't won a NHL game since Dec. 27, a stretch that has seen him go 0-10-2.
Not only hasn't Schneider won, his numbers have been eye-opening. He didn't have a save percentage above .900 in any of those games. His total save percentage was .863.

Schneider has been out of the lineup this season because of illness, as well as hip and groin injuries. In his place, backup Keith Kinkaid emerged as one of the feel-good stories of the second half, playing brilliantly to help the Devils make the Stanley Cup Playoffs as the second wild card from the Eastern Conference.
So why does coach John Hynes think Schneider can win four of the next five games against the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference First Round?
RELATED: [Complete Lightning vs. Devils series coverage]
Schneider will start Game 3 for the Devils
at Prudential Center on Monday (7:30 p.m. ET; SN, TVAS2, CNBC, MSG+, FS-F). He replaces Kinkaid, who was pulled in Game 2 after allowing five goals on 15 shots in a 5-3 loss Saturday. New Jersey lost 5-2 in Game 1, with Kinkaid allowing four goals.
Schneider, 32, stopped each of the 10 shots he faced in relief Saturday. It was a flashback to the way he started the season, when he played a much more effective game. He was 17-6-4 with a 2.49 goals-against average and .923 save percentage in his first 28 games. Schneider showed signs that being reunited with first-year goalie coach Roland Melanson, who worked with him for three seasons with the Vancouver Canucks, helped him regain the form that led to a .920 career save percentage, tied for fifth all-time in the League among goaltenders who have played more than 350 games.
In addition to history, Schneider gives the Devils, or perhaps more importantly the Lightning shooters, a slightly different look in goal.
Here's a look at some of those specifics associated with the change:

Never out of the net

Schneider plays deeper in his crease, almost always with blue paint in front of his skates, which is one of the tenets of Melanson's philosophy. This is especially true when the attacking team establishes itself in the attacking zone.
Schneider talked early this season about getting back to his deeper positioning more consistently. He said he drifted too much in 2016-17, when he was 20-27-11 with a .908 save percentage, his poorest in a full NHL season to that point.

Though Schneider's numbers were up and down this season, his positioning didn't waver; he stuck to that three-quarter depth.
Kinkaid isn't hyper-aggressive, but he will get further outside his posts and the blue ice laterally, and there have been times in this series he got behind in his movements or drifted beyond his posts and couldn't recover that extra space in time. Not that the goals against in the first two games were necessarily Kinkaid's fault against the tic-tac-toe passing of the Lightning, but Schneider takes himself out of the net less often. That means he always gives himself a chance, something he showed with a great glove save off Cedric Paquette 3:47 into the third period Saturday.

Finding rhythm fast

All goalies rely on timing and rhythm to varying degrees. Schneider went almost two weeks between his final two regular-season starts, and after missing all of February with a lower-body injury has made six appearances in almost 12 weeks. But his inside-out, angle-first style, with less extra movement and backward flow against the rush, should leave him less reliant on timing. Making 10 saves in relief Saturday may be enough to feel good again.

Shifting into shots

Screens played a role in 25 of the last 100 regular-season goals scored on Kinkaid, and his tendency to drop straight down behind screens and reach with his arms played a role in many of them. Not that it would have necessarily made a difference on a top-corner tips like Tyler Johnson's goal in Game 2, but Schneider is more likely to shift into long shots, moving more of his torso into the path of the puck rather than relying on a reach.

New pads

It was interesting, if not a bit alarming, to see Schneider come into Game 2 wearing a totally different brand of pads in a game for the first time in his NHL career. Schneider had been trying the new CCM pads in practice for a week, and it wasn't his intent to wear them in a game yet. He said in a text message he wanted to see how it felt wearing the pads for a longer stretch while on the bench. Whether he sticks with the new pads remains to be seen, but with four goals through the five-hole in his past five regular-season games, it might be worth it to try them.

Perimeter still there

Schneider is rarely out of a play with his deeper positional style, but it does create some upper-corner exposure, with six of the 18 goals since coming back from injury March 1 beating him high on the glove side. Two of those came on deflections by his defensemen on plays from below the goal line, so he's going to have to tighten up his post play and get a little more help defensively taking away the middle of the ice than the Devils provided for Kinkaid to start this series.