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Will Canucks Cory Schneider Prevail in Backup Role?

Posted on October 14th, 2010 by Nucks IceMan

Cory Schneider

Written by: Larry “The Nucks Iceman” Johnson

Cory Schneider has been used to playing an average of 45 games per season during his time in the AHL with the Manitoba Moose. Heck, even in his last two years at Boston College he played around 39 games a season.

Now having been promoted to the “Big Show” with the Canucks, Schneider will be lucky to see 20-25 games in the supporting role as Roberto Luongo’s understudy. That’s a lot to ask of a young goaltender who is only 24 years of age, since the backup role is usually filled by a more experienced and older player.

The goaltenders that have become career NHL backups seemed to have always played that role but I’m sure they all were number ones before they turned pro. 

How then does Schneider keep himself sharp and simulate game-like conditions?

Practice only goes so far and is not performed at the same tempo as regular games. This must demand a certain amount of mental stamina to be ready in case you are called upon, but knowing in most games you will be sitting on the bench watching the action.

What it looks like these days is that the schedule, and its back to back games, is the indicator of when the backup will play. That date for Schneider is not until October 19 or 20th.

At that point he may play in either game and will be expected to perform up to an NHL winning standard.

The other area where a backup has to be ready is in case of emergencies, such as an injury to number one. I can’t imagine going into a game without any warm up shots and being expected to stop the first one that is directed your way.

I would think that your reactions just take over and the rest flows with the game.

Roberto Luongo

Although Canucks GM Mike Gillis has indicated that he wants Luongo to only play around 60 games, you know that if Louie gets hot, Coach Vigneault will push to keep him in.

Luongo was a work horse when he was with Florida and played an average of 64 games a season during his 5 years there. In the final two seasons with the Panthers he played 73 and 75 respectively.

Reining in the thoroughbred is not easy and thus the plight of Cory Schneider.

In 2008/09 Schneider did play in eight games during the injury that kept Luongo out. Unfortunately he did not fare well and his stats back that up.

His GAA was 3.81, Sv% of .877 and 2W, 4L and 1T. Not exactly numbers that indicate a strong goaltender, since the benchmark is usually under three for GAA and at least .900 in the Sv% column.

But management feels that Schneider is ready to assume the backup role and he did play relatively well in the pre-season. In fact that’s the best I have seen him play as a Canuck. So now we wait, most likely to next week, to see if Cory will succeed in his new role as backup.

At some point  in his career though, he will want to be number one again. That may be in a couple of years when he becomes an RFA.

As always, you can find me at http://twitter.com/nucksiceman and on alternate days at the Vancouver Sun on-line at http://communities.canada.com/VANCOUVERSUN/blogs/fanattic/archive/2010/10/14/vancouver-canucks-topics-that-make-you-go-hummmmmm.aspx

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