Cory Schneider Starting Again Tonight....WHY?

[rataylor22]

As a Schneider owner, what the hell? Watching him play he clearly needs a rest. 3 of Boston's goals yesterday were stoppable plays and saves he should be making. Yes including the Griffith goal, good effort by him but it was not a good shot. Give him a night off.

[The Good Sir]

They said they wanted him to be a workhorse, but he clearly needs a night off. He hasn't looked sharp for days

[FinnishFlash]

I'm worried that this lack of rest is going to catch up with him and result in an injury. Give the guy a night off, jeez.

[Axeman33]

I touched base on this exact thing on my Axe to Grind column coming out tomorrow. What the hell is DeBoer thinking?

[forumname]

Shutout coming tonight.

[rataylor22]

They said they wanted him to be a workhorse, but he clearly needs a night off. He hasn't looked sharp for days

I totally understand the workhorse thing. They gave up a lot for him. But even most workhorses don't play both games of B2B, and even the best starters get a night off when their playing is showing they need a night off. Just ridiculous.

[Rodgort]

1. Salvador is out so expect the quality of chances to go down

2. I think he has decent numbers in back-to-back situations (if someone knows a site for this that would be appreciated)

3. I want him to get rest too but he is a professional athlete so maybe he is fine. Hopefully he gets a rest soon though

[ztking]

The guy is looking like he'll start 74 games this season... I just worry about injury in addition to fatigue. The comment DeBoer made about how you typically see goalie fatigue in later half of the season makes me believe they'll keep it up too.

[forumname]

I think the need for rest gets exaggerated a lot. These are professional athletes - I'm sure they can withstand 30 minutes of action and 30 minutes of hot standing 2 nights in a row. I can play sports back to back nights without a noticeable decline in performance, and I am far from the physical level of a pro athlete. I've never understood why the back to back thing gets talked about so much. Makes sense for endurance sports, but not hockey so much in my opinion. I'm sure a 100m runner could race on back to back days. That said, I wouldn't be opposed sitting him from time to time for other reasons. Probably going to get yelled at now...

[arctic_rogue]

I think the need for rest gets exaggerated a lot. These are professional athletes - I'm sure they can withstand 30 minutes of action and 30 minutes of hot standing 2 nights in a row. I can play sports back to back nights without a noticeable decline in performance, and I am far from the physical level of a pro athlete. I've never understood why the back to back thing gets talked about so much. Makes sense for endurance sports, but not hockey so much in my opinion. I'm sure a 100m runner could race on back to back days. That said, I wouldn't be opposed sitting him from time to time for other reasons. Probably going to get yelled at now...

I'm sure there's an article somewhere that examines the performance of a goalie in a B2B situation.

[forumname]

I'm sure there's an article somewhere that examines the performance of a goalie in a B2B situation.

I know there is some evidence to show that sv% is historically better on the first night of back to backs, but I don't see any evidence that it's related to goalie fatigue. Could have more to do with scheduling for all I know. Any studies on strength of opponents on back-to-backs?

I agree that there seems to be benefits to not playing a goalie 2 days in a row, but I really don't believe it has much to do with the guy being too physically fatigued.

[rataylor22]

I know there is some evidence to show that sv% is historically better on the first night of back to backs, but I don't see any evidence that it's related to goalie fatigue. Could have more to do with scheduling for all I know. Any studies on strength of opponents on back-to-backs?

I agree that there seems to be benefits to not playing a goalie 2 days in a row, but I really don't believe it has much to do with the guy being too physically fatigued.

The bigger issue is him playing 16/16 games to start the season. If your argument is "he should be able to handle that, he's a professional athlete", then why is he the only goalie to have done that? Why is it very rare that a goalie, even a stud workhorse, normally doesn't play more than 60-65 games a season? And truly not meaning to be offensive, but I highly doubt your physical activity involves the same level of exertion that professional athletes do. I would think if you started playing 3 games a week, every week, you'd start to notice it extremely quickly.

[forumname]

The bigger issue is him playing 16/16 games to start the season. If your argument is "he should be able to handle that, he's a professional athlete", then why is he the only goalie to have done that? Why is it very rare that a goalie, even a stud workhorse, normally doesn't play more than 60-65 games a season? And truly not meaning to be offensive, but I highly doubt your physical activity involves the same level of exertion that professional athletes do. I would think if you started playing 3 games a week, every week, you'd start to notice it extremely quickly.

Asking "why is he the only goalie to have done that?" says nothing about whether or not physical fatigue plays a large role. I'm very aware starting goalies usually don't play more than 60-65 games in a season, but I think there are a number of reasons aside from fatigue to explain that trend...

I know it's a demanding position - I just don't see how starting 16/16 games is so much more damaging than starting 13/16.

[metaldude26]

Easy to find split stats and other such data on Yahoo! player profiles. https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/nhl/play...?season=career

Schneider in the sample size of a whole eight games is 3-2-3 when starting on zero days rest with 1.89 GAA and a 0.929 save percentage. If you want to take that to mean he's awesome in back-to-backs. Have at it. I'm going to suggest we need more data.

Here's an article studying the effect of goalies starting back-to-backs. http://www.nhl.com/ice/fr/news.htm?id=734508

There doesn't appear to be a huge effect but enough of one where you'd rather start your backup. More importantly, I think we can all agree that starting your goalie 70+ times isn't the best idea so back-to-backs offer a natural opportunity to get the backup in net. Apparently they disagree in New Jersey or they have zero faith in their backups.

[forumname]

Thanks for the links, I'll have a look at those tonight.

Like I said, I agree that there is no reason to put a guy into all 82 games, but I don't think it's necessarily to stop him from tiring. You may want to give your backup some action, see if he can hack it if your #1 goes down, or shake your goalie out of a funk, among other things.

I think it's a gross simplification to blame his struggles this season on the fact that he's too tired and needs a day off. He's had plenty of days off.