The triumph of the Swiss goalkeeper Akira Schmid continues in his first Stanley Cup playoffs. With the New Jersey Devils on Thursday, he won Game 5 of the Eastern Conference first round series against the New York Rangers 4-0 at home at the Prudential Center and earned his first playoff shutout.
“Jersey delivered an incredible game, their best game of the series,” said Rangers coach Gerard Gallant, emphasizing Schmid’s role. “We created traffic in front of goal and their goalkeeper was really good. Igor Shesterkin was excellent in our goal too, but Schmid was incredible.”
The Devils started the series weakly with two losses. Schmid was not used in these first two games. In game 3 he solved Vitek Vanecek between the posts, after which the course of the series changed completely. While the Rangers dominated the first two games and scored ten goals, Schmid conceded only one goal in Game 3 and Game 4 and scored two wins. With Thursday’s shutout, he has three wins in his first three playoff games. He saved 80 of 82 shots (97.6 percent catch rate).
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“The boys played phenomenally in front of me,” Schmid praised his team-mates. “There wasn’t much work for me there. I can’t praise the lads enough. We blocked a lot of shots, were on target and didn’t let the puck through.”
In the first third Ondrej Palat after only 39 seconds for the 1:0 for the Devils. Rangers had their chances, but Schmid saved in the first third and prevented the equalizer, including a good chance by Artemi Panarinwho shot the wrist from the face-off circle in the tenth minute.
“We’ve grown as a team,” explained the Devils attacker Erik Haula. “Even during this playoff series we made further steps. You have to commend the young players for realizing what you have to do to win and behave correctly.”
Video: NYR@NJD, Gm5: Mercer and Haula deliver shorthanded goal
In the second part of the game, Haula (24th) increased the power play to 2:0 and Dawson Mercer (34th) extended the lead to 3:0 with a man down. Schmid made 13 more saves in the second 20 minutes. The Devils dominated the final third with 20:2 shots on goal and Haula (55th) made an assist from Nico Hischier for the final score.
“Today we really implemented our match plan and played to our strengths,” said Captain Hischier, happy about the result. “It was a really strong game from everyone.”
This is especially true for Schmid. With his previous playoff performances, he played in exclusive company. He became the third goaltender in Devils franchise history to make a playoff shutout as a rookie. Before him, only Sean Burke and the legendary Martin Brodeur could do it. The Devils’ last playoff shutout was also Brodeur’s credit and dates back to 2012. But an even more impressive statistic is that only one goaltender in the entire history of the Stanley Cup Playoffs conceded fewer goals in their first three playoff games than Schmid . Normie Smith conceded just one goal in three games in 1936.
Video: Schmid and Haula lead Devils to a 4-0 win
Thanks to Schmid’s exceptional performance, the Devils are now 3-2 up in the series and seem to have pulled out on the Rangers, especially on the offensive. Against their closest rivals, the Devils are just one win away from progressing to the second round. They last managed to do that in 2012. At that time they marched through to the Stanley Cup Finals before losing six games to the Los Angeles Kings.
The Devils have their first match puck in Game 6 at Madison Square Garden on Saturday (8 pm ET; NHL.tv; Sun. 2 pm EST).
2023-04-29 10:44:40
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