Cory Schneider robbed of a star after powering Islanders AHL to playoff win

Cory Schneider is in his second year with the New York Islanders organization. While he's only played one NHL game with the NHL Islanders (a 4-3 win over the Devils on April 3, 2022), he's spent most of his time with the organization playing in the AHL.

This year, the AHL Islanders leaned on the veteran shot-stopper playing him in 30 games. The 36-year-old put up a 14-11-4 record while averaging a 0.921SV% and 2.71GAA. He's been particularly strong down the stretch of the AHL regular season.

That's why the Bridgeport Islanders gave Schneider the starters net for the first game of their best-of-three series against the Providence Bruins.

A best-of-three gives either team little runway for a slipup. With the Bridgeport Islanders being a bad shot suppression team, they needed to put the strongest shot-stopper in the net. That's Schneider. And he delivered.

Schneider stopped 46 of the 47 shots he faced last night. Shots were coming in from everywhere on the day specifically on the power play. The Bruins had six power-play opportunities on the night.

The Bruins were getting a number of solid scoring chances but Schneider stopped just about all of them. Including this short-handed breakaway chance for the Bruins.

With a 0.979SV% on the day, and being a huge factor in the win for the Isles, it would stand to reason that Schneider would get a nod as a star on the night. Nope. The three stars on the night were:

1) Arnaud Durandeau: 1GWG, 5SOG
2) Jakub Lauko (Providence): 1G, 4SOG
3) Grant Hutton: 1G, 3SOG

I'm sorry, what? I understand goals are important in winning hockey games, but by the same argument so is stopping them. Cory Schneider was stopping opportunity after opportunity. By the time Providence opened the scoring at 13:53 of the second period, he had already faced 32 shots. Thirty-two!

The only reason the Bridgeport Islanders were able to tie it up in the third and eventually win it overtime is thanks to Cory Schneider playing out of his mind.

And look, I know being named the star of the game means little, and Schneider won't care, all he wants is the win, but he still got robbed of that honor last night