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When the Devils signed Cory Schneider to a seven-year, $42 million extension earlier this summer, it was met with mixed emotions among the general public.

Some suggested his body of work wasn't large enough to warrant a big contract while others said his numbers have been a product of playing for a good Vancouver team, and a defensive team in the Devils.

While that certainly factors into the equation, other goaltenders playing for much better teams (see Quick, Jonathan; Crawford, Corey) have posted much lesser numbers and received long-term, big money contracts.

The stats community, like myself, tends to be weary of giving out long-term deals to goaltenders, but the Schneider extension generally received positive reviews.

While HockeyGraphs.com, one of the better sites for analytics, didn't post anything on the subject, their save percentage projections for the next few seasons suggest Schneider was worthy of a big contract.

Long story short, HockeyGraphs uses past data, but puts higher value in more recent numbers to project how goaltenders will perform in the future.

Considering Schneider's .928 save percentage since 2010 is the best in the NHL over that span, it should come as no surprise that he ranked quite highly in HockeyGraphs' chart.



I touched on this when writing about Sergei Bobrovsky, but data projections can be like shooting moving targets. If the data is used properly, forecasts tend to be accurate more often than not, but like with everything there are exceptions. Injuries, player movement, coaching changes, etc. can alter the forecast, so it's not a perfect science.

That said, Schneider's past is a good indication that he'll be among the NHL's elite for the foreseeable future, which is great news for a team that's invested in him for the next eight seasons.

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