The only reason he’s been “passable” this season is because the Devils were limiting teams to like a half a shot a game. .880 save percentage is not acceptable at all.
I do think it's normally unfair to really knock a goalie for a less than 7 full games stretch of .880%, because anybody can do that and a couple of really good games can shoot that way up over the roof. He had I think 4 solid to good games, but he also had two REALLY BAD games. I didn't think he played badly in the Edmonton game before he got hurt and left the game, but I could honestly have see the win streak being snapped that night if he had stayed in and if it weren't, you know he was getting the Calgary game a couple nights later and that's probably where it ends.
And they just couldn't stop playing him. It was heavily implied that he would have gotten another start between the Washington blowout loss and the Vancouver game, if he weren't ''Nursing'' and injury to his ''Elbow'' which was confirmed by him personally and by Ruff in the post game of the Vancouver win that he got. And he did miss practice the night before the Colorado game where Vitek got the shutout.
The Ducks and Islanders games were solid, but kind of rocking chair games. Vitek's had a couple of them too, like the Toronto game recently and Schmid had one of those against Arizona for sure.
I actually thought he was about to get a shutout in the the Islanders game, but got scored on with 5 minutes left. Not that I thought the goal was his fault, I'm just saying I really thought a shutout was coming.
And he played pretty good against the Sharks
What was kind of annoying was that he about to have another 1 goal against game to Vancouver, but did enough just to allow another goal to them in garbage time with a few minutes left that went off his pad and in.
I think he probably would have been better than .880% if he continued playing games, but I'm not sure he would have been much higher than .900%. His last 62 games going back to I think it's February 20th of 2021 are just absolute murder. He's an .892% since then.
And let's not forget, his AHL career was beyond mediocre. He did not have really any success in the AHL. His first season there was fine, but his second season was horrific and got him demoted to the ECHL for a time period. I remember the talk at the time (summer of 2018) was that there aren't many examples of goalies performing THAT BADLY in the AHL for a year that went on to have a successful NHL career. And that wasn't me arguing that, I was merely a spectator in those arguments and really didn't have much opinion on that one way or the other.
And outside of those first two years, it's not looking like a successful NHL career has been developing with him. His last season in the AHL was mediocre, but he performed well in his games in the NHL in that same season.
So that's why I'm not convinced that it was just the injuries. And when the hell isn't he injured to begin with? He was already nursing something with his elbow (obviously nothing major, as it didn't keep him from dressing for a single game) even before the injury that took him out.
