So lucky. The New Jersey Devils are so lucky, and I don't just mean that in the sense that you need a couple fortuitous bounces to go your way to come back from a three goal deficit on the road with a depleted lineup and a long-suffering goaltender entering in relief. The luck I'm referring to is somehow, against all odds, timing the morale boost of Cory Schneider's first regular season win in the flipping of multiple calendars at the end of a road trip during which they predominantly played the infuriating role of snoring passenger across multiple state lines...
My frustration had been building like that of a pissed off girlfriend suffering through a suspiciously quiet Valentine's Day ever since the Devils showed about as much of an interest in being in St. Louis as the Rams. Then, just when that hopelessness was about to manifest itself in hysteria, they basically busted down the door armed with a goddamn garden of good will and managed to find the only course of action for all to be forgiven. In no way, shape, or form should an otherwise uncompetitive team be all hugs & kisses coming off three games that were largely a sad excuse of an out-of-town effort. Yet, if only for one night, we were all Drew Stafford...
Of course, that luck of which I spoke earlier was long overdue with the Devils both accidentally and actively sabotaging the outcome of the few starts in which Cory Schneider played well enough to win. Still, for a fatalistic fourteen months to come to a head when his team had appeared to bury theirs in the sand prior to a nauseatingly necessary change in net was as entirely unexpected as it was absolutely awesome. Battling back to tie the game and using all 1.5 seconds of which they possessed the puck in overtime to slap a period on what felt like one man's run-on sentencing of solitary defeat was just the perfect punctuation. As the Devils are merely playing for pride and draft position at this point, there's not too many wins that are going to fully feel like such, but with the come-from-behind beating of the most malicious of monkey off the back of Cory Schneider came a thrill that's been unfortunately unfamiliar this season. There's a joke to be about how not playing Cory Schneider for the first ten minutes of games could have ended his losing streak a long time ago. However, the fact of the matter is that this feels all the more uplifting due to the professionalism of the person who has had to swallow his pride in becoming a punchline. Say what you want about him aging poorly as a player, but - to a man - what he's had to go through as a competitor sucks six different ways to Sunday. The hope is that this a huge step in the same direction his confidence has been trending of late, but - realistically speaking - the future might hold a few more failures for Cory Schneider. That said, if he's proven anything since December 27th of 2017 it's that neither his effort or attitude will be responsible for a single one of them.
There's not a player, person, or teammate in the entire league that's been more deserving of an all-too-elusive victory, so a tip of the cap to Steve Cangialosi for having the wits about him to call it as we all saw it. Last night, relief - in every literal and figurative sense of the word - was spelled C-O-R-Y.
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