The Devils are ahead thanks to Schmid’s historic run against the Rangers

The victory of the Swiss goalkeeper Akira Schmidt He continues to his first Stanley Cup playoffs. With the New Jersey Devils on Thursday, he won Game 5 of the first round of the Eastern Conference series against the New York Rangers 4-0 at home at the Prudential Center and earned his first playoff title.

“Jersey had a great game, their best game of the series,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said, emphasizing Schmid’s role. “We created traffic in front of goal and their goalkeeper was really good. Igor Shesterkin He was excellent at our goal as well, but Schmid was great.”

The Devils started the series weakly with two losses. Schmid was not used in those first two matches. In Game 3 he solves it Vitek Vanishk between publications, after which the course of the series changed completely. While the Rangers dominated the first two games scoring ten goals, Schmid only conceded one goal in games three and four and scored two wins. With the close on Thursday, he has three wins in his first three playoff games. Save 80 of 82 shots (97.6 percent capture rate).

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Schmid praised his teammates, “The boys played exceptionally well in front of me.” “It wasn’t a lot of work for me out there. I can’t praise the guys enough. We blocked a lot of shots, we were on goal and we didn’t let the puck go.”

in the first trimester Ondrej Balat After just 39 seconds to 1: 0 to the Devils. Rangers had their chances, but Schmid saved them in the first third and prevented them from equalizing a good chance before Artemy Panarinwho shot on the wrist from the standoff circle in the 10th minute.

“We evolved as a team,” the Devils forward explained Eric Hola. “Even during the qualifying series, we made more strides. You have to praise the young players for realizing what you need to do to win and acting right.”

Video: NYR @ NJD, Gm5: Mercer and Haula present a reductive target

In the second part of the game, Haula (24) increased the strength of the game to 2: 0 and Dawson Mercer (34) extended the lead to 3:0 with a man down. Schmid made 13 more saves in the second 20 minutes. The Devils dominated the last third with a 20:2 shot on goal, and Hula (55th place) provided an assist from it Nico Hischer for the end result.

“Today we really applied our match plan and played to our strength,” said Captain Hischer, pleased with the result. “It was a really tough game from everyone.”

This is especially true of Schmid. With his previous playoff performance, he played in an exclusive company. He became the third guard in Devils series history to make the playoffs as a rookie. Before him, only Sean Burke and the legendary Martin Brodeur could do it. The last Devils playoff game is also credited to Brodeur and dates back to 2012. But an even more impressive statistic is that only one goalkeeper in the entire history of the Stanley Cup Playoffs has conceded fewer goals in their first three playoff games than Schmid. Normie Smith only conceded one goal in three games in 1936.

Video: Schmid and Hula lead the Devils to a 4-0 victory

Thanks to Schmid’s exceptional performance, the Devils are now up 3-2 in the series and seem to have pulled back on the Rangers, especially on offense. Against their closest rivals, the Devils are just one win away from advancing to the second round. They last managed to do it in 2012. In that time they marched to the Stanley Cup Finals before losing six games to the Los Angeles Kings.

The Devils have their first puck in Game 6 at Madison Square Garden on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; NHL.tv; Sunday 2 p.m. EST).