Former Devils goaltender announces retirement from NHL

Schneider, 37, announced his retirement on Tuesday via a story with The Salem News. The lack of a market for him in the NHL and a lack of interest in playing in the AHL or Europe were the main reasons why he called it quits.

“I’m at peace with it,” Schneider said to The Salem News. “I’ll miss my teammates and the intensity of playing, but it’s the right time for me.

“If you had told me as a Marblehead High freshman that I’d play 16 years of professional hockey, I would’ve laughed in your face.”

Schneider finishes his career with 410 regular season NHL games across 13 seasons with the Vancouver Canucks, New Jersey Devils and New York Islanders. In those games, he started 389 of them, with a 171-159-58 record, a .918 save percentage and 26 shutouts. In 14 playoff games, he started nine and had a 2-6 record with a .931 save percentage.

Schneider had a stretch of play in the early 2010s where he was one of the best goaltenders in the NHL, but received little recognition for it, with just one trophy to his name in a William M. Jennings Trophy that he and Roberto Luongo won with the Canucks in 2011. He received votes for the Hart Trophy and Vezina Trophy in 2016, but never got a nomination for either award despite leading all goalies in save percentage from 2010 to 2016 with .926%.

Schneider was a first-round pick for the Canucks in 2004 at 26th overall and made his NHL debut in the 2008-09 season. He got a consistent NHL role in 2010-11 and served as a backup/1B starter for Vancouver until he was dealt to the Devils at the 2013 draft for the ninth-overall pick that would become Bo Horvat. He then usurped Martin Brodeur as New Jersey’s starter and was consistent in the crease for three seasons until his game fell off. After four underperforming seasons, his seven-year, $6 million AAV contract was bought out five years into 2020, and he spent his final three seasons in the Islanders organization, mostly in the AHL but he did get into one game in 2021-22.