The 6-foot-2, 195 pound goaltender from Marblehead MS played in 24 games for Philips-Andover Academy last season, posting a 17-5-2 record with 6 shutouts, a sparkling 1.42 GAA and .956 save percentage. He faced questions on the talent of his opposition, but answered those by turning in a gold medal performance at the World Under-18 Championships, going 5-0-1 with a 1.71 GAA and a .929 save percentage in 6 games. Also this past season, Schneider was awarded with the John Carleton trophy by the Boston Bruins for the top student-player in Massachusetts. To top it all off, he was Captain of his team at Philips-Andover, a rarity for a goaltender. 'We're pretty thin in net,' said general manager Dave Nonis. 'This does plug a hole. We don't have the depth at that position that other NHL teams have.' Vancouver's situation between the pipes is potentially excellent, but also fragile. Dan Cloutier has been tendered a qualifying offer, but whether he will accept it or opt for arbitration remains to be seen. Backup Johan Hedberg becomes an unrestricted free agent July 1st and all indications are that the Canucks will not try to re-sign him. Alex Auld showed signs of brilliance, and will most likely start the season as backup, and may challenge for the starting position.
Schneider says that his plans are to attend Boston College next year and play there, but concedes that he may consider playing in the QMJHL for Rimouski, who drafted him in the QMJHL draft, if the Canucks thought it was in his best interests.
Schneider was the Canucks only pick of the day, until Canucks scout Thomas Gradin informed Dave Nonis of a potential gem playing in Northern Sweden. Nonis flipped a deal to get another pick Saturday, and selected Swedish defenceman Alexander Edler 91st overall. 'You’re going to have a hard time finding stuff on him(Edler). Not many people saw him play. Gradin was probably one of four or five scouts around the league that saw him play and he felt very strongly that this is a guy that we should try to get and that is the reason why we moved for a third round pick', said Nonis. 'The other teams that saw him had told him that they were going to select him and we knew that we had to get ahead of them in order to secure his rights and that is what we did. He’s going to go play in Modo next year and those of you in Vancouver know what type of people and players they turn out and we think he’s going to develop fairly quickly there.'
This past season, Cloutier, 28, posted a 33-21-6 record with a 2.27 GAA with 5 shutouts. He played well down the stretch and was a key part of the Canucks going 5-0 to end the regular season and clinch the Northwest Division title. He also had a strong showing in the playoffs before going down with an injury during the first period of Game 3 against the Calgary Flames.
Sources say that both Cloutier and top line Center Brendan Morrison are 'very motivated' to signing long term contracts with the Canucks instead of going to salary arbitration in August. Both players have been part of the Canucks core group for several years, but 3 straight years of early playoff exits have prompted management to take a good look at the core group and maybe make some changes. This has lead a lot of hockey insiders as well as Canucks fans to speculate that both Cloutier and Morrison would be on their way out of town, perhaps in a package deal.
The knock on Cloutier has been inconsistency in the playoffs as well as an injury bug that tends to strike late in the season. This qualifying offer is seen as a vote of confidence in the netminder by some, but speculation that Cloutier could be part of an upcoming deal has surfaced as well.
Cloutier was acquired from the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2001 and has a 101-65-23 record with Vancouver in the regular season.
The game is set to release in fall for PlayStation 2, GameCube, X-Box and PC.
