Yes, the Rangers have had similar starts to seasons as this one in which the club took its 19-6-1 mark onto the Garden ice Tuesday night against the Maple Leafs.
Two years ago, in fact, the Blueshirts also racked up 39 points in their first 26 games by going 18-5-3 in Gerard Gallant’s first six weeks behind the bench.
Running it back a little bit further, the 2015-16 Rangers were 17-6-3 at the 26-game milestone a year after winning the Presidents’ Trophy before going down in seven to the Lightning in a conference final series that made no sense.
Similar starts, yes, but also entirely different, and that is because in both of those seasons, the Blueshirts had been carried to lofty heights by their goaltender and everyone knew it while waiting for a natural regression.
In 2015-16, of course, it was Henrik Lundqvist, who had the best opening in his career, recording a .937 save percentage and 2.04 goals against average through the club’s first 26 contests. It served as the King’s response to the challenge he’d been given at his exit meeting by head coach Alain Vigneault.
“The last thing he told me before I went back to Sweden was, ‘You have to be better when we start,’ ” Lundqvist said during the season’s first week. “That stayed with me the entire summer.”
Lundqvist did level off to a degree. The Rangers regressed. That was the Zed is Dead year. They still showed spurts of excellence, enough to fool general manager Jeff Gorton into doing the franchise’s usual deadline thing by renting Eric Staal.
The year of course ended in a calamitous five-game rout by the Penguins in the first round in which Lundqvist was pulled from both Games 4 and 5. Oh, that was bad.
Two years ago, it was Igor Shesterkin who camouflaged the club’s defects out of the gate, recording a 2.05 GAA and a very familiar .937 save percentage over the first 26 games while stealing multiple games as the club adjusted to Gallant and Gallant adjusted the club’s defensive-zone coverage.
There was some regression, the Rangers did slide to third in the division even as Shesterkin dominated in his Vezina season and emerged as his team’s best player once Games 3 and 4 of the first round in Pittsburgh were put firmly in a rearview mirror.
There’s no shame in a team being carried by its goaltender. Blueshirts’ assistant coach Michael Peca — who had the brainstorm to insert Jonny Brodzinski onto the first power-play unit in the third period of Sunday’s match against LA when Mika Zibanejad was in the box serving his 10-minute misconduct before the interloper all but immediately recorded the first power-play goal (and point!) of his NHL career — sure never apologized when his Buffalo teams of the late 90s were carried annually by Dominik Hasek.
But this team has not been carried by its goaltending, though Jonathan Quick’s season has been a revelation. The 37-year-old has both stolen games and has played well enough to allow the club to gain its equilibrium when outplayed. According to MoneyPuck, Quick is second in the league to Washington’s Charlie Lindgren in goals saved above expected per 60 minutes at 1.005. He is sixth in the NHL with a .922 save percentage among goaltenders with at least 450 minutes.
But Quick is also the backup. Hard stop. That’s the way it is. He has started nine games. Shesterkin has started 18 including this one against Toronto. And the netminder who will turn 28 on Dec. 31 has most certainly not been carrying the Rangers.
Shesterkin has been good, but not always. He has been excellent, but not so often since returning from the “general soreness” that sidelined him for two-plus weeks after defeating the ’Canes on Nov. 2.
That match marks an early fault line in his season, having gone 6-2 with a .913 save percentage and 2.36 GAA through that one, but a 4-4 record with a .905 save percentage and 3.28 GAA since. Some of the inflated numbers are due to the team’s structural dip, but that’s what franchise goaltenders are made for, correct?
Shesterkin’s overall numbers are not quite commensurate with his reputation as the best goaltender in the league, or even as one of the best three in the NHL. He ranks 14th in MoneyPuck’s GSAE per 60 while 24th in five-on-five save percentage (.912) and 23rd in overall save percentage at .908.
Fact is, Shesterkin was brilliant and dynamic during his 2019-20 debut season; inconsistent and disappointing in 2020-21; superior throughout his Vezina 2021-22; inconsistent and disappointing for the first five months of 2022-23 before kicking it in the final weeks of the season; and now, this.
It is not the seamless trajectory that obviously was unfair to expect. It is obviously unfair to expect anyone else to be Lundqvist.
The Rangers entered Tuesday tied with Boston for the NHL’s best point percentage at .750. They have not been carried by their presumptive franchise goaltender. There is less talk now of regression and sustainability than either two or eight years ago.
That’s good, right?
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