Henrik Lundqvist is going to go down as the greatest New York Rangers goalie of all time. However, his willingness to play through anything is one of his greatest downfalls.
No matter how bad the New York Rangers get, Henrik Lundqvist is a bright spot. He has played on this team for 14 years now, and through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, he has been a constant.
Lundqvist’s competitive spirit and hunger for wins is well known by fans and players alike. However, his desire to play as many games as possible in a rebuilding year, while admirable, is not something to strive for in the longterm.
Last season, Lundqvist started 61 of 82 games. Former coach Alain Vigneault’s evident mistrust of former backup Ondrej Pavelec led to Lundqvist starting 74% of last year’s games. While Vigneault probably did this to save his job, starting a then 35-year-old goalie for that many games is frankly unacceptable.
With new coach David Quinn coming in, it was expected that Lundqvist would start substantially fewer games than he did last year. So far, Lundqvist has started 19 of 25 games. This puts him on pace to start 76% of the games this year, even more than last season. At 36 years old, this is simply too heavy a load for him to take on.
This isn’t to say Henrik Lundqvist physically can’t handle this amount of games. He keeps himself in fantastic physical shape and I firmly believe that he could start all of these games. The thing is, he shouldn’t.
Yes. the Rangers are on a hot streak right now. However, the streak is probably unsustainable. Because of this, there is no sense in overplaying Lundqvist. An exhausted goalie could lead to a first round playoff annihilation for the Rangers. It makes no sense, especially when the Rangers have a solid backup in Alexandar Georgiev.
As terrible as it is to think about, Henrik Lundqvist will one day retire. We will no longer hear “and in goal, number 30…” to start a game, and that day is fast approaching. The Rangers need to figure out who will start in net until Russian phenom Igor Shestyorkin is NHL ready, if he even becomes NHL ready. Georgiev is that player.
Although Georgiev has looked good in his short NHL career, he is only 8-7-1 and has a goals against average of 3.13. He does have an excellent save percentage of .913, a clear indication that the team in front of him has faltered multiple times. It’s time for David Quinn to bite the bullet and give Georgiev a real chance and time to give Lundqvist some much deserved rest.