New York Rangers: Over reliance on goaltending is recipe for disaster

Although success was fleeting for the New York Rangers during the first 40 games of the season, when it did come, it was a result of the goaltending.

Any time a once great team begins to decline, it stems from the aging process and players leaving in free agency. In some cases, the team’s best player is able to defy father time for longer than expected but they are still not at the level they used to play at. In the case of the New York Rangers, Henrik Lundqvist is still very good, but cannot be relied on to win games every night.

There was an expectation that there would be a struggle this season for the Rangers. The roster in front of the netminder was going to be the worst in a long while, but the youth and culture change was supposed to at least serve as a distraction if the wins did not follow.

This is not to say that Lundqvist and his backup, Alexandar Georgiev have played especially bad. It’s hard to be an effective goaltender when you’re constantly under barrage from the other team. New York’s skaters have bad puck possession and struggle to maintain their defensive zones. When zones breakdown in coverage, the whole system becomes compromised.

The team is 15-6-2 when either of the team’s goaltenders has a save percentage above 92 percent but are 2-9-5 when it is below the NHL average of .909. That is such a sharp drop off in final team performance based on a single player, that it’d be impossible to sustain over the course of an entire season unless Lundqvist was 25 again.

There were points early on in his career that the Swede was able to stand on his head three straight nights in which the team in front of him could scrape out three goals and find a way to win. Now, the collection of talent in front of him needs the same level of play but from a soon to be 37-year-old.

There is a serious argument that Lundqvist continuing to hover around a .920 save percentage is the only thing keeping the Rangers away from being a bottom three team in the entire league.

As Lundqvist’s performance against the Colorado Avalanche on January 4th was a textbook example of what happens when an aging goaltender is relied on too much. The Swede was rolled out for his third straight start and the Rangers did not have even the slightest chance of winning.

If the Rangers’ front office is serious about transitioning to a long-range focus, it is imperative that Georgiev get more playing time down the stretch to get Lundqvist comfortable with the fact that he can’t start three straight games anymore without a noticeable drop off in play.

Given that the front office expected to struggle this season, it’s not too much of a surprise to actually see it happen on the ice. But, with so much hinging on the performance of Lundqvist and Georgiev, it would not be a suprise to see more blowouts like the 6-1 loss to the Avalanche in the second half of the season.