New York Rangers: Stepping into a goalie quagmire

The New York Rangers will be going with the three-headed goalie monster and if Igor Shesterkin plays well, it could be around for the rest of the season.  NHL teams try to stay away from carrying three goalies and there are reasons why.

Igor Shesterkin has been billed as the New York Rangers goalie of the future and his long awaited debut is finally here.   Contrary to speculation, he wasn’t promoted because of Henrik Lundqvist‘s illness or Alexandar Georgiev‘s shaky play.  He is a New York Ranger because of his play.  Right.

There are a lot of reasons to wonder why the Rangers made this move and when coach David Quinn addressed it after practice, he didn’t supply many answers.  In fact he was almost evasive in his rsponses.  The first question was about “the plan” and Quinn’s quick answer was “He’ll play tomorrow night.”   That wasn’t the question as his starting against Colorado had been set hours before.

Asked again, he did address why Shesterkin was called up:   “I just think it’s a natural progression, when you have a guy playing as well as he was in the American Hockey League, you call him up and you give him an opportunity.   Because of his position, it’s probably taken longer than it should have.  If you have a defenseman or a forward that was doing the things he was doing in the AHL, I think he would have been up a lot sooner.”

He also stressed that it was no reflection on Lundqvist or Georgiev.  “He played his way into this opportunity. It has nothing to do with Hank or Georgie, those guys have really given us a chance most nights.  It’s really more about Igor”

Watching Quinn, it felt like you were watching someone who had a problem dumped in his lap and it was pretty clear he wasn’t happy about it.

The clincher was when he was asked about how it was going to work.  His response was telling:   “We’re just taking it right now day by day, that’s all we’ve really thought about is the present right now, not three weeks from now or three months from now. Right now we’ve got three goalies. ”

Okay, time for a little skepticism.  You’ve got the highest paid, most senior player on the team about to be displaced by a rookie.  You’ve got a sensitive young player who has show signs of frustration  (his anger in the Edmonton game).  Yet, we are led to believe that this was a spur of the moment decision based on Shesterkin’s play without any thought about how it would affect the two goalies already with the team?

Then, Quinn admitted that he had not even spoken to Lundqvist or Georgiev about the situation yet.  According to Quinn, goalie coach Benoit Allaire had spoken with Lundqvist, but Quinn hadn’t.  What?

It’s no wonder that the speculation on the NHL Network was that this was meant to push Lundqvist towards waiving that no-movement clause and potentially going to a contender.  Based on what happened today, that scenario makes perfect sense.