New York Rangers, the future of the crease is now
With the New York Rangers season officially completed, we are looking forward through the lens of an armchair GM. Over the last four days we have reviewed each of the team’s players, by position. With our first three reports we analyzed the forwards and in our fourth we reviewed the defense. Today we focus on the most fan divisive and controversial position. The final piece of our five part series takes a look at the goaltending.
If you missed any of our reports, they can be found here:
Part 1 – Centers Part 2 – Left Wing
Part 3 – Right Wing Part 4 – Defense
At any time over the past 15 years, this would have simply been a Henrik Lundqvist review. The King has been the New York Rangers starting goaltender since the NHL returned to play following the lost lockout season of 2004-05. Only five other goaltenders have been in the league as long. In the cap era, Lundqvist is either the league leader or in the top 10 for every statistical category of comparison.
Goaltenders in the cap era with minimum 100 games played
Times have changed, things are no longer as they were and there has been a changing of the guard. It is a complicated time in the New York Rangers crease. From October through December the games were split between the Lundqvist and Alexandar Georgiev tandem. Both performed adequately, if not at times well, considering Rangers surrendered the third most shots against (2381) and high danger shots against (674). Though, neither Lundqvist nor Georgiev played at a consistent enough level to be given the outright number one starters job.
Igor Shesterkin arrived on January 7, 2020 and the three headed goalie monster was born.