Shesterkin’s injury history a reason for concern

With Igor Shesterkin sustaining what appeared to be a serious leg injury, it raises questions about how long he will be out.   After the game, Coach Gerard Gallant downplayed the injury, saying “They’re telling me it’s not as bad as it looks.” When asked if was concerned, he said “Not major yet, they haven’t told me nothing, don’t worry about it.”

He went on to say, “Trainer just said it’s not…but, don’t worry about it, That’s all he told me.  Minor lower body. He’ll see.”

Considering how circumspect teams are about injuries, it’s no surprise that he played it down.  Not only that, but Gallant is a notorious optimist (not a bad thing) and until we get definitive word about how long Shesterkin will be unable to play, let’s agree to be skeptical and worried.

One reason to be concerned was Shesterkin’s reaction as he went off the ice. He was very upset and in the clip above you see him hit the wall with his glove at the 1:45 mark.   We’ll watch for updates.

Shesterkin’s durability

Assuming the the top goalie role, Shesterkin should be expected to play 50-60 games this season.  He was on a pace to appear in even more, starting 17 of the first 22 games.  At that rate he would start 63 games.  It didn’t help that Alexandar Georgiev was off to a rocky start and was pulled in his last start with the Rangers ahead.

However, over the last two seasons, Shesterkin has been injury prone.  Since he made his debut on January 7, 2020 through the end of last season the Rangers have played 88 games.  Shesterkin was out with injuries for 21 of those 88 games.  Here are the injuries.

2019-20: Missed 3 games with an ankle injury
Missed 6 games with broken ribs
Missed 2 Stanley Cup Qualifier games with groin injury

2020-21: Missed 10 games with groin injury

It’s the groin injuries that are of concern, especially if that is the injury he suffered in the San Jose game.  Both the ankle injury and the broken ribs were outliers, but if he has pulled a groin muscle for the third straight season, that’s not good.

If there was one thing you could say about Henrik Lundqvist, he was durable. In his last nine seasons in New York, he missed only 48 games.  That included 26 games in 2014-15 when he suffered a freak throat injury when hit by Ryan McDonagh’s stick.    In a span of 726 games in that time he missed only 22 other games with the worst a hip injury in 2016-17 that cost him eight games.

There’s no doubt that Shesterkin’s teammates and all Rangers fans will be holding their collective breaths until we know the nature of the injury.  Whether we really find out how bad it is remains to be seen.   Starting Tuesday in Chicago, the Rangers play 11 games in 25 days including two sets of back-to-back games and there is a  possibility that the postponed games against the Islanders and Ottawa could be squeezed into that schedule.

At any rate, when the goalie many consider is the top netminder in the NHL goes done with an injury, it becomes a hot topic.

There should be an update sometime before the Rangers host the Blackhawks tonight.