The New York Rangers are starting to slide further and further away from their ultimate destination: the Stanley Cup Playoffs. These last few games have been a serious rough patch, but the offense and defense looked pretty remarkable against a locked-in playoff team, the Toronto Maple Leafs. In the 4-3 loss on Thursday night, the only area of the ice you can blame for the defeat would be the goaltending, and obviously, that would be Igor Shesterkin.
Let us give Shesterkin a grade for his perfromance in Thursday nights loss to the Maple Leafs.
This was one of the worst losses of the season for the Rangers. Shesterkin, who now holds a record of 23-25-4, has now lost his third straight start. This has been an off-season for him, and after signing that mammoth contract at the beginning of the season, the pressure might be getting to him just a bit.
Thursday's home bout against the Maple Leafs dropped Shesterkin's record at Madison Square Garden to 11-15-2 on the season. That is a horrific statline compared to last season's impeccable 19-9-0 record at home. Overall, it was a bad game from No. 31, and the Blueshirt faithful are starting to take notice.
On 28 shots, he allowed four goals. This was the third straight Canadian team he faced at home on this home-stand, and Shesterkin has not found any bit of a groove. Toronto was ferocious in their own right, but a few of these goals they scored should have been routine for the former Vezina Trophy winner.
According to Moneypuck.com, Shesterkin's xGoals against average was a 2.765. He was deep into the negative, at -1.23 goals saved above expected, meaning that he should have been able to save another goal, potentially two. That could have been all the difference between a win and their seventh loss in nine games.
To put that into perspective, on the rest of the season, he is one of four goalies to appear in 52 games this season, and he has the highest goals against at 139, as well as the highest expected goals against at 157.84. Overall, he has been great, but against the Maple Leafs, he struggled mightily against the 8th-best scoring team in the NHL.
All in all, he could not keep the Rangers in this game, and it was two points that slipped away. The offense was able to get out of that hellacious rut they were in against Calgary earlier this week, and put on 30 shots against the Maple Leafs. But, Shesterkin could not shut the door on the high-powered offense and it was deemed a losing effort.