The New York Rangers' 2025-26 season went downhill once goalie Igor Shesterkin suffered an injury back in January. Coincidentally, the Rangers sent out a letter to the fans and the league that they were entering a retool and essentially, giving up on the rest of the season. He did return late in the season and helped the Rangers pick up some wins, which ultimately pushed them out of contention for the first overall pick in the NHL Draft.
Let's face it, as long as Shesterkin is healthy, the Rangers will have a chance to win. What would help make his job that much easier is if the Rangers gave them some support in the form of goals. Unfortunately, they didn't do that in the season opener on Tuesday.
The Rangers lost 3-0 to the Boston Bruins. All three of Boston's goals arrived with under three minutes left in the third period, two of them credited to Shesterkin, both of which arrived in under a minute apart. The final goal was scored on an empty net.
This was a remeinder of Rangers fans dealt with during Shesterkin's time and when they had Henrik Lundqvist in net — sometimes the offense doesn't give them enough support to help either netminder's phenomenal effort mean something in the end.
Igor Shesterkin isn't to blame for Rangers' shutout loss to Bruins
If there was one theme of the Rangers' season-opening defeat, it was the amount of odd man rushes and breakaways the defense and forwards allowed. It felt like, especially in the first and second periods, that the Bruins were bound to score a goal to put them ahead with the skater advantage. Luckily for the Rangers, Shesterkin was in net, and he put a stop on all of them. If it were any other goalie in net, New York probably would have lost by a larger deficit.
Shesterkin did his best until Fraser Minten finally got a shot past him, and then J.J. Peterka shortly afterwards after dekeing Braden Schneider out of his skates. Shesterkin was pulled with over two minutes left as the Rangers tried to get something going offensively and to finally get on the scoreboard.
All in all, Shesterkin stopped 20 shots on 22 attempts. According to Natural Stat Trick, Shesterkin faced five high danger chances from the Rangers, and stopped four of them.
Igor Shesterkin needs Rangers offense to wake up to give him help
The Rnagers opting to retool was a gamble that general manager Chris Drury needs to pan out. That's because there is only so much of Shesterkin's prime left, and considering he is viewed as one of the best goalies in the game, they should be a team that is a constant threat to win the Stanley Cup.
The past couple of years, the Rangers took significant steps backwards after making the Eastern Conference Finals in 2024. Now, Drury sent out some prominent names this year like Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck. The team brought in new scoring forwards in Pavel Dorofeyev and Oliver Bjorkstrand, while bringing in new defenders in Marcus Pettersson and Sean Durzi. These moves were made to help the team try and make a push for a playoff spot as soon as this season out of the Metropolitan Division.
It's only been one game and there's not necessarily reason to panic. The second forward line of Dorofeyev, Bjorkstrand, and J.T. Miller were the most effective on Tuesday in Boston. But if they want to stack some wins at the start of the season, the Rangers will need to start scoring some goals. In their next five games, they face off against the likes of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Utah Mammoth, and Washington Capitals, who should be tough opponents. The Detroit Red Wings are probably the most beatable opponent during this stretch of five games.
There are still 83 games left in the season, so the team has more than enough time to head in the right direction. But they can't leave Shesterkin stranded on an island like they did in Boston.
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