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History repeats itself at Rangers: Igor Shesterkin suffers the same fate as Henrik Lundqvist

 Emma Wilson
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History repeats itself at Rangers: Igor Shesterkin suffers the same fate as Henrik Lundqvist
Credit: Photo by Jared Silber/NHLI via Getty Images

The Presidents’ Trophy winners, the New York Rangers, were eliminated last night and sent on vacation by the Florida Panthers.

Incidentally, this is the 11ᵉ consecutive season that the Presidents’ Trophy winners have not won the Stanley Cup in the same season.

This hasn’t happened since 2013, when the Chicago Blackhawks won both trophies.

In short, the Rangers still had a great playoff run.

However, that run would never have been as long without Igor Shesterkin.

Without their goaltender, the New York Rangers probably wouldn’t even have made it to the conference finals, and would surely have fallen to the Carolina Hurricanes.

Without Shesterkin against the Panthers, the series could have been over long ago, considering that Florida was the better team in each of the six games of the series.

Panthers head coach Paul Maurice himself said he hadn’t seen a goalie have such a good series since Jose Theodore won the Hart Trophy in 2002.

In short, the Rangers’ 28-year-old goaltender has been nothing short of sensational in these 2024 series, maintaining a goals-against average of 2.28 and a save percentage of .927.

Unfortunately for Shesterkin, it all came to nothing in the end, as he didn’t have the offensive support from the rest of his team to help him out in the slightest.

Shesterkin couldn’t do everything on his own, and really needed more goals from his team.

Does this Rangers situation remind you of anything?

Yes, the Henrik Lundqvist story seems to be repeating itself again with the Rangers.

New York has an excellent goalie, but simply can’t help him by scoring more goals and being more threatening offensively.

The Rangers have a completely different team (apart from Chris Kreider) to the one Henrik Lundqvist had in front of him, but history repeats itself, as Igor Shesterkin does everything he can to carry his team on his back, but in the end, it comes to nothing.

New York was lucky to have Shesterkin in this playoff run, because without him, they would have been eliminated earlier.

The Rangers have been outshot in 13 of their 16 playoff games.

That says a lot about how the team held up in front of Shesterkin, who faced a total of 524 shots in those 16 games.

In short, we can really understand Shesterkin being completely bummed out by the Rangers’ defeat after he went and gave his all for the club.

He’s suffered the same fate Henrik Lundqvist has suffered his entire career with the Rangers.

The Rangers will really have to find a way to not leave their goalie to his own devices and help him out with more offensive support.

It’s surprising that with all the talent on this team, the problem is still the lack of goals scored and chances generated.

Anyway, let’s see how things play out next year in the playoffs for the New York Rangers.


In a flurry

– The Panthers will have beaten three excellent goaltenders en route to the Stanley Cup Final.

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– Paul Maurice’s troupe has won 17 playoff games by just one goal over the past two seasons.

– It’s going to be quite a game.

– It’s now or never for several Stars players to stand up.

– Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is much loved in the Oilers dressing room.

– Swiss hockey is really on the rise.

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