henrik lundqvist

Last year, Henrik Lundqvist was the talk of the town. It wasn’t because of his usual stellar play, though. It was due to his inability to keep the Rangers in games, especially later in the season. There were multiple times when Lundqvist allowed “weak” game tying or game winning goals. At least, that’s the way his play last season was perceived.

Make no mistake, Lundqvist had a down season last year. He wasn’t his usual self, able to make the difficult saves look easy and the impossible saves look somewhat challenging. He posted his worst SV% of his career at .910, and it was the first time in seven seasons that he posted a SV% below .920.

Hank has earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his ability to rebound, though. Even at 35 years old, it didn’t appear to be his skills that slowed. He was often caught leaning, beat by simple shots from medium or low danger that he normally would stop. That doesn’t necessarily signify slowing skills.

For any goalie, trust in the defense to force the shot is critical. After years of being forced to make the difficult saves, going post to post to stop point blank shots, and being unable to rely on his defense to clear the third, fourth, and fifth chances, perhaps that is what changed. Instead of anticipating the shot, he was caught leaning for the pass. When you’re caught leaning in the NHL, you get beat clean. It happened often.

This is just a theory, and it’s a sound theory based off the blue lines the Rangers have trotted out there the past three seasons. It’s also a theory that can be tested this season. If it truly was the Swiss cheese defense that Hank could no longer cover up, then theoretically he should rebound with a revamped blue line this year (this also assumes Alain Vigneault doesn’t play Staal/Holden together, separate, often, or at all).

The general hope –assumption– is that Lundqvist will rebound back to a .920 SV% goalie. He will revert back to the original Hank that stops the medium danger shots, an area in which he struggled last season, while being above average at stopping the high danger shots.

There is always the possibility that what we saw last season was what the future holds with Henrik Lundqvist. Goalies generally don’t age well, but the elite ones are still capable into their late thirties. Lundqvist isn’t in his late thirties yet, but he’s knocking on the door. All the improvements made on the blue line won’t mean much if Lundqvist doesn’t rebound, or worse, regresses.

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