When will Jonathan Quick’s first start for the Rangers be?

With the news that Igor Shesterkin will again start tonight for the Rangers against Nashville, his fourth start to open the season, one of the big questions is when Jonathan Quick’s first start for the Rangers will be. It seemed logical to get him some game action against four pretty bad opponents. After Nashville tonight, the Rangers travel west for a 5 game stint through Seattle and western Canada.

Jonathan Quick’s first start will likely come in that stint, and it begs the question why he wasn’t started sooner. Aside from Buffalo, none of the teams the Rangers have faced thus far or tonight will be playoff teams. When they head west, they face at least two teams (Seattle, Edmonton) that made the playoffs last season.

So when will Jonathan Quick’s first start come?

The most logical answer is Saturday in Seattle. The Rangers have a bit of a schedule problem between tonight and Saturday, with a game tonight, a six hour flight to Seattle, and a game Saturday against the Kraken. That’s a lot in a 48 hour span for anyone, and it makes sense that the Rangers goalies would split the games.

If not in Seattle, which seems to be the only logical answer at this point, then perhaps Peter Laviolette is saving Jonathan Quick’s first start for a non-playoff team while the Rangers are rested. That is most likely Calgary, but after that it’s Vancouver a week from Saturday. That’s a lot of time to wait for his first start.

Is there another reason to delay Quick’s first start that we aren’t seeing?

If you want to go full tin foil hat, perhaps the Rangers are holding out Jonathan Quick’s first start due to his horrible preseason. This would give him the first two weeks of the season to get up to speed and hopefully find his game. This theory would also work for a mysterious injury that would keep him out of games.

The only other explanation, as of now, to delay Jonathan Quick’s first start is that the Rangers just aren’t confident or comfortable with him in net yet. It was, after all, a horrible preseason. A few periods of preseason hockey shouldn’t be a big barometer for future success, but it was the way that Quick was being exploited. He was slow, and his trademark athleticism in net was nowhere to be found. Perhaps his age caught up to him.

In either case, and both of these are stretches, the Blueshirts would want to bank as many points as possible early on against bad opponents to help cement their playoff case. You can’t make the playoffs in October, but you can miss them. A combination of a slow learning curve (which hasn’t happened yet) plus a backup that costs the team points could put them in a precarious spot early in the season.

Again, both of these are stretches and are full tin foil hat theories. The most logical answer –targeting the west coast trip with a quick turnaround this weekend– is the most likely answer.

However, there are many of us that still remember Martin Biron being deked into retirement on the west coast. It’s tough to ignore the similarities here. Biron lasted two games in 2013-2014. The hope and expectation is that Quick doesn’t provide a sequel.