There is no sugar coating it anymore. For the first time in 20 years, the New York Rangers might have a goaltending concern. The same Vegas team with 7 regulars out came into MSG and, despite the Rangers controlling play and getting their chances, stole the game. Horrendous goaltending was the culprit last night, along with some poor shooting luck, as Igor Shesterkin simply hasn’t looked right this year.
Shesterkin is supposed to be one of the best goaltenders of this new age of the NHL. This year he’s looking more like Marc-Andre Fleury who just has zero confidence in his game right now. We can talk 5v5 and powerplay metrics all we want, most teams can’t win games when goalies are saving less than 88% of the shots they face.
Not all of the goals last night were on Shesterkin, of course. It’s hockey, and specifically that Keegan Kolesar snipe was an unstoppable shot. Jonathan Marchessault had an open net off a crazy bounce too. Perfection isn’t the expectation, but it seems shots that he used to stop are going through him.
Aside from Shesterkin, the rest of the team looks checked out. It’s incredibly disappointing to watch, and it’s incredibly frustrating that the team is nowhere near where they were in the first 20 games of this season.
Mika Zibanejad gets a lot of flack on Rangers socials these days for his lack of point production, but there really may be something there. In only year 2 of an 8 year deal where he has a full NMC, he really has the tendency to be streaky. He’s clearly in a slump now, and it looks like there’s no fire, no pushback, and his shifts have him going through the motions.
A lot of that can be said for a majority of the leadership group of this team. Guys like Mika and Kreider are so introspective that when they’re on, they’re on, but when the team is in the state that it’s in now, they appear to fade to the background. Maybe the time off while they’re on their vacations, they can stew in frustration and come back and be the players we know they can be.
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