ST. PAUL, Minn. — There was no backtracking, no coach-speak, no walking around an answer. Instead, David Quinn doubled down on his earlier statement that “keeping people sharp is no longer a high priority of ours,” and unequivocally declared Igor Shesterkin the current No. 1 goalie of the Rangers three-headed netminding monster.
“Yes,” Quinn said when asked if he thinks Shesterkin is the clear-cut No. 1, before he qualified the statement to make it more about this exact moment in time. “Right now, that is the situation we’re in, because of [Shesterkin’s] play, for sure.”
Quinn was forced to turn to Alexandar Georgiev for his team’s 4-3 shootout win over the Wild on Thursday night, as Shesterkin was dealing with a minor ankle injury suffered during the 4-1 win at Winnipeg on Tuesday night. That just happened to be the sixth win in seven career NHL starts for the 24-year-old Russian.
Quinn called Shesterkin “day-to-day,” and didn’t rule him out for the second leg of this road back-to-back, Friday night at Columbus. The Blueshirts also play a Garden matinee Sunday against the powerhouse Bruins.
Henrik Lundqvist backed up yet again. The 37-year-old future Hall of Famer has started just two games since Shesterkin was called up on Jan. 6.
“I think when you get three goalies and you were in the situation we were in, you’re a little bit sensitive to everybody,” Quinn said. “You want to give everybody an opportunity and see how this thing unfolds. I thought everybody had an ample opportunity and everybody had a chance to state their case. I just felt that Igor made the most impact and was in a position to ride him for a little while.”
Shesterkin has lived up to all the hype that surrounded him in Russia, where he was putting up unfathomable numbers in the KHL — which had to be taken with a grain of salt, considering the lack of competitive balance in a league run by cutthroat oligarchs. But he finally came to North America this year and started the season with AHL Hartford, where his dominance continued, despite the smaller rink and different style of play.
The Rangers couldn’t keep him there for too long, so after they returned from their New Year’s trip to western Canada, Shesterkin was called up and the difficult situation of having three goalies on the roster began. Quinn has made it clear the situation is “not ideal,” but the club keeps trudging along with no easy answer in sight.
It was assumed general manager Jeff Gorton was shopping Georgiev, a 24-year-old Bulgarian who hasn’t proven to be a clear-cut No. 1 goalie in his first 69 games in the NHL. Georgiev did have his moments in making 23 saves against the Wild and could very well one day be a team’s top netminder. But with Lundqvist having one more year left on his contract, carrying an $8.5 million salary-cap hit, and with the clout he holds in the locker room — not to mention the fact he is still playing at a very high level — it seemed as if Georgiev was the expendable one.
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That might still be the case, but a trade might be better suited for the summer, with Georgiev set to be a restricted free agent.
In a league in which two goalies mostly sharing the net has become the norm, however, it is not out of the realm of possibility the Rangers will find an amicable solution to part ways with Lundqvist — either asking him to waive his no-trade clause or buying out the final year of his deal, which would create unwanted dead cap space for the next two seasons. Even with his 38th birthday coming on March 2, Lundqvist is still a good goalie and is invaluable to the Rangers.
So is Georgiev, which is why the club is in this position.
“We’ve got confidence in all three of our goalies,” Quinn said.
There is no longer a question, however, as to who is at the top of the pecking order — at least for now and into the foreseeable future.