It is anyone’s guess which goalie is going to play when the Rangers face the Stars on Monday at the Garden.
The three-goalie rotation has not been ideal, but coach David Quinn does his best to logically figure out who plays when. Igor Shesterkin started the first game out of the break, Friday night’s 4-2 win over the Red Wings at home, because he had played two games with AHL Hartford while the rest of the team was on vacation.
Then, Henrik Lundqvist got the second leg of the back-to-back, making 33 saves while registering his first shutout since Nov. 11, 2017. Lundqvist had lobbied for playing the first game back — Quinn said Lundqvist texted him while “sitting on the beach drinking pina coladas” during the break — but the explanation for starting Shesterkin was accepted.
Quinn also had a reasonable explanation why Lundqvist had played so little, Saturday just his second start since Jan. 4. During that stretch, Alex Georgiev played three games against the Islanders, against whom he had a terrific track record, and Shesterkin played the first two after his recall on Jan. 5. Asked if it has been tough to judge Lundqvist during this mostly idle stretch, and the coach had a simple answer.
“Yes, that can be difficult,” Quinn said, his team getting off on Super Bowl Sunday. “Listen, he’s a very good goalie and he’s going to play for us.”
The Rangers were shorthanded twice on Saturday night after taking no penalties on Friday night and just three in the previous two games before the break. They were still leading the league with 4.52 penalties taken per 60 minutes, compared to drawing 4.22. Their net-penalties of minus-.30 was seventh worst in the league.
“You’d like to be on the plus side,” Quinn said. “Our games tend to have penalties, for some reason. But believe me, I want to get our penalties down more than anybody.” … But we’ve done a better job of not taking stupid penalties and staying out of the box. Penalties get in the way of winning and losing.”
Their penalty kill was ranked 22nd in the league at 78.7 percent.
Coming out of the break, the Rangers play 16 games in 29 days, with nine of them on the road and four back-to-backs. Not to mention, the Feb. 24 trade deadline won’t help focus.
“Rest, taking care of yourself and living in the moment,” is how Quinn described his plan to deal with it all. “That’s a balancing act, and it’s not getting too high or too low.”
The Rangers called up forward Phillip Di Giuseppe from AHL Hartford. Then 26-year-old was up with the Rangers before the break, but didn’t dress for a game.
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