You know when the controversy might come? If the Rangers are able to win Wednesday’s potential-elimination Game 5 at home and send their first-round series back to Pittsburgh for a Game 6 on Friday. That is when questions will come and the history of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final will be studied.

First thing, first. Head coach Gerard Gallant’s immediate decision to go right back to Igor Shesterkin as the Game 5 starting netminder despite having been pulled from consecutive games in Pittsburgh in which he allowed 10 goals on 45 shots in 59:53 (.778 save percentage/10.01 GAA) was a righteous one.

Just because his teammates have recently abandoned the club MVP does not mean that the staff should follow. You cannot be eliminated with Zack Britton still in the bullpen; I mean, with a healthy Shesterkin on the bench. He is owed that level of faith after essentially carrying the Rangers through the season.

But more to the point is that Shesterkin’s work was exemplary in the opening two-game split at the Garden, when he recorded a .952 save percentage and 2.17 GAA by allowing six goals on 124 shots in 165:39.