SUNRISE, Fla. — Igor Shesterkin has put up incredible numbers before. Just look at his Vezina Trophy-winning 2021-22 season — only Dominik Hasek and Tim Thomas bested Shesterkin’s .935 save percentage that year among goalies with at least 50 starts. His 37.4 goals saved above expectation was a dozen more than the next-closest total.
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So we know Shesterkin can shut the door with the best of them. In the playoffs, it’s not about aggregating major stats, and that can take a change in a goalie’s mindset. Shesterkin might have struggled with that in his first deep playoff run that spring 2022, when he was pulled in games 3 and 4 in Pittsburgh before the New York Rangers rallied to win in the opening-round series in seven games.
He’s not struggling with that concept anymore. It was perfectly on display Sunday here in Game 3, when Shesterkin was peppered with shots by a Florida Panthers team that at times dominated play. But even giving up four goals for just the second time in 13 playoff games this year, Shesterkin was the only reason the Rangers got to overtime.
From the time Jacob Trouba took a penalty for holding Matthew Tkachuk with 5:37 to go in a 4-4 game, the Panthers had 18 shot attempts to the Rangers’ zero. Seven were on net. Nothing got through, the Rangers got to overtime and gathered themselves for a 5-4 win.
Not the prettiest on the stat sheet for a goalie. But there is only one thing that matters now.
“If you can win games as a goalie when you’re a younger guy, you’re probably able to stick in the league,” said Jonathan Quick, who might know what it takes to win in the postseason. “You learn quickly to value the wins more than whatever the stats are. People that are focusing on the stats typically don’t have a great grasp of the game, right? They’re just kind of the box score crowd. You set out as a goalie every night, every day to win a hockey game. Whether it’s 1-0 or 6-5, you got the job done. You go in with that mentality. You know what’s truly important and you focus on that.”
Sunday’s win was Shesterkin’s fifth this postseason when giving up at least three goals. He had nine such wins over 55 regular-season starts, and in his last two postseasons, he’s won only three times when giving up three or more — games 5, 6 and 7 in the comeback over the Penguins in the 2022 first round.
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Some of that has to do with the Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes. They were ranked second and third in shots on goal per game this season, and the Hurricanes scored 3.4 goals per game, right behind the Rangers in the top 10 in the league. The expectation for goalies is that they won’t be able to completely shut the door this time of year, though Shesterkin had basically given up two goals through the first two games of the series — Alexis Lafrenière’s own-goal in Game 1 was a fluke.
“It doesn’t matter what kind of numbers you have, how many saves you make, just give up less than the other goalie,” Shesterkin said. “That’s it.”
After Shesterkin’s Game 3 performance, he can surely expect more attempts to throw him off his game Tuesday here for Game 4. Tkachuk had a few words in Shesterkin’s grill after the first period Sunday; asked what was said Monday, Shesterkin cracked, “I’m lucky because I don’t speak English.”
He said that in perfectly solid English, by the by.
Shesterkin does not ignore the distractors well. He got a hard leg-on-leg hit from Andrei Svechnikov in Game 2 against Carolina at the Garden last round, and instead of writhing around on the ice, the goalie went out to the scrum around Svechnikov to have some words, likely in their native Russian.
“I told him just play hockey,” Shesterkin said last week. “Don’t do stupid s—.” He added that Svechnikov apologized for the collision in the handshake line after the series ended.
Shesterkin wanted to take care of business himself after that. 🍿 pic.twitter.com/xtYfK2vvXW
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 7, 2024
And Shesterkin has already gotten a lick in this series, delivering a blocker punch to Eetu Luostarinen after the Panthers forward came into the crease with some recklessness in Game 1. Shesterkin had a running feud with the New Jersey Devils’ Timo Meier last postseason, also firing off some humor during that series when asked about Meier’s penchant for ending up on top of the goalie.
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“I think Meier watches a lot of MMA,” Shesterkin said last spring. “He likes Khabib (Nurmagomedov) for sure. I watch not too much Khabib, but I will work on that in the summer.”
Jokes aside, Shesterkin has shed what was a nagging issue for him during his midseason funk this year: giving up goals in quick succession, seemingly a sign of being unable to put what had just happened behind him. The Panthers rallied from 4-2 down in the third period with two goals in 1:54, had the crowd going wild and the Rangers looking shaky enough that Peter Laviolette called a timeout 92 seconds after Gustav Forsling’s tying goal.
It didn’t exactly help matters — recall the 18-0 shot attempts thing over the final 5:37 — but Shesterkin wasn’t fazed. “Already, you need to (be) focused on the next shot,” he said. “Try to stop the next shot.”
We don’t want to make it out to be that Shesterkin is struggling because he’s given up a few more goals than we’re used to seeing from him. Not the case at all by the eye test or (apologies to Quick) the data — Clear Sight Hockey has Shesterkin second among playoff goalies with 9.89 GSAx, and if this series goes a few more games he’ll surely pass Jeremy Swayman at 11.64.
The other remaining playoff goalies are all well behind in stopping goals better than expected: Sergei Bobrovsky (3.58), Jake Oettinger (1.29) and Stuart Skinner (minus-5.61!) are all far back. So, again — the goals are going in but your eyes aren’t deceiving you if you feel Shesterkin is the best goalie left in the playoffs.
That was the difference against the Hurricanes, possession stats be damned. Frederik Andersen gave away a goal a night in that series that Shesterkin did not. And at least in Game 3 on Sunday, Bobrovsky was inferior to Shesterkin, which again made the difference.
So the Rangers are halfway to a Stanley Cup Final. Shesterkin has given up some goals. But as long as he’s focused on the next shot, the next save, you’d rather be the Rangers with Shesterkin behind them than anyone else left in the postseason.
(Photo: Joshua Sarner / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
