10 Goalies You Probably Forgot Were New York Rangers
Forget the legends, because you know their names. This is a trip down memory lane with the Rangers’ most random goalies you probably forgot ever wore a Blueshirt.
You’ve probably heard people suggest that goalies are weird. As a once-upon-a-time goalie myself, I can vouch for that theory.
Hockey goaltenders are one of the most unique positions in all of sports. They’re the only player that spends every single second of an entire game on the ice, they wear different equipment, and have painted helmets that look like they belong in art museums more than a locker room. They seldom get credit when a team does well but are the first ones that get blamed when things go wrong. Jacques Plante said it best:
How would you like a job where when you made a mistake a big red light goes on and 18,000 people boo?
To say it’s a high pressure job is an understatement. And, as a result, it takes a unique type of person to willingly play the position that has solid vulcanized rubber flying at their heads from anywhere up to 100-110 miles per hour. You’d have to be crazy to have signed up for that prior to the 1960s’ when goalies didn’t wear a mask at all. You could thank Hall of Fame goaltender Jacques Plante for that one, as well, seeing as he was the innovator for goaltenders wearing proper protection in the first place.
Inspired by NHL Goalie week that was celebrated a few weeks ago, instead of making a list of the ten best Rangers goalies of all time, or talk more about the Rangers current goaltending, we’re going to revisit some of the more random names who have dawned the blue paint for the Rangers at one time or another.
Ondrej Pavelec
I’m not going to lie, Ondrej Pavelec is a goalie I think about every so often and always have to double check to make sure he was a real one-time Ranger. An Atlanta Thrashers draft pick in the year 2005, Pavelec was part of a dying breed as one of the final few active players in the NHL to have laced them up for the Thrashers. After four seasons there—where in the first of which he helped the Chicago Wolves win the Calder Cup in the AHL—Pavelec went on to retain the number one goaltender slot with the Winnipeg Jets from their inaugural season (for the second time) in 2011-12 and stayed there through 2017. His last season in Winnipeg was rough, splitting time between the NHL and AHL. But that summer, he signed a one-year contract to become Henrik Lundqvist’s backup.
The 2017 season was sort of the beginning of the end to an era in New York as The Letter and a rebuild soon followed. Still, the Rangers put up a 28-28-6 record, went on to win one playoff round, and Pavelec played a hand in getting them there with a .910 save percentage in 19 total games. He may have only been credited with a 4-9-1 record throughout that stretch, but he made for a solid veteran goaltending duo. Pavelec decided to retire the following season, which is sort of wild to think about considering he’s a year younger than Jonathan Quick, the Rangers current backup, and this was almost a decade ago.
