2025 Rangers Report Card: Igor Shesterkin

This post is part of an ongoing series of Rangers Report Cards, grading the performance of each member of the 2024-25 New York Rangers. To view more report cards in this series, go here.

Expectations

Entering the 2024-25 campaign, Igor Shesterkin's future with the Rangers was the most pressing question the organization faced. Playing out the final season of a four-year, $22.67 million contract he signed in the summer of 2021, Shesterkin's play through the length of that deal had him lined up to reset the goaltending market in his upcoming foray into unrestricted free agency, whether that be with the Rangers or another franchise.

Just as it did 11 years earlier when Henrik Lundqvist was on the cusp of free agency, New York made it a priority to get an extension done with Shesterkin in the midst of the season. Just as Lundqvist was made the highest-paid goaltender in NHL history upon signing his extension, so too was Shesterkin when he signed his new contract on Dec. 8, 2024.

The eight-year, $92 million ($11.5 million AAV) extension eclipsed the previous highs of $84 million in total money and $10.5 million in average annual value set by Carey Price and the Montreal Canadiens in 2017. With Shesterkin locked in as New York's franchise goaltender for the foreseeable future, it's time to review what he brought to the table this past season what to expect moving forward.

Performance

Boxcar Stats: 61 starts, 27-29-5 record, .905 Save%, 2.86 GAA, 6 shutouts

Analytical Metrics: 6.38 GSAA, 28.59 GSAx, .815 High Danger Save%, .871 Penalty Kill Save%

At first glance, Shesterkin's performance in 2024-25 has things that stand out positively and negatively. With the Rangers' attempted chase of the final Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference, Shesterkin was one of five goalies in the league to make 60+ starts, getting the nod a career-high 61 times.

Shesterkin matched his career high with six shutouts, including one to close out the season against the Tampa Bay Lightning, but still posted career-worst numbers across the board among the surface-level numbers.

Scoring has been on the rise across the NHL since Shesterkin entered the league in 2020, but even with year-over-year era adjustments to account for that, the .905 save percentage he posted was the worst of his career. Goals before the first television timeout of games were an issue throughout the season for the Blueshirts, which checks out with Shesterkin's numbers of a career-low save percentage in spite of tying his personal best in shutouts. If opposing teams were going to break through, it was likely happening early on.

Shesterkin grades out a mediocre 22nd in the league by raw save percentage, but using numbers that take team defense into account paint a more forgiving picture. New York's defensive play was lambasted throughout the season, and rightly so. In-zone coverage breakdowns and odd man rushes were commonplace as the Rangers hemorrhaged dangerous scoring chances against.

Using Evolving Hockey's Goals Saved Above Expected model, Shesterkin finishes a much more respectable sixth among his peers. Shesterkin grades out well in some models as well, although the consensus suggests a handful of other netminders played at an equal or higher level than the Blueshirts' franchise goaltender:

While Shesterkin grades out well given the context of the Rangers' horrid defense, the difficulty in grading him comes in how he performed relative to his peers. The Montreal Canadiens performed very similarly on the ice when juxtaposed with the Rangers over the course of the season. Montreal racking up more bonus points in the 3-on-3 portion of the game was the primary difference between them making the playoffs and the Rangers failing to qualify, but the two teams were similarly dysfunctional defensively at 5-on-5.

Playing behind a defensive structure about as porous as New York's, Sam Montembault posted a .902 save percentage and 30.79 goals saved above average for Montreal. The Canadians haven't built their team from the net out, nor do they count on Montembault to play to the level of the Igor Shesterkin's of the world, but that's what they got for the $3.15 million cap hit they committed to Montembault.

A bit different scenario, but one still worth highlighting, is Anthony Stolarz and the Toronto Maple Leafs. A one-time top prospect with the Philadelphia Flyers, Stolarz never quite reached the heights expected of him and had unremarkable stints with Edmonton and Anaheim before winning the Stanley Cup as the Florida Panthers' backup in 2024.

Stolarz parlayed a strong season in Sunrise into a two-year, $5 million contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs where he has emerged as the team's 1A goaltender. A mid-season knee injury sidelined him for two months, but Stolarz's .926 save percentage and 31.2 goals saved above expected in that limited time frame grades out as the second best mark in the NHL, an impressive feat given GSAx is a cumulative stat. The Leafs are a much stingier defensive time than either the Rangers or Canadiens, but Stolarz' performance remains one of the best in the league this past season.

There were a number of other goalies who performed in the same neighborhood of or slightly worse than Shesterkin, such as Calgary's Dustin Wolf, Anaheim's Lukas Dostal and Utah's Karol Vejmelka just to name a few, with the overarching point being that teams around the league are getting similar production at much lower costs than what Shesterkin brought to the table in 2024-25.

Such is the nature of the goaltending position in the NHL. For a team which spent the previous 15 years prior to Shesterkin's arrival building their roster in more or less the exact same manner in front of a goalie better than Shesterkin without the ultimate prize to show for it, it's fair to wonder recreating the Lundqvist era with a lesser goalie is the best path to take.

Shesterkin's extension being signed prior to the announcement of the league's expected salary cap growth over the next three years will ease those concerns to a degree. For as good as Shesterkin was this past season, he'll need to be better moving forward for the Blueshirts to get back to the playoffs and beyond.

Grades

Author Grade: C+

Banter Consensus: B+

Final Evaluation

Igor Shesterkin was a good goaltender for a flawed Rangers team in 2024-25. The issue with Shetserkin simply being "good" is that, much like his predecessor, the Rangers' roster necessitates the goaltender be great in order for the team to succeed.

When the Blueshirts take the ice in 2025-26, Shesterkin will do so as the highest-paid goalie in the history of the sport, and it'll be both New York's flawed roster and his shiny new contract necessitating that Shesterkin be great in order for the team to succeed.

Playing better than the Sam Montembault's and Anthony Stolarz's of the hockey world is not an unreasonable ask of Shesterkin. Hopefully he can do that next season and be a key piece on a Rangers team with eyes on a bounce back performance.

All data via Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, and NHL.com