Goaltending: A Growing Need for the New York Rangers

Once again, the New York Rangers regular season has been catastrophic and a painful reminder that rock bottom is a journey, not a destination.

While the expectations for last season were higher, it truly felt like things could not get much worse this season. And, sure enough, the Rangers found a way to surprise us all. With a captain like J.T. Miller, the expectation was that even if the team struggled, they would at least always be competitive. Winning regularly may not have been the expectation, but lack of effort was something that was never supposed to be in question.

No BS, right? 

Well, five months into the season, and a whole bunch of BS later, the Rangers are in the draft lottery conversation and embarking on what the organization is labeling a "retool." While the goal—in theory—is for them to solve their problems quickly and get back into contention within the next couple of seasons, it’s becoming more and more of a concern whether that is truly an attainable goal.

Regardless of if this is a retool or a rebuild, the Rangers need to truly assess their organization from top to bottom. And, while it often falls by the wayside given the historic lack of concern with the position, the Rangers are going to need to start analyzing the future of their pipeline for goaltending.

Right off the bat I want to be clear about something: Igor Shesterkin is under contract until the year 2033. In addition to that, he is undoubtedly a top three goaltender in the NHL. If you want to nickel and dime Adam Fox about his rank in a league full of talent, I might disagree with you, but you’re entitled to that debate. However, as things currently stand when it comes to goaltending, there are very few, if any, goaltenders other than Connor Hellebuyck and Andrei Vasilevskiy that anyone would consider taking over Shesterkin if you could pick any goaltender in the world as your clear-cut number one. 

Unless Shesterkin has a complete change of heart, I don’t see him ever leaving New York. In that sense, the Rangers won’t have to worry about who their starting goalie is for quite some time. What they do have to worry about is their long-term future in the blue paint and maintaining their reputation as a breeding ground for elite, top-tier goaltending.

Benoit Allaire was—and still is—a huge reason as to why the Rangers have had so much success in goal. The transition from Mike Richter to Henrik Lundqvist to now Igor Shesterkin is, without question, one of the most insane goaltending pipelines in league history. If you want to take it one step further, Ed Giacomin to John Davidson to John Vanbiesbrouck also went hand-in-hand, to an extent, prior to Mike Richter's arrival in the early 1990s. 

With all that in mind, how the Rangers plan to continue that success in net down the road is an important conversation to have. With Jonathan Quick nearing the end of his career (and current contract), as well as some question marks with the team’s depth at the position, the Rangers might need to start incorporating goaltending as a position of need in future drafts, as well as in free agency.

With an important draft coming up this summer, let’s assess the franchise's current depth chart and piece together a course of action moving forward.  

Dylan Garand

Upon first glance, the future in the Rangers net seems a tad bleak. There was, and maybe still is, hope that Dylan Garand can transition into a capable NHL back-up/fringe starter, carrying the torch like Cam Talbot, Alexander Georgiev, Antti Raanta, and others.

However, up to this point, the Rangers continue to delay the possibility of that by bringing in aging veterans like Louis Domingue and Spencer Martin instead. At the time, the Domingue signing made sense. The Rangers were still looking to compete and, in that scenario, would benefit from a veteran like Domingue if things went south with Shesterkin and/or Jonathan Quick. While you could argue Garand was ready for that role last season, it was clear by the Domingue signing that the Rangers felt he wasn’t. 

With Spencer Martin, the logic seemed to be that Shesterkin was going to miss significant time with injury, Quick was dealing with some issues of his own, and on top of that, is near the end of his career. Did the Rangers need Spencer Martin? In what was clearly becoming a lost season, no. My initial opinion was perhaps throwing Garand into the fire with little-to-no help in front of him wasn’t the best development. But the more I thought about it, the more I questioned that decision.