Rangers vs. Capitals: Pain
Losing Igor Shesterkin is a gut punch. But the Rangers still fought against Washington, and now Dylan Garand has a chance to do the funniest thing possible.
- What do you even say?
- Just yesterday, Roberto (filling in for Joe's Reaction of the Week) wrote about how the New York Rangers were fun again and we should just embrace it. And then the universe laughed and reminded us that we can't have nice things.
- Igor Shesterkin's injury is devastating. We don't know how serious it is yet. And since we all know that the hockey world is not forthcoming in the slightest about injury details, all we'll get in the next few days is a ballpark time he's out with a lower-body injury. The only way that we'll hear anything remotely specific about it is if it's deadly serious and the recovery time will extend past the season.
- I've seen some people already saying that this is evidence of why you don't pay for goaltending. I can't quite express how unserious I think this is. Last year the Florida Panthers lost Aleksander Barkov for the entire season and suffered greatly for it, missing the playoffs entirely. Jack Hughes has been regularly injured for the New Jersey Devils, and they've suffered for it. If Connor McDavid were to blow out his knee and were lost for the season, it would be devastating for the Edmonton Oilers.
- Turns out that losing your best player, no matter what position they play, is really bad for a team. Who knew?
- That's cold comfort now for Rangers fans. Shesterkin was playing outstanding hockey to start this season and was a huge part of their early success. He wasn't the only reason for their early success—this wasn't like one of those seasons where Henrik Lundqvist played out of his mind behind a clearly insufficient team and dragged them to early wins that caused those of us who like to look at the underlying numbers to caution that it wasn't sustainable hockey. The good news here is that the Rangers have been playing much better as a hockey team overall. Doesn't make the loss of Shesterkin any less devastating, but the team's overall improvement shouldn't get lost in there.
- So, uh, good thing that Dylan Garand cleared waivers then, eh?
