Rangers vs. Mammoth: Oh No, Igor
With Shesterkin hurt, the Rangers’ thin margin for pretending this season is salvageable may finally be gone. And the on-ice product keeps reinforcing that reality.
- Does anything really matter at this point aside from the impending update on the injury to Igor Shesterkin? There are a range of outcomes here, going from "he'll be back in a week or so" to "he's going to miss a chunk of next season, too." Obviously it's hard to speculate what the ripple effects will be without knowing that timeline. The expectation is we'll know more today. At least, I hope.
- That said, there are two takeaways from the Shesterkin injury (from a business perspective; obviously you want him to be healthy as a human). The first is that any injury keeping him out for the rest of this season but doesn't bleed into next really isn't a major deal, if you're being realistic with yourself about this current team. I think many people understand the New York Rangers just aren't that good, and they should be sellers regardless of their starting goalie being injured for a vague amount of time as of this writing.
- The second is that if Igor is out long term, the silver lining is it won't allow anyone to pretend this team is something they are not. I had started writing up a Joe's Reaction of the Week story about the perception of the team after the win over Florida in the Winter Classic, but that's now being scrapped to talk about James Dolan's interview on WFAN. The summary for this point is: Dolan is happy to be patient—which is a good thing regardless of your feelings on Chris Drury—and this injury might give Drury an excuse to blow things up further.
