How The Rangers Move On Without Igor Shesterkin & A 'Garand' Home Start

4-1 win over a Lightning team that went on a tear after dropping their season opener in New York. They won every game after they got beat in New York, but then they come back to New York and get beaten again by the New York Rangers. There's a full buy-in with the structure. I really like the mix of what they have personality-wise and talent-wise. And I think if they continue on, they will. I mean, this is a sustainable sort of situation that they found themselves in, barring any other catastrophic injury right we've got another episode of up in the blue seats for you all your favorite rangers podcast from the New York Post it's Molly Walker and former Ranger Ryan Boyle as always with plenty to talk about with this rangers team right now they are six and two tied for second place in the NHL with 12 points in eight games entering Wednesday night slate undefeated at home five and zero is the third longest win streak at home to start a season in franchise history you didn't know that you didn't catch that one yeah Ryan yeah Ryan and they've been without their star goaltender Igor Shesterkin for the past two games after finding out that he is done for the season what a gut-wrenching thing to happen to this team so early in the season Brian what was going through your mind at that moment watching that play please don't be bad please don't be bad yeah and unfortunately it was bad and that's the worst case right and and we were talking before we put this on record how quickly the response from the organization was and that's that is really really difficult to handle so you know we just I I've been through some injuries nothing like this I've never thankfully I never had to go through a long-term thing and that is the short-term injuries I've had are man they're lonely it's dark times it's really really you don't have a purpose really and it's slow progress so you know thoughts go out for him because I know people might think I'm overstating this I'm really not this is a guy who obviously is extremely committed to what he does this is the most important thing in his life and yeah it was just taken from him for a little while so and he scored and he was playing so well and the team was playing so well it's it's you know it's a little bit your heart goes out to Igor and credit to the team uh I was really interested to see how they were going to respond and not just whomever they threw in the net i wanted to see how the rest of the team responded and i mean pass with flying colors so far this is this is an impressive start for this group getting as many points as they can where especially in the time of the year where look at the look at the standings there's a lot of three and threes three two and ones two three and ones there's a lot of teams that are trying to find and i think will i think the the teams that maybe are whatever kind of middling right now will find their game some of them and some of them that might be above their skis might come back to earth but i like there's a full buy-in with the structure i really like the mix of what they have personality wise and talent wise and i think if they continue on they will they will i think i mean this is this is a sustainable sort of situation that they found themselves in barring any other catastrophic injury right yeah Yeah, it's hard not to feel physically ill when something like that happens, first and foremost for the player, like you mentioned, who we can't overstate enough how good of a start to the season he was having. I mean, he was automatic and was making it look like second nature and was, I mean, the swagger that he had in that I didn't even know it was possible, honestly I mean, he's always had a little bit of that, But it was basically oozing from the goal line to start this season for him and everything that he was doing And then it's so hard to tell with him because he's had similar reactions in the past and only been out a few weeks. But I kind of felt like in the moment and I had wrote it that way But it's heartbreaking to realize when you're right. It is a right knee injury that will obviously require surgery to fix. no there's been no word if it's ACL MCL or any specifics like that this is the NHL so but from a player's perspective Brian I mean what do you think was going on in that Rangers room in the aftermath yeah I mean it's you go to your teammate first yeah but again it's a funny league like it's a team sport it's the ultimate team sport I think of I you have to but you wake up every morning and you got to look at yourself in the mirror and be selfish in terms of what I have to be ready I have to eat the right things I have to go to bed at the right time you have to really be disciplined in yourself and think about yourself first so you can go and perform to your best for your teammates and then when something happens to your teammate you have to be there for your teammates so they obviously you know and that's just what you do it's like you don't really have a lot to say you kind of just huddle around the guy that's injured and just there's not a lot of words usually spoken in my experience and you just hey we're gonna we're gonna play well for you in your absence we're gonna do it and this is uh this is how opportunities are created this is how people you know i remember in training camp my second year in New York where i was specifically told i was gonna be in the minors that year and i started the training camp fairly well we're getting down to the nitty-gritty there's probably 15 or 16 forwards left on the roster and in a two on oh crisscross passing drill two guys run into each other one guy hurts his knee he's out for a month i stay on the roster and so like you have opportunities here you go that's a lot of games from a guy you expected to play in the net who plays a lot that are now open for someone else and that opportunity is for Dylan Garand who goes from last round of training camp cuts as the third stringer to the Rangers number one in less than two weeks put a whirlwind for this kid i mean he gets brought back up almost immediately after Corpasalo gets hurt backs up Shesterkin in the home opener then he pitches his first career NHL shutout the next day in Detroit and then days later he's coming in relief against the Washington Capitals on the road after Shesterkin exits it's a big ask of a rookie but How do you see Dylan Garand taking this on? Well, thank your lucky Stars Rangers fans that he was not claimed because there were teams that were thinking about it. Took the words right out of my mouth. I have heard, and that was the risk, right? That was the risk going into it. Carpentier was going to be their guy. They can't carry three goalies. They got him. They kept him, and now he's back. So that's great news. And give him credit, right? A shutout. Season saving. Yeah, I mean, that's just a good bounce. And you need some bounces. You need bounces along the way to get into the playoffs and get through and all that. There's a lot to be said when you're the number two guy if you can perform, because usually you're playing the second of a back-to-back. You're the one on the road the next night. And to go and pitch a shutout, albeit against Detroit, right, who knows what they are, it doesn't matter. There are interesting circumstances there, too. They're an NHL hockey team, though, right? Yes. And that doesn't really... go into Dylan Granda's brain he has to stop the puck and he did and that's what he's done so he showed at the end of last year he went down probably wasn't happy about it but played well and he's right back up and look he was right there it was obviously we talked about it him being put on waivers because it was it was close enough it's like why is this the right move we'll see well it turns out doesn't matter now he's back and yeah it's all the eggs all the eggs yeah in the grand basket in the grand basket um yeah and then Spencer Martin was the recall to serve as backup uh he had a lower body body injury to start the season as well but he was cleared just in time um and has backed up Grand in the last two but you know there aren't any other options for the Rangers you know Callum Tongue is is way too green so like you said Brian just all in all Rangers should be counting their lucky stars that that Grand is still in the organization and and able to shoulder this workload going forward um and their depth and goal is what makes me feel like they will explore alternative options just in case but i do think there's also a desire to see what they have already obviously Corpus Allah is going to be out for at least the next month so the Rangers are gonna have to ride this Grand Martin duo for a bit here i do believe Jerry wants to see how the team does with Grand behind them first and i am also under the impression that there's a desire to see what Corpus Allah looks like too they haven't even seen him in a single game yet um so if the team keeps playing well no matter who's in net uh that urgency dwindles right um i'm curious if if you would take that wait and see approach or if you would be exploring potential trade options right off the bat it's so hard because you know the one guy that was going to have the lion's share of the starts is gone and goaltending is such a interesting you can't have too many you certainly can't have too few yeah there's only two nets at practice i mean so how many do you want signed and then there's 50 contracts to go around in the whole organization so do you need you can have extra forwards you can have extra d you can sit a guy out and put them in in the minors and whatnot you can run through a practice with extra guys and everybody will get their work in it's just such a specific amount of goaltenders that you have to have so when one goes down long term okay at least you have a finite like you know we need to add one because right but then you knew what you had with him now you whoever you're adding there's always that unknown right there's yeah whether it's a 칼럼 텅 who or of that ilk around the league that's just like potential but like he played half the games at UConn and then he came in and he's kind of up and down he's a young kid right so you know it's important to find the right guy and it's you can't like rush it but then again you need you can't have too few you certainly can't have too few goalies yeah so it's really a hard pickup it's also realistically hypothetically speaking if it does work out with Garand as the number one for the rest of the season if that's how it plays out and or Corpusalow whichever then you put that season-ending cap hit from Igor and you can add elsewhere in the lineup so that could that's looking down the line but hypothetically speaking if it doesn't affect them in goal and it doesn't change anything for this Rangers team then it could be a pretty big chunk of money to work with or going into the trade deadline yeah that's true and elsewhere is a is a proper distinction i think because again with right because well we've seen in the past and big names and i look at like when Ryan Miller was traded to i believe St Louis out of Buffalo like you know world-class goaltender it's really hard it doesn't always work out the way you think it will right away with goaltending trades mid-season that's why you don't see a ton of them so if they're going to address that and they pretend everything goes as it's going now and it's a great season and they're knocking on the door and it looks like they're a legit playoff team that could make some noise well that means that the goaltending is pretty solid so again the distinction of elsewheres is huge where can we add where can we plug some holes um yep do they take a big swing who knows because again that cap hit you would assume is coming back on the books the following year right but it's uh it is too early to tell it's fun to speculate on a little bit yeah the hope is i think if i'm the gm the hope would be these are the guys that we've identified in the off season or we've had in homegrown guys and they do well and it makes everybody happy because yeah no we had this guy in the wings we knew what he's capable of and look at him go now so we can add elsewhere we have yeah yeah i'm getting these out of the way now because it is what everyone is asking and talking about but Connor Hellebuyck doesn't make sense for the rangers he's signed through 2031 igor signed through 2033 i can't imagine the rangers want to give up a haul for one year of Hellebuyck or that Hellebuyck even would want to do a barely a year in new york given his circumstances right now and the contract that he's on um and i know espn reported jonathan quick as a possibility and i have no doubt that if the rangers were to ask him he'd be willing but i have it on pretty good authority they're not considering that um unless the guy has been training to stay ready to play it just does not he'd be out longer Yeah, like, I'm sorry. Are you trying to get Jonathan Quick to suffer a major injury as well? Like, no, that's just, it's just, yeah. But just to get it on the record, because I know that's what everybody's been asking about, sorry to disappoint. And I'm not sure if everybody wants me to ramble on about the cap ramifications of it all, but if you do want to read the logistics of the Rangers putting Shesterkin on long-term injured reserve instead of season ending injured reserve you can read my column from october 11th on it it's all explained there um but in short the rangers get 3.97 million in cap relief from the LTIR move rather than his full near 11.6 million cap hit when on season ending LTIR um and that 3.97 million is is a new number uh from the updated CBA it's like a league average yeah so that's shut out players guys average salary is four million bucks yeah snaps snaps and i'm not mad i wasn't i want you you're mad it's okay i'm not mad i did everything i could to stay in the league as long as i did i look back i'm like how did i fool them for that long but i'm happy for those guys would i like four million dollars would you don't want four million dollars no it's great it's great for the league it really is four million dollars awesome but yeah that's all that's all relatively new in the nhl uh to close the loophole that teams were using to exploit having no salary cap in the playoffs which is also no longer a thing yeah you think teams were just a little bit just a smidge but you know what hey it happened it was pure theater it was pure theater i loved it I loved it. It happened to me. Patrick Kane came back. Killer. Absolute killer. And then Tampa was the one everybody blew the whistle on. It was like, it happened to us. Yeah. It happened to Tampa in 2015. So then they turned around and said, okay, we can do that. The guy didn't play the whole year and had 32 points in the playoffs. That's incredible. Showtime. Anyways. Rangers legend, Patrick Kane. Yeah. Wow. Not to rub it in. Right, not to rub it in. Yeah, I know. That actually hurts. That's what makes me mad, losing those two. Yeah, I'd like $4 million, but I would love a cup. Maybe I will start training. Yeah, I was about to say, because evidently that's an option nowadays. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, bummer news. Bummer news, but good news for Dylan Gray. But 2-0, and 2-0 since it happened. And granted, we'll get into this right now, but, I mean, They lose 3-1 in Washington after the Igor injury. I didn't think that they played poorly, though. They were clearly a little rattled and had the wind taken out of their sails a bit. They were missing that oomph in their game afterwards, but then they beat a very bad Vancouver team, 6-2. But they overcome a shorthanded goal from Elias Pettersson in that game that tied the game in the second period. So that's still an encouraging sign from this Rangers team that would have folded last season in that sort of situation. And then the 4-1 win over a Lightning team that went on a tear after dropping their season opener in New York. They won every game after they got beat in New York, but then they come back to New York and get beaten again by the New York Rangers. Let's get into that just a little bit. Yeah, go ahead. Please, the floor is yours. Well look, I mean let's go back to the season opener at home, the home opener rather, um and we did talk about it but the goal on the power play from Mika Zibanejad was like you everyone felt that goal including Mika and you saw the reaction that he had and it just it meant more it wasn't just a regular whatever and so like it was not you ride the high of that emotion and Obviously, there was a certain sort of, I think, focus from the players. Like, all right, this is our barn. We're winning this game. We're playing well in front of our fans. Last year was last year. Yeah. You could tell by their answers that it was a point of emphasis. Yeah. Going to, as it should have been. It was 100% a point of emphasis going to the season. Right. And great job on them. They got it done. It's one game. They've continued to play well. And then, you know, I worked, I was at NHL Network. uh yesterday and talking previously about this game this is another challenge this is a measuring stick in part because of the pointed comments from John Cooper after his team's performance in that Rangers home opener and what they had done since they looked like the old Lightning they're going to be a problem in the Atlantic they're going to be a good team I expect them to be around late into the playoffs I do I think that's what that team is capable of so here we go they're out for blood they remember because it wasn't that long ago what that feeling was like and then again like let's just one play that i loved is JT Miller throwing a reverse hit on Crosier was it the guy's i don't even know who it was but his helmet came flying off right in front of the tampa bench and just looks at the tampa bench skates to his bench and i'm like yes we are so back there's an attitude there's a swagger brian was like injected straight into my veins i mean hockey yeah in all of its forms like there's great there's skill there's grit there's a mix of like and i've seen this i'm seeing it across the league there's there's pairs on a line and then there's the guy who's just a lunch pail it's like all right we need you and i when i first started noticing this it was like in in um and we had it with like a Ryan Callahan he'd be on the top six doing a ton of work for you know whoever Brad Richards and yeah another skill guy if it was Zuccarello whoever it was i get to toronto and it's Zach Hyman playing with an Austin Matthews and you know whoever else is on on the left side like this is working yeah and it's interesting how there's been movement in the top six even with the success and and you see a guy like Lafrenière get moved and i'm like wait a second he's scoring all the goals why are we moving him finally like he's doesn't matter yeah it goes back to what i said and that's what sullivan said he he literally said Lafrenière is producing offense in numerous ways now with that now doing a lot of heavy lifting and it and then he's right you could put him wherever right now goes back to what i said last year the trade deadline again it didn't work with number 10 old number 10 not new number 10 not new number 10 and it's nothing against Panarin and what he was capable of obviously i think that guy is like a hall of fame player yeah just didn't it threw off what the rest of that collection of players was trying to do and now they're north south that's what will that will it be like okay we don't have that and when we need it maybe but like right now and i think more games than not they're all on the same page and the chances they're getting they're earning they're grinding for them and Tage Parise's people should be buying his jersey Brian they're playing so north right now that sometimes I half expect them to skate through the end boards that's how heavy they come into the zone and that will be more injuries we don't need that but how how fast and how tilted and how north that they're playing and you're right it's no knock on Artemi Panarin who is an all class player but he's got that east west in him the fancy stuff there's none of that anymore like they're based on support it's outnumbering and support he was kind of over on the half wall being like someone give it to me right he didn't have the guy to give it to him so again it's nothing against him because obviously but it's not quite working right now in LA but it's just that's that's it didn't it didn't fit it wasn't a puzzle piece that fit yeah i think you saw it after the deadline Lafrenière last year, and everyone's like, well, it's a flash and there's nothing on the line. I'm like, no, I honestly think the game makes more sense to him. And they've added pieces that it also makes sense to him. He's not deferring anymore. That's been the widespread any scout that you ask. That's the answer. If he's no longer deferring to Artemi Panarin, and it's keeping the puck on his stick longer and making him think through the game more than he maybe was and he's just creating he's involved all the time now i mean his seven goals not only lead the team but have him tied for second in the NHL right now team leading 10 points three assists two goals on the power play and he's averaging just over 19 minutes yeah i mean it's it's again you know it's so hard with him you know i always use the word fleeting but it's hard to imagine it be fleeting right now just because of how much runs through him now how much of their offense he's involved in now so i just feel like unless he goes cold which is always a possibility but at least he's so involved in getting so many touches that i i just it's difficult to envision yeah going down no i i agree and i think he's he's capable of it It's not, you know, lots of guys go on hot streaks. It's the first overall pick. Yeah. He's, he's, I think he's unlocked something, which it might not, the pace might not remain. Right. It might not be, you know, a 70 goal pace throughout the season, but it's, in fact, it won't be, but that'd be cool. Who knows? Yeah. There's other guys like that. I think we'll find the net more. We'll score in some bunches. I think JT Miller will score more goals. I think, you know, there's just, it's Dorofeev, who in the first few games, there were chances there. He was creating. There was, you know, even in the Boston game, the first game of the season where no one really looked right, he was doing anything he could just to get something created. There was a wraparound chance. So he'll heat up too, I think. Yeah, we can get to him in a sec, but I want to go back to Ty. Yeah. Because I feel like we might be witnessing one of the best waiver pickups of modern Rangers history I think it's it's time to start talking in that way I mean he's got two goals four assists but he's making things happen out there he is relentless on the forecheck I love the way that Sullivan talks about him the the dog on the bone descriptor a disruptive player I love the way that he describes Ty but he also has some skill there too well yeah and there's again you would be and you're around you see practice a lot i think you'd still be surprised because you probably don't get get a couple days there's so much going on in training camp where you see guys that you know are going to the American League you should see those guys practice in the summer because i get the chance to guys you've never heard of around the league that are in the American League and i'm like what this guy's better than i ever was the skill is like yeah and you know there's just some habit stuff there's different things that separate but an NHLer from an AHLer but these guys have a ton of talent and then when you get like you have a you feel when a coaching staff is like i believe in you this is yep you're moving up because you earned it yep and prove me right yeah it's just you feel 10 feet tall and again his his whole foundation is going north winning battles being hard thank you for this opportunity like you like an adopted puppy honest to god yeah no i know what you just did for me i'm gonna give you everything i have my whole heart is yours and hell runs through a wall for you yeah yeah man on such a vanilla no offense but seattle's kind of a vanilla like yeah they are franchising just Let him kind of go. Let him go, yeah. We'll take him. Yeah. And great pickup because. Huge pickup. Look, he's got that ability, but he also is on games where he might be on the road, and it might be three and four, and he might be a little sleepy. He's not. Nope. He doesn't want to go anywhere. He doesn't want to go down to the third line. Never mind. He's looking up, and that's great. It's very easy to root for the Ty Cartier of the world. and JT loves playing with him. Loves it. Yeah, you go do all the work. I'll be here. Loves it. Give me the puck back. Give me the puck back. Who wouldn't love that? I love playing with Brandon Frost. He's like, all right, you go get it. I'll be here. No, it makes sense. It makes sense. But they work together. Ty was saying that he feels like they feed off of each other, especially on the forecheck. It's been a lot of fun to watch. Going back to Dorofeev, that's kind of the only thing that you know people are making a big deal about or starting to show some concerns over um where are you at with his game right now i mean he makes the he makes the switch right in the top six he swaps Lafreniere and Dorofeev but he said it was you know that when Dorofeev was with Miller the line was creating and getting chances they just weren't converting it just wasn't a matter of getting rewarded so you flip it to someone like Lafreniere who is getting rewarded almost every time he touches the puck it feels like at this point and it had it paid dividends pretty much right away um but I I didn't feel like it wasn't it I'm not I'm not concerned well are you concerned no no no no I mean no and I think this guy has the ability to get like eight goals in six games yeah right you know it is you know for better or worse i think he's playing hard that's kind of what he has been right so what do you have 37 last year 12 in the playoffs that sounds about right you know and in the finals did he cool off yeah he cooled off in the finals against a team that was so dialed in and so locked down he had 37 during... 37-12? Yeah, 37-12, you're right. Yeah, so it's like, that's not a fluke. It's in there, and he'll find it. Yeah, it's still early. It's too early, and if it felt like he was dragging the line down or something, I could see the concern, but it feels like... He's been more competitive in his battle game than I actually anticipated, so I'm even less worried about it. Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, Adam Fox said to me last night that he feels like the defensive buy-in has been outstanding, was the word that he uses. The Harvard grad uses outstanding. Pay attention. It's good work. it's true though um really really encouraging um a lot has happened a lot has happened in such a short amount of time it feels like but things are still afloat very much so encouraging even despite such horrible horrible bad luck news yeah that's uh it's a mature team i mean look it's they couldn't score to start the year and then the wheels fall off because again i i was saying it last year that jt was really really really banged up you were in that room you knew what he was dealing with there's there's so many things and it just everybody is on the same page is the best way i can put it they understand exactly what's expected of them they know what it takes to have success what their game is supposed to look like the non-negotiables of how they've defended how quickly they've gotten out of their zone like last year there were good moments where they were defending they couldn't get it out of their zone the the additions of Dursey and Pedersen are so huge and you know with Schmitz looking like he's played five years a lot of nights how long that hangs on hopefully all year because he wants to be all year but it's been it's you're able to have defense that can move the puck up even if it's not fancy or whatever it's just out of your own zone the game gets so much more organized for all the 18 skaters and you know exactly everybody's in lockstep it's a great feeling to have it took them until March 27 how many I mean every time they win at home are we going to do that yes yes this one but this one's correct March 27 was when they got their fifth regulation win last season they had 14 last year at home yeah all right so when we get past 14 we can stop talking about last year but we have to keep going i get it i get it no so someone said to me last night on Twitter i don't get why we have to keep saying this and i was like oh i do i think it needs to be put into context just because i mean this team just deals in extremes it really is incredible it's it is so extreme one way or the other that's why it's worth notice more worth mentioning because yeah yes it's a different team from last year but at the crux of it it still is much of the same so it that's why it's still worth mentioning because it's crazy that they could be that different from season to season just from the few tweaks that that Chris Jury made in the offseason which is a credit to Chris Drury, he deserves a little bit of a tip of the cap at this moment in time for how they've started the season so no question definitely will say that um yeah we've got a couple games coming up Thursday in Newark and then Saturday in Columbus but Brian, first battle of the Hudson of the season, how do you see that matchup? Yeah that hopefully that they they have that same understanding because that Devils team is going to want to make a statement, they're looking at the standings already and you know you look at a Carolina and then a lot of people are talking about Washington and then I think the New Jersey Devils thought they would be in that top three so for them to make a statement they would try to beat a very good Rangers team at home and there's the whole history of the rivalry um a sloppy game sort of last night for the Devils I think but They're scoring some goals now, and let's see. I mean, it was – I like the Devils mix. I think it's going to be a challenge. I just don't – they didn't do anything in net, but there's no more Igor. So this is going to be an interesting battle for me. I think there's a ton of skill in Jersey. I think if the Rangers just play their game, sort of like what we expected out of them against Tampa, I thought that was going to be a challenge. They stuck with their system and their program. That's why that game meant so much to me as a fan, being like, okay maybe they yeah really did learn something yeah that was a big one I really did think I mean especially I I just I've I weigh the Lightning so highly yeah i really do i always have class above a lot of the teams right they really are and so consistently for so long yeah no it's impressive that's that's what really impresses me the most about that team so you you weigh that lightning those both of them you know you could say okay the first one it was the lightning's first game yada yada yada but no then they won every game after that but then came back to New York and got beat just as badly that's the you know that's what the Rangers can take on the road they can take that game anywhere that's what's so encouraging about it it's it's it's simple in a way it's outworking you know it's not it's not easy but it's simplified and they look like they're all on the same page whereas you know in jersey it's it's different that that devil's team some nights looks like the globetrotters and some nights it's like what where are you going yeah because they're built on instinct and they have some high high excuse me high-end skill guys Jesper Bratt and jack hughes obviously are dynamic players just don't don't put them in overtime because jack hughes will score another goal and win the game in overtime and he'll throw a stick in the crowd because he's at home oh man well i guess we'll see how that one shakes out but i think that's a good place for us to stop we just burned through a ton of topics that was a nice hearty episode give us a thumbs up like and subscribe comment down below can the rangers get through this Igor Shishkin season ending injury do you have faith in Dylan Giran to become the official number one this season and will the rangers continue on this upwards trajectory that they're on let us know and we'll talk talk again next week bye