Henrik Lundqvist will miss the next 2-3 weeks of the season with a muscle strain in his hip. The New York Rangers will be leaning on Antti Raanta as their starting goaltender for a stretch that could potentially last the remainder of the regular season.
In the event of the worst case scenario, can the New York Rangers win without Henrik Lundqvist?
Lundqvist is a workhorse goaltender that is not used to extended absences from the net. The one exception to that, of course, is the 2014-2015 season, in which a neck injury caused Lundqvist to miss significant time. When he regained control of the net from Cam Talbot, he had a rough reintegration to the action, losing his first game to the Bruins 4-2. Milan Lucic tallied a goal less than two minutes into play.
Lundqvist would then win five of his last six starts of the season and lead the charge to the Eastern Conference Finals.
There are nine games remaining in March, 13 in the regular season. The Rangers have a 14-point lead on the second Wild Card spot and trail the Columbus Blue Jackets by two points. Gaining ground on Columbus is going to be tough considering more than half of New York’s remaining games are against playoff teams, with others against contending opponents like Brooklyn, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Considering they wouldn’t want to move into the Metro bracket anyway, their playoff position is all but locked up.
So what is there to lose?
For one, momentum. Lower-body injuries for goaltenders are always very tricky to gauge. It’s entirely possible that Lundqvist, being the laborer he is, will return as scheduled and not miss a beat. But one only needs to look at Jonathan Quick’s or Jimmy Howard’s season to know how a lower-body injury can lead to several setbacks. With a challenging schedule ahead, Antti Raanta and recent call-up Magnus Hellberg could have their hands full.
Ideally, Lundqvist will get a few warmup games to get his groove back at the end of the regular season before gearing up for the playoffs.
But what if Antti Raanta holds his own? If Lundqvist’s return is too close to the start of the postseason, would turning to Raanta be the right thing to do?
No. No it wouldn’t. But let’s explore the hypothetical anyway.
Henrik Lundqvist has been the subject of criticism for basically the entire season. His performance has been a departure from the usual Lundqvistian numbers. Though he has racked up 30 wins on the season, he has 2.65 goals-against average, by far the worst of his career. His .913 save percentage is his worst since 2008-2009. Father time may finally be catching up to the 35-year-old Swede, but having a molasses-slow defense in front of him has not helped matters. Nick Holden and Marc Staal has been an abysmal pair lately.
Fun fact: from December 13th to January 17th, Dan Girardi played in 15 games and was on the ice for 29 goals against. I’m not trying to pick on him, as the Rangers allowed a ton of goals in that stretch and to be fair Girardi was playing better just before his injury, but that span is emblematic of some of the problems Lundqvist has had to deal with. Blaming the goaltender for goals allowed is not always fair. He can’t control the play in front of him where Girardi loses his man, or Nick Holden fans on an exit pass, or Adam Clendening gets stripped clean when he’s all alone in his own end.
Antti Raanta has markedly better numbers than Lundqvist in a significantly smaller sample size. Raanta is 13-6-0 with a 2.32 goals-against average and a .922 save percentage. He has set a new career-best with three shutouts this season. Admittedly, Raanta’s performance has been less volatile than Lundqvist’s this season. When Hank has been on, he’s been on. However, there have been numerous games this season where he allows the uncharacteristic softie, sometimes on the very first shot he faces.
Raanta is more than capable for holding down the fort for the remainder of the regular season. He has grown into statistically one of the best backup goaltenders in the NHL, thanks in large part to a career revitalization from goaltender coach Benoit Allaire in New York. People seem to forget that Raanta had lost the backup job in Chicago to Scott Darling and spent time in the AHL. Raanta didn’t even get his name on the Cup in 2015.
But let’s look at the realistic side of things. Henrik Lundqvist is not going anywhere. Not to a trade, not to free agency, not to the expansion draft. Like it or lump it, he is the New York Rangers’ goaltender until the day he retires, and that should be a perfectly easy pill to swallow. Antti Raanta probably will not be on the roster to start next season. The Rangers have a crop of young goaltenders waiting in the wings and his trade value will never be higher (if he isn’t taken by Vegas, that is).
To say that Henrik Lundqvist does not deserve to start in the postseason is unfair. The Lundqvist X-factor is what has saved the Rangers’ bacon countless times for over a decade.
Hank’s career postseason goals-against average is 2.28. Last season was the first time his GAA was above 2.25 since 2008-2009. His career save percentage in the postseason? .921. Don’t even ask for his Game 7 stats, you aren’t prepared for them. Criticizing his “clutchness” is ignorant.
Is last season’s early playoff exit still fresh in your mind and affecting your judgment? Maybe last year’s team was worse than you thought it was, especially compared to the eventual Stanley Cup Champions.
Fans have a predisposed hatred of “fancy stats” even if they aren’t fancy. Like how Henrik Lundqvist had a .920 save percentage last year despite facing the second-closest shots in the league last season (Kari Ramo of Calgary was first). People hate on Corsi, but when your goaltender faces an obscene number of shots night in and night out, it wears them out. Lundqvist faced 1,944 shots on goal last season, the most since 2010-2011. You want to dismiss the importance of shot quantity because the team wins? Fine. But don’t say you weren’t warned about the ramifications.
It’s not even like Lundqvist has been bad all year. Remember his resilient performance against Dallas this season, returning from a headshot to blank the Stars? What about his 32-save win against the Boston Bruins just last week? Wasn’t that awesome? Or his brilliant outing against the Capitals on Hockey Day in America? That was sick, right?
So no, he isn’t washed up yet. Something has been amiss this season for sure, but there seems to be plenty left in the tank.
What people don’t seem to realize is that asking whether or not the Rangers can win without Lundqvist is a loaded question from the beginning. This New York team is not built to compete with the likes of Pittsburgh or Washington. They are not fast enough on the blueline and they don’t have a strong enough special teams unit. Though their forward depth is likely the best it’s been since 2014, every other team in the Metro (plus Montreal when they wind up in the Atlantic bracket) has tremendous depth as well.
If things go south in the first round this season, people will look at Henrik Lundqvist and Rick Nash and grouse. It’s how it always goes in Manhattan, whether fair or unfair. The blame will always fall on the highest paid players. But the problems are so much bigger than just two players.
In actuality, fans should be looking to their management and demanding better. This is a critical offseason for New York. Don’t whine about how your world-class goaltender had a down year, demand that a better defensive core be assembled to help protect him as he hits his aging decline. Perhaps a puck-moving defenseman whose name rhymes with Pevin Pattenkirk. Ask for a stronger penalty kill system. Shed the shackles of slow-moving grinders and get with the times of fast-paced high-skill hockey so you can hang with the likes of the Penguins and Capitals.
The times of Playoff God Henrik Lundqvist carrying the team to deep postseason runs is over. The other flaws on the team are being exposed, and they need to be addressed pronto. A roster has to be built to shelter their goaltender and keep things moving up ice. Their infusion of young talent up front has been a major boon. Now look elsewhere on the roster and see where similar moves can be made.
Can the Rangers win without Henrik Lundqvist? Anything is possible. If his season is done, is a postseason run likely? No.
Was it likely anyway? Probably not.
