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The closest comparability Igor Shesterkin needed to what he skilled on Tuesday evening got here in 2019, when he began 10 playoff video games for an SKA St. Petersburg staff that made the KHL’s Western Convention Finals, getting so far as Recreation 7 towards CSKA Moscow earlier than dropping.
So, no disrespect meant to the KHL, however this … this was fairly completely different.
Good because the KHL could also be, there isn’t a Sidney Crosby to face in your crease, attempting to place residence a rebound because the clock runs down in regulation and 18,006 followers at Madison Sq. Backyard lose their collective minds.
Stopping Crosby forward of the primary additional time would account for one of many 79 saves Shesterkin made Tuesday evening, when he carried out the identical feat he did for thus lots of his 53 regular-season begins and single-handedly stored the Rangers in Recreation 1 of their collection towards the Penguins earlier than Evgeni Malkin broke the dam with the winner, deflecting John Marino’s shot to offer Pittsburgh a 4-3 triple-overtime victory.
This time, Shesterkin’s heroics got here with the franchise file for saves in a playoff recreation. Together with about 20 different superlatives.
The one motive it obtained so far as triple additional time within the first place was as a result of Shesterkin, after the Rangers dominated the opening 20 minutes, stored them within the recreation for the following 80.
He saved what may need been his finest, and it’s arduous to select, for the sport’s greatest moments. Take your choose between save No. 59, a scrambling pad save to disclaim Bryan Rust from the low slot eight minutes into the second additional time, or No. 70 — to set a franchise file — on Kasperi Kapanen as time expired within the fifth interval. Or the windmill glove save on Kapanen method again within the third interval.
“He’s finished all of it 12 months. He’s our greatest participant. He confirmed it tonight,” Ryan Strome mentioned. “He made each [save] he needed to do.”
Playoff expertise, it seems, could be overrated. Simply ask The King.
“Generally, you discuss a lot about expertise — you want this and that to have success,” Henrik Lundqvist, who so usually did the identical factor within the postseason for the Rangers earlier than transferring to the MSG studio, mentioned on a video name Monday. “At instances, you want it, however there’s quite a lot of instances that it’s simpler to go in contemporary. You don’t overthink it, you simply exit and play. You see quite a lot of goalies have success early on within the playoffs as a result of they don’t really feel as a lot stress, they don’t overthink it, they don’t strive to determine all the things.”
Shesterkin, who solid a peaceful and assured demeanor in talking with reporters earlier that day, already appears to have all of it discovered.
And not using a translator current, the Russian leaned again in his chair and spoke succinctly. Requested whether or not he felt any additional stress enjoying within the postseason, he replied: “Proper now, no.”
It’s one factor to say that. It’s one other fully to do it.
After a robust opening 20 minutes, the Rangers spent the remainder of the sport backsliding. Shesterkin spent it role-playing as Sisyphus.
He couldn’t cease the Penguins from getting the sport to additional time. However, by way of a recreation that lasted deep into the evening, he might hold it tied for lengthy sufficient to offer the Rangers each probability to win it.
It’s by no means been a secret that the Rangers would want Shesterkin at his all-world finest to have an opportunity in these playoffs, and it’s no shock that he met the second in Recreation 1.
“I feel he’ll deal with it high quality,” Lundqvist mentioned Monday.
After Tuesday, all you are able to do is nod your head alongside to that assertion.
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