One could almost forgive New York Rangers general manager Chris Drury for dreading every game that Igor Shesterkin starts.
Drury doesn’t actually feel that way, of course. He’s grateful on a daily basis that his team is blessed with one of the best, if not the best, goaltender in the world as his contending club eyes another run at the Stanley Cup.
It’s just that from the executive suite at Madison Square Garden, Drury has a very good seat to watch the price of keeping that player rise on a seemingly daily basis.
Shesterkin is off to another spectacular start, one that evokes memories of his otherwordly Vezina Trophy-winning 2021-22 season. He’s among the NHL leaders with a .920 save percentage and 6 goals saved above average – numbers that hardly account for the gaggle of spectacular saves the 28-year-old has had to make. Shesterkin had faced 37 or more shots in a three-start span before getting pulled from a 6-1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Nov. 7 after allowing five goals on 12 shots – a game that might actually have increased his value to the Rangers (more on that later).
Rangers Will Have to Reset Goalie Market to Sign Shesterkin
Shesterkin’s four-year contract that comes with a $5.67 million salary-cap hit expires after this season, with unrestricted free agency looming. He’s already rejected an eight-year, $88 million extension offer that would have made him the highest-paid goaltender in history – and he was right to do so.
For his part, Drury certainly coudn’t have been shocked by that. He knows that he’s going to have to reshape the market for elite goalies to get Shesterkin’s signature on a new deal. He also knows that peers aren’t going to be happy about it. General managers in professional sports represent fascinating fraternities, small groups who compete ferociously for players and organizational success, but who also sympathize with each other over the pressures of the job and who must be able to work together to complete trades. After all, there’s only 32 of them.
Blasting through an informal ceiling of previously acceptable salaries for a specific position isn’t a badge anyone in that fraternity wants to wear. Drury, though, isn’t going to have much choice. The Rangers simply can’t afford to lose their most important player, who holds essentially all the leverage in negotiations right now and will probably continue to do so.
With every brilliant outing in which he saves the Rangers’ bacon amidst early-season defensive deficiencies, playing a ridiculously outsized role in their at least somewhat undeserved 9-3-1 start, the realization continues to dawn in the Madison Square Garden executive suite that $13 million per year might not be a pipe dream for Shesterkin.
The argument that he wouldn’t get that much on the open market is immaterial. If the Blueshirts want to re-sign him, they can’t afford to let things get that far. It’s just too risky for a Stanley Cup hopeful that’s working to build a durable organization capable of sustained success, but has historically relied very heavily on the top-tier netminders the Rangers have churned out of their system for the past 40-plus years.
That formula remains intact this season, and when all is said and done, Shesterkin might be the best of the bunch from this Rangers era of pristine player development at the position. In this day and age, keeping him in a Blueshirt will require paying him like a 100-point forward.
The Rangers are going to reset the artificial financial parameters that have governed goaltending contracts to this point. To what degree is up to Drury – but it’s also up to Shesterkin, who can make that determination just by continuing to shine.
The Blueshirts are simply a bad defensive team right now. Whatever structure they were able to adopt last season in coach Peter Laviolette’s first season in charge – remember the 1-3-1? – has evaporated. Their last two games were perhaps their worst of the season in this regard – against Buffalo, Shesterkin was consistently hung out to dry on a rare off-night for him, one in which his team surrended golden chance after golden chance in giving up four goals in the second period.
That the club was run over by a so-so Sabres team when Shesterkin couldn’t approximate Superman for a change suggests Laviolette and his staff have serious work to do in reinstilling defense and scoring-chance suppression into this group.
That point was driven home in the Rangers’ response Nov. 9, when they “rebounded” to defeat the struggling Detroit Red Wings 4-0 – a lopsided score that belied a performance that might have been more disheartening than the Sabres loss. With outstanding backup Jonathan Quick in net, the Blueshirts gave up 37 shots in once again relying almost exclusively on their elite goaltending to earn a victory.
The Wings dominated 5-on-5 play, posting a 59.1 expected goal share and outchancing the Rangers 37-22, including 14-7 in high-danger opportunities. The Blueshirts played pond hockey yet again, finding themselves back on their heels against a team that owns a 43.9 expected goal share – 24th in the NHL. Yet they won because Quick took his turn denying a bevy of wide-open scoring chances surrendered by the guys in front of him.
Rangers Have Very Little Leverage in Negotiations With Shesterkin
What the ugly start to the season suggests is that the Rangers aren’t anywhere close to changing their organizational DNA from a team that counts so much on a star in the net to help them win. Without Shesterkin (and Quick, who’s been spectacular in his four games) this season, it might be fair to say the Rangers would be 3-9-1 instead of 9-3-1. Waiting for the current coaching staff to transform this roster into the New Jersey Devils of the late 1990s-early 2000s is pointless.
The Rangers probably have the top goalie in the world. No team needs him more than they do. That adds up to a uniquely fortuituous situation for a player that’s not just the best at his position, but probably among the best players in the league.
“We’ve been under siege a little bit too much and relying on our goaltenders too much,” Laviolette said after the Buffalo game, in an understatement that could apply to any of the past 10 Rangers seasons or so.
While $13 million might end up being a bridge too far for the Rangers, games like their last two probably means the cap hit is going to start at at least 12. What case can the front office make for Shesterkin to take less at this point?
Related: Rangers Struggling With Same Problems That Have Plagued Them in Recent Seasons
Those who rage at the idea of a goalie being paid like a star forward are going to be dealing with disappointment should the Rangers manage to get Shesterkin’s signature on a contract between now and next summer. At the height of his powers and the top of his profession for a talented but flawed team with championship aspirations, it’s Shesterkin who’s driving this bus.
Shesterkin is the Rangers’ most important player. More important than star winger Artemi Panarin. More important than elite defenseman Adam Fox. Without the Moscow native, the Blueshirts are at best a slightly above-average team.
Shesterkin’s value to the Rangers is, of course, not limited to this window of Cup contention. It’s possible that a period of at least partial transition could start to occur after the 2025-26 season, when Panarin’s seven-year contract that carries an $11.6 million cap hit, along with this summer’s likely subtraction of Jacob Trouba’s $8 million hit for 2025-26, come off the books and a new core begins to assume greater responsibility, whether the Rangers win the Cup in the next two seasons or not.
The club has some young talent on the way and every intention of remaining competitive while integrating that talent into the roster. Even if the Rangers take a step or half-step back during such a hypothetical process, though, they’ll want their all-world goalie holding things together – as always.
Drury has other key young players to re-sign, and not much cap room with which to do it. The club requires depth throughout the lineup. None of that represents reason to believe that the GM won’t have to earmark around 13 percent of the Rangers’ cap for his superstar netminder, probably for the maximum eight years.
Those who would call that a misallocation of resources, who point to data that suggests goaltenders with big contracts don’t age well, should ponder the frightening alternative.
