The goalie sustained the injury in a 3-1 loss at the Washington Capitals on Friday. He appeared to injure his right leg at 8:20 of the second period when his skate jammed into the goalpost while scrambling back into his net.

Shesterkin’s leg bent awkwardly under him as he fell in the crease. The 30-year-old had to be helped off the ice by Rangers defensemen Sean Durzi and Marcus Pettersson and was unable to put any weight on his right leg.

“It’s awful,” Rangers captain J.T. Miller after the game Friday. “He’s a pillar of this team. It stinks. Obviously, it’s (early). We don’t even know what’s going on, but to see him leave the game is a shot to all of us, a shock to all of us. But at the same time, it means we got to step up to a man to try to get the job done, especially (Garand).”

Shesterkin had stopped 13 of 14 shots before leaving the game and was replaced by Dylan Garand, who made 11 saves.

Shesterkin is 3-1-0 in five starts with a 1.79 goals against average and .927 save percentage this season. He also scored his first NHL goal in a 5-1 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Oct. 1, shooting the puck down the ice into an empty net at 17:26 of the third period with goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy pulled for an extra attacker.

Shesterkin won the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top goalie in 2021-22, and is in his eighth season with New York after being selected by the Rangers in the fourth round with the No. 118 pick of the 2014 NHL Draft. He is in the second of an eight-year, $92 million contract signed on Dec. 6, 2024. It has an average annual value of 11.5 million, making him the highest-paid goalie in NHL history.

“Definitely not a good feeling for anyone seeing anyone on your team go down, especially a guy like that who’s kind of the pillar on the back end there,” New York defenseman Adam Fox said. “You know, it (stinks). Obviously, we’re hoping for the best for him.”

Shesterkin, who won the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top goalie in 2021-22, missed 13 games last season after sustaining a lower-body injury in the first period of a 3-2 overtime loss to the Utah Mammoth at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 5. He went 25-19-6 with a 2.50 GAA, .912 save percentage and one shutout in 51 games (all starts) last season.

The Rangers are already missing backup goalie Joonas Korpisalo, who will be out four weeks with a lower-body injury.

Garand was recalled from Hartford of the American Hockey League on Oct. 1 after clearing waivers and being sent down on Sept 28. He made 22 saves for his first NHL shutout in a 2-0 victory at the Detroit Red Wings on Oct.2. The 24-year-old is 3-1-1 with a 1.31 GAA, .954 save percentage and one shutout in five career NHL games (four starts).

New York (4-2-0) hosts the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday (6 p.m. ET; MSG, SNP).

NHL.com senior writer Tom Gulitti contributed to this report