suffered his injury<\/a>\u00a0in the first period Monday when Utah\u2019s JJ Peterka drove to the net. The Mammoth forward made marginal contact with Shesterkin, but the goalie fell backwards into the net and slammed his blocker on the ice in pain. Rangers defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov and trainer Andy Hosler helped him off the ice. The goalie did not put any weight on his left leg. The injury appeared not to stem from the Peterka contact; Shesterkin\u2019s left side never made contact with the Utah forward.<\/p>\nLosing Shesterkin for any time is a massive blow for the Rangers. Though the team\u2019s defense has improved this season compared to 2024-25, the Rangers still rely heavily on their goaltending. Shesterkin, the Vezina Trophy winner as the NHL\u2019s best goaltender in 2022, signed the richest goalie contract in history last season: an eight-year, $11.5 million average annual value deal. He\u2019s in the first year of that contract.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Quick will take on added responsibility with Shesterkin out. He has a .919 save percentage in 11 games this season. The 39-year-old two-time Stanley Cup winner has been an invaluable presence in the New York dressing room and has been strong as the No. 2 goalie, but needing him to take on a starter\u2019s workload is a big ask. The last time he started at least 40 games in a season was 2022-23, and he had an .882 save percentage that year in 41 games with the Kings and Golden Knights.<\/p>\n
The Rangers called up journeyman goalie Spencer Martin, who started the year in the KHL before signing with the Rangers. He has a .903 save percentage in three games. By calling him up, the Rangers passed over prospect Dylan Garand, who has a .908 save percentage in 17 games. That could potentially be to keep him in more consistent game action.<\/p>\n
Depending on how badly the Rangers want to stay in the playoff picture, president and general manager Chris Drury could look to the trade market. Someone like Laurent Brossoit, a pending unrestricted free agent, could be an option with a low acquisition cost. He\u2019s making his way back from double hip surgery and playing for AHL Rockford, where he has a .901 save percentage in six games. He has a .911 save percentage in 140 career games. His $3.3 million cap hit through the end of the season could make a deal tough, though Chicago could retain in a trade. Buffalo is currently carrying three goalies, so perhaps the Rangers could try to nab Alex Lyon from the Sabres.<\/p>\n
The Fox injury, though, has to factor into the team\u2019s thinking. New York is in last place in the East by points percentage, so trading prospects or draft picks \u2014 even lower-value ones \u2014 for a stopgap goalie simply might not make sense this season. The team won\u2019t make the playoffs simply by staying afloat in the coming weeks: It has to make up ground, and that\u2019s difficult for a team to do without arguably its two most important players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 The New York Rangers were dealt a pair of injury blows on Tuesday, as Adam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[4832,4823,385,99],"class_list":["post-391977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-fantasy-hockey","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}