![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/new-york-rangers-held-rookie-89472380.jpg\")
Dylan Garand is the Rangers\u2019 top goalie prospect.\n Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
Dylan Garand knew the number off the top of his head. He knew that, between the regular season and playoffs, he\u2019d logged over 160 games with AHL Hartford, and he was right. Before the Rangers recalled him Friday, Garand had served as the Wolf Pack\u2019s goaltender 165 times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a way, it captured the breadth of experience the 23-year-old has collected after the Blueshirts selected him in the fourth round of the 2020 NHL Draft, but it also doubled as a glimpse at how complicated his path to the NHL has been. <\/p>\n
With Igor Shesterkin entrenched as their $92 million goaltender and 40-year-old Jonathan Quick \u2014 the winningest American-born goaltender in hockey \u2014 entrenched as the backup for at least another three weeks, Garand\u2019s chances have been limited. <\/p>\n
Even when the Rangers needed a goalie to give Quick the occasional reprieve earlier this year with Shesterkin on injured reserve, they turned to Spencer Martin instead of their top goaltending prospect.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But this week, Garand could finally make his NHL debut. He could finally get a chance to show the Rangers that he could be their backup next season behind Shesterkin. <\/p>\n
Dylan Garand is the Rangers\u2019 top goalie prospect.
\n Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
With Quick day to day due to an upper-body injury, head coach Mike Sullivan said that \u201cdepending on how this week plays out, I would anticipate Dylan playing.\u201d The Blueshirts have five games in eight days starting with a back-to-back Sunday and Monday. <\/p>\n
It would mark the latest instance of the Rangers testing their youth while in the middle of a public retool, and while Garand said he doesn\u2019t want to think too far ahead, the debut would be a long time coming.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA little bit,\u201d Garand said after practice Saturday in Tarrytown, when asked if he\u2019s thought about his debut. \u201c\u2026 I think for me, especially over the last year or so, I\u2019ve really gotten to know myself, and thinking about the future and stuff like that, I don\u2019t tend to play my best. So just trying to stay in the present moment, and if I get an opportunity, then great. It\u2019s just another game. I\u2019ve played, including playoffs, over 160 American League games, so it\u2019s just another game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it would be really cool for sure.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It hasn\u2019t been a smooth regular season for Garand \u2014 his save percentage has dipped from a .913 last year to an .896 through 36 games \u2014 to this point, but Garand felt as if he had played \u201creally well\u201d over his last nine or 10 games with the Wolf Pack. <\/p>\n
That marked a different tone from early January, when Martin was summoned after Shesterkin\u2019s injury and Sullivan said Martin, the 30-year-old who\u2019d appeared in just six games for Hartford at that point and was more than two years removed from his last NHL game, gave the Blueshirts the \u201cbest chance to win.\u201d Garand had earned call-ups before, including earlier this season when Quick landed on injured reserve, but that never led to an appearance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Dylan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/new-york-rangers-held-rookie-89472280.jpg\")
Dylan Garand is likely to soon get his Rangers debut. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
Since The Letter 2.0, the Rangers have given 2023 first-round pick Gabe Perreault an extended look on their first line. They\u2019ve given 22-year-old Jaroslav Chmelar consistent reps on the fourth line. They\u2019ve used time on the penalty kill as windows of opportunity to experiment with younger pieces such as Tye Kartye. Garand, then, would be another player to capitalize on the organization\u2019s current strategy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things that have gone into the decision to bring Dylan up,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cThe biggest point is that he\u2019s played extremely well in Hartford. He\u2019s given those guys a chance to win night in and night out, and he\u2019s deserving.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Until this point, the marquee start in Garand\u2019s career occurred last May, when he logged a game for Team Canada in the IIHF Men\u2019s World Championship and stopped all 11 shots against Slovenia. <\/p>\n
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He occupied a place on the goaltending depth chart alongside likely future Hall of Famer Marc-Andre Fleury and Jordan Binnington \u2014 gold medalists at the 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off, respectively. That allowed him to get a taste of NHL life, Garand said. <\/p>\n
When he\u2019s with the Rangers, he\u2019s able to observe and learn from Quick, who he asked Saturday about what he remembered from his first game, and Shesterkin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And finally, according to Sullivan\u2019s tentative plan, Garand might get a chance to translate that knowledge, that experience from all those AHL games, into an NHL game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing about the American League, it\u2019s the second-best league in the world but nobody really wants to play there in the sense that we all want to play in the NHL,\u201d Garand said. \u201cLike, we don\u2019t take it for granted. We\u2019re playing professional hockey for sure, but everyone\u2019s dream is to play in the NHL.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dylan Garand knew the number off the top of his head. He knew that, between the regular season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[4823,385,99],"class_list":["post-539086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539086","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=539086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}