Quick a tested backup for Rangers
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. — Jonathan Quick has been on a path to the Hockey Hall of Fame for a long time, but he didn’t expect to make any turns between Los Angeles and Toronto.
He figured on being a one-sweater guy.
“That’s what was discussed there,” said Quick, who led the LA Kings to two Stanley Cup championships with some of the best postseason goaltending in history. “For sure, that was what I was under the impression was going to happen.”
But the hockey business will make its own career trajectories. The Kings traded Quick midway through last season, his 16th, and he shuffled from Columbus to
Las Vegas, where he served as backup and won another Cup. Now, the road has taken Quick back close to his Connecticut roots, and to the team he loved as a young player in Milford, and at Hamden High and Avon Old Farms.
He’s no longer an LA King, but he’s still Connecticut hockey royalty. And so far, Quick’s season as a New York Ranger has been a win-win.
“His worth ethic, the quality of person he is, that’s a really good addition to your team,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “He’s come in here and he’s really played well. He hasn’t disappointed in any way. There’s a calmness to him, a work ethic and a character thing to him and when you’re bringing that into your team, it’s a good thing.”
The Rangers, 19-7-1, lead the NHL’S Metropolitan Division, and across the league only Las Vegas (45) has more than New York’s 39 points. Quick, signed July 1 as a backup to Igor Shesterkin, has played a more important role than anticipated, with an 8-0-1 record in his nine starts. He could get his 10th when the Rangers play the Ducks at The Garden Friday night.
“As a team we’ve been playing very well,” Quick said. “There have been some ups and downs, but there have been some good responses when we’ve had those downs. I’m just trying to come in and mesh with what these guys have built over the last couple of years.”
After signing a one-year, clubfriendly deal for $925,000 and struggling during the preseason, Quick, 37, has shown that, thanks to his devotion to his craft and his effective low-to-the-ice approach to net-minding, he’s still
“Doubts? I wouldn’t put it that way,” Quick said, after a practice this week at the Rangers training facility. “I was probably more motivated than anything after the way things finished up in LA. But I was fortunate to get in a good spot there in Vegas, had a great time with those guys, and I was looking forward to starting a new chapter here with these guys.”
The chapters Quick has already written in the record books are quite impressive. He has won the Jennings Trophy, for lowest goals-against average, twice, and the Conn Smythe
Trophy, the postseason MVP, in 2012, when he stonewalled all playoff comers to the tune of a 16-4 record, 1.41 goalsagainst average. That performance not only got Quick’s name on Lord Stanley’s Cup, it got his name inked to a 10-year contract and on a sandwich, the “Quickwich,” at Ray and Mike’s Dairy and Deli back in Hamden, where his family still lives.
Born in Milford, Quick played on championship teams in youth hockey, then played for the storied CIAC program at Hamden High — his sweater hangs in Lou Astorino Rink — then moved on to Avon Old Farms, where he helped win two New England prep titles, getting nine shutouts his senior year. At Umass, Quick posted a .944 save percentage in NCAA Tournament games.
“It helps early in your career, going into college, you have people around you who support and help you,” Quick said. “In prep school, you’re on your own at an earlier age and you kind of figure out. When you go to college and turn pro, you know how to handle things. … It’s great to be back home, close to family.”
Over his long NHL career, Quick has been in the crease for 370 victories, 95 more games than he has lost. His most satisfying win for New York, though he characteristically underplays it, was a 4-1 win over the Kings at The Garden on Dec. 10, with 25 saves.
“It’s a weird day, right? The leadup,” Quick said. “But once you get out there, you’re just trying to help your team get the two points, win a hockey game, and go from there.”
Meanwhile, the Rangers, after a number of recent playoff disappointments, have gone all in to try to end another decades-long Cup drought One of the NHL’S Original Six teams, they have won championships in 1928, 1933, 1940 and 1994 — not as infrequently as Halley’s Comet passes over Manhattan, but close. There’s an urgency here.
They passed on their up-and-coming AHL coach in Hartford, Kris Knoblauch, who has since been hired in Edmonton, and brought Laviolette, 59, to New York for his sixth head coaching job. He won a Cup in Carolina in 2006, with the team formerly known as your you-knowwhos, and later led Philadelphia and Nashville to the Finals. The Rangers navigated a salary-cap squeeze to target veterans with winning experience, including Quick and Nick Bonino, 35, from Farmington, who won The Cup with Pittsburgh in 2016 and has been centering the third line with recent Wolf Pack forwards Will Cuylle and Jonny Brodzinski alongside.
“Both of these guys (Quick and Bonino) are veteran players who have been champions,” Laviolette said. “They’ve got a level of championship experience and success that any team would want to add.”
Should the Rangers need call on Quick in the playoffs, they’d be turning to a backup with 10 playoff shutouts, a record for American-born goaltenders, and who once won 11 straight playoff games on the road, also a record.
They’d be calling on a future Hall of Famer.
“Quickie’s a great great teammate, a great pro,” Bonino said. “He’s one of the best goalies of all-time. To have him back there on the ice is awesome, and off the ice is awesome, too.”