ON FIRE! Shesterkin gets 1st shutout of season as blueshirts beat Flames for 5th straight win

Igor Shesterkin took the Rangers’ burgeoning goalie controversy and stuffed it in the trash receptacle where it belongs. A shutout in a game that was 1-0 into the final half-minute will tend to do that. Returning to 2022 Vezina form will do that, too.

“It was an important night for me, an important shutout so I appreciate it,” Shesterkin said after the Blueshirts’ 2-0 victory over Calgary at the Garden on Monday stretched the club’s winning streak to five games. “The guys did a great job in front of me.”

Shesterkin was not under siege in recording his first shutout of the season, but he was faced with at least a halfdozen high-danger chances from around the net and from the circles among his 30 saves. Among his most notable were a pair of stops he made on Blake Coleman from the right side with the score 1-0 with 2:20 remaining after denying Rasmus Andersson with the cuff of his glove on the defenseman’s screamer off the rush in the period’s third minute.

He was sharp in denying Andrew Mangiapane with speed in the final minute of the second period after denying Connor Zary on a power play drive within a minute after Will Cuylle had given the Blueshirts their 1-0 lead at 12:31 of the second by going to the net and banging home a Kaapo Kakko rebound.

“Honesty, I felt great all night,” said Shesterkin, who has won his two starts since backing up Jonathan Quick for the first two coming out of the All-Star break. “From the starting faceoff to the end.”

The netminder was cool and in control, tracking the puck well and in position for second saves. He did take aim at the empty net with 59 seconds remaining but the puck never had a chance and skittered way wide. Jimmy Vesey got the empty-netter seconds later to lock down the Blueshirts’ fifth straight victory that extended the division lead to six points over Carolina though the Hurricanes have two games in hand.

“I thought Shesty played a heck of a game for us, especially when there was not a lot of work in the first and then you’re relied on more in the second and then the third they’re pushing in a 1-0 game,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “I thought he was really good.”

Shesterkin is in the midst of his second consecutive disappointing season following his 2021-22 dominant Vezinawinning season. Quick’s revival at age 38 in the backup role has been one of the most important developments of the season’s first four months. The Blueshirts would be fighting for a wild-card spot — at best — without superior play from the two-time Cup winner.

But the idea that Quick would supplant Shesterkin has always been farfetched. The Rangers need Quick just as they needed Antti Raanta and just as they needed Cam Talbot to thrive when they backed up Henrik Lundqvist. But the net will belong to Shesterkin down the stretch and in the playoffs just as it belonged to the King when the playoffs commenced. Quick’s elite play has provided the Rangers with the luxury of giving Shesterkin extra time to work with goaltending instructor Benoit Allaire as needed the way the 28-year-old Russian needed the remedial work coming out of the break.

“On the break I tried to lose myself and not think about hockey,” Shesterkin said. “I just spent time with my family so right now I just focus on the puck and nothing else.”

The Rangers played one of their most impressive grinding games of the year. They owned the puck below the hash marks for shifts at a time in the offensive zone. They cycled. They won battles on the boards and in the corners. They funneled bodies and pucks to the net as best they could. Still, they could only get one goal out of it. Still, they persevered and found the way to win this game just the way they found ways to win when bolting to their 18-4-1 getaway. Nothing is quite coming easy for this squad but they are sticking with it.

“We didn’t feel great after the Chicago game,” Jacob Trouba said of Friday’s 4-3 overtime victory in Chicago after frittering away a two-goal lead in the final 6:03 of regulation. “You get two points and you never take winning for granted in this league but we wanted to come out and play a really solid game.

“I thought we did that. And Shesty was great.”

What goalie controversy?