Raanta makes historic debut with Blueshirts
It took a while for Antti Raanta to get into a game, but when he did, he managed to do something no Ranger has done in almost 58 years.
As the new understudy to Henrik Lundqvist, Raanta recorded a 40 shutout of the Sharks on Monday night at the Garden in his debut for the Blueshirts, the first netminder in franchise history to do so since Marcel Paille on Nov. 2, 1957, according to Elias Sports Bureau.
“It’s never easy to play a shutout,” said Raanta, who finished with 22 saves. “There is always something happening in the last two minutes — there is always one bad breakaway or something — so you need a little bit of luck to get the shutout. The only thing I was thinking was to win.”
Raanta made a couple of impressive saves, most notably on a Tomas Hertl deflection from in front with just over 13 minutes remaining in the third, followed shortly thereafter by a quick gloving of a Tommy Wingels wrister.
“He’s been working extremely hard and I know he has been waiting for this opportunity,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “He came out and you could feel this morning that he wasn’t nervous.”
Vigneault devised a plan in conjunction with renowned goalie coach Benoit Allaire to start Lundqvist for the team’s first six games, which included one backtoback. The plan is supposed to play out with Lundqvist getting about 60 games, and Raanta 2025.
Even though Lundqvist got out to a terrific individual start, he still wants to see his game improve.
“When you’re not winning, you try to look at what you want to do better,” Lundqvist told The Post on Monday morning, after skating at the Garden to get extra work in. “I feel good, but there is always things you can improve, goals you can cut down.”
The lines and defensive pairs remained the same as Sunday’s 21 overtime loss to the Devils — which meant they were drastically different than the opening five games.
The de facto top line now has Derek Stepan between Rick Nash and Mats Zuccarello, and they were effective throughout the night.
“I think our line had a lot more chemistry that it had in the past,” Nash said.
That move bumped Derick Brassard between Chris Kreider and Jesper Fast, leaving a third line of Oscar Lindberg-Kevin Hayes-J.T. Miller, and fourth line of Dominic MooreJarret Stoll-Viktor Stalberg.
On the back end, Vigneault saw improved play from the new top pair of captain Ryan McDonagh with Kevin Klein, while the Dan GirardiKeith Yandle unit struggled. The Marc StaalDan Boyle combo remained in tact.