Shesterkin named finalist for league MVP
Igor Shesterkin officially has a chance to become the Hart (and soul) of the NHL.
The Russian goaltender was named Thursday, alongside Edmonton’s Connor McDavid and Toronto’s Auston Matthews, as finalists for the Hart Trophy as league MVP.
Shesterkin, who led the NHL in goals-against average (2.07) and save percentage (.935) during the regular season, would become the first Rangers goalie to win the award since Chuck Rayner in 1950 and just the fifth player in franchise history to be so honored. Mark Messier was the team’s most recent winner in 1992, with goalie Henrik Lundqvist a finalist in 2012.
“It’s obviously very welldeserved. He’s been our best player all year,” teammate Chris Kreider said Thursday of Shesterkin. “We’re certainly not in the position we are now without him. He kept us in games. He single-handedly won games.
“He’s got my vote, if that counts for anything. It’s a wealth of riches, over the course of my time here, we’ve been lucky enough to have pretty dominant goaltending, so it’s what I’m used to at this point. But this season has been otherworldly, and he’s been amazing as a teammate and as a competitor and as a person. We’re really lucky to have him.”
In the past 60 years, just four goalies — Jacques Plante (1962), Dominik Hasek (1997 and 1998), Jose Theodore (2002) and Carey Price (2015) — have won the award. McDavid led the NHL with 123 points for the Oilers this season, and Matthews scored a league-best 60 goals for the Maple Leafs.
The 26-year-old Shesterkin, also the favorite to win the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goalie, wasn’t made available to the media after Thursday’s practice. He stopped 29 shots in a 5-3 win the previous night at the Garden to force Game 6 on Friday in Pittsburgh, where he was pulled in each of the Rangers’ previous two losses.
“Obviously he’s had an outstanding season. It was great to see him get that honor as one of the three candidates,” Gallant said. “They’re all great [players], but he wants to win playoff games right now. That’s the biggest thing on his agenda. But it’s an outstanding season. We’re all very proud of him, and it’s well-deserved for him.” ➤ Gallant said there is no reason for the Rangers to “worry about the past” after suffering road losses by a 14-6 aggregate in Game 3 and Game 4 at PPG Paints Arena. As defenseman Jacob Trouba noted: “We know what to expect going into it now, but we have to play better than we did those two games there, we know that. We want to play the way we played [Wednesday] night. That’s how the Rangers play when we’re successful.”