Igor Shesterkin opened the season wanting the half of the league’s highest-paid goaltender.
For practically three weeks, he’s largely been residing on fame.
While the offense again gave the Rangers no likelihood of pulling out their first home win of the season, the star goaltender couldn’t match his shut pal, Ilya Sorokin, in the Islanders’ 5-0 win at Madison Square Garden on Saturday evening.
In the first six video games of the season, Shesterkin allowed seven targets in six video games.
In the six video games since then, the former Vezina Trophy winner has allowed 22 targets.
While backup Jonathan Quick has been very good in 4 begins (3-1, 1.26 targets against common), Shesterkin has won just two begins since selecting up a pair of wins in the opening week of the season.
Igor Shesterkin makes a save during the Rangers’ 5-0 loss to the Islanders at the Garden on Nov. 8, 2025. Robert Sabo for the NY Post
“Of course we’re upset,” said Shesterkin, who allowed 4 targets on 25 photographs. “We just need to keep working.”
Shesterkin allowed the first of two targets to Bo Horvat halfway through the first interval and failed to present the momentum-changing stops of Sorokin.
But fault was discovered all around, with the Rangers permitting a number of odd-man rushes.
“We beat ourselves,” Rangers coach Mike Sullivan said. “We gave them three 2-on-1 targets. We gave them a 2-on-1 objective with 30 seconds left. It’s inexplicable to me. Tonight’s a very totally different story from some of the other video games that have been performed here. We beat ourselves in a lot of methods.
The Islanders rating a objective on Igor Shesterkin during their street win over the Rangers. AP
“I don’t know if we’re chasing it because we want to have success at home, but I think we were doing things that were uncharacteristic of the group. … You can’t give up the type of 2-on-1s we gave up tonight and expect to win many games.”
So much for momentum.
In Friday evening’s win at Detroit, the Rangers scored the first of their 4 targets on Will Cuylle’s wrister, 17 seconds into their first power-play alternative.
It ended the unit’s five-game drought, in which the Rangers failed to convert 12 straight energy play alternatives.
On Saturday, the Rangers’ struggles with the man-advantage resumed, failing to convert two alternatives.
The Rangers also failed with three minutes of 6-on-5 in the closing minutes, but that only led to an empty internet objective by Jean-Gabriel Pageau, prompting J.T. Miller to slam his stick against the publish.
Vincent Trocheck missed his 14th straight recreation with an upper-body damage. … Defenseman Connor Mackey was assigned to Hartford after back-to-back video games as a wholesome scratch. … The Rangers continued their centennial celebration — recognizing iconic “milestones and moments” in franchise historical past — honoring Pete Stemkowski, Ron Greschner, John Davidson, Stephane Matteau, Adam Graves, Mike Richter, Henrik Lundqvist, Derek Stepan, Steve Vickers, Marek Malik and the household of the late Eddie Giacomin.
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