Shesterkin is the hero of the night in the NHL: the Russian goalkeeper saved the Rangers
The 25-year-old Russian became the first star of the match and established himself in the top 5 NHL goalkeepers in terms of the percentage of reflected shots of the season.
The New York Rangers beat the Seattle Kraken 3-1 away in the National Hockey League regular season. The main hero of the meeting was the Rangers goalkeeper Igor Shesterkin, who was recognized as the best player of the match. His excellent form is also encouraging for Russian fans, as the 25-year-old goalkeeper is on the extended roster of players for a trip to Beijing 2022.
If we start only from the standings of the Rangers and Seattle, then there is nothing surprising in the victory of the New York club. But those who have seen this show live can say boldly: the Kraken’s hockey players should have won. They dominated the entire match, throwing over their opponents in each of the periods (9: 8, 13: 2 and 10: 8). But the Russian played an impressive game Igor Shesterkinby parrying 31 of 32 shots in a match. And the rest of the “blue shirts” were good! They acted incredibly selflessly, blocking 21 (!) Shots on target. By comparison, the Seattle goalkeeper Grubauer fought off only 15 shots out of 17.
Shesterkin’s game impressed everyone so much, even the Rangers’ club twitter account posted the entire match one video with bright saves after another. See how it was:
For the first time in 10 years, the Rangers have won an away match with 18 shots or fewer shots on goal. The last time this happened was on October 25, 2011, when the Rangers met on the road with Winnipeg (2-1). But then the winners goalkeeper Martin Biron played less spectacularly than Shesterkin, repelling 27 out of 28 threats from his possessions.
Another rare statistical fact for the strongest hockey league in the world is that New York players blocked more shots than they made themselves. In other words, the goalkeeper and the defense won the match.
This was recognized by everyone, including the hockey players and coaches themselves. New Yorkers began to compete in inventing compliments for Igor.
Answering the question, how many more current regular season should Shesterkin, the head coach of the Rangers, “steal” Gerard Galland joked: “Well, what do we have there according to the calendar? 70 matches left or something ?! “.
The author of one of the washers Barkley Goodrow supported his team-mate: “Igor had an incredible match. He – the only factor why we won today. We are indebted to him. We need to get the puck out of our zone much better, win the fight on the boards and block shots. Today Six had to make a lot of saves. We have to play much better, and we will do it in the next match with Vancouver.
“Igor keeps us in the game in every match, and we never get the feeling that everything is lost. I just don’t have enough good words to describe his game ”, – added by the author of the winning puck Adam Fox.
Athletic Journalist Ryan St. Clerk reminded of the past Halloween. “It was Shesterkin, not Jason Voorhees, who became the real horror for Seattle last night,” – wrote a columnist on Twitter.
New York have won their sixth win in their last seven games, scored 13 points and finished fourth in the Eastern Conference league table. Florida is leading there (17 points), with the help of which the Blue Shirts will play next week – November 9th.
As for Shesterkin’s personal achievements, for him this victory was the fifth in seven matches of the current championship. In terms of the percentage of reflected shots, the 25-year-old Russian with 94.7 percent is currently one of the top five goalkeepers of the season, second only to the goalkeeper of San Jose James Rymer (96.4), to the Calgary goalkeeper Jacob Markström (95.7) and the Carolina goalkeeper Frederick Andersen (95.6). Fifth place is Sergey Bobrovsky from Florida with a score of 94.4.
The excellent condition of the guards is especially encouraging for the fans of the Russian national team, because in February the Red Car will host the Olympic Games in Beijing. The expanded composition of the national team includes both Shesterkin and Bobrovsky. Let’s not forget about Ilya Samsonova from “Washington” and, of course, the Stanley Cup winner Andrey Vasilevsky from Tampa. Head coach of the Russian national team Alexey Zhamnov a difficult choice awaits.