The first goaltender decision of the season, and first-year Rangers coach David Quinn is deciding to split this weekend’s back-to-back between starter Henrik Lundqvist and young backup Alexandar Georgiev.
Lundqvist, who was strong in the season-opening 3-2 loss to the Predators on Thursday night at the Garden, is going to get Saturday night’s game in Buffalo against the Sabres. Then Georgiev will get his first start of the season with the 5 p.m. game in Raleigh against the Hurricanes on Sunday.
There were times in the past when coaches have wanted to get Lundqvist rolling early in the season, but if Thursday night was any indication, the 36-year-old Swede already is on point.
“I’ve said this many times, he’s a guy that keeps himself in incredible shape, an incredible competitor and one of the top goalies in the league,” Quinn said after the game, when Lundqvist stopped 30 of 32 shots faced, with Nashville adding an empty-netter in the waning minutes. “He had about 10 bell-ringers, most of them on odd-man rushes.”
Lundqvist also seemed rather pleased with his performance, getting beaten by a terrific shot from star winger Filip Forsberg, and then an absolute rocket from P.K. Subban that was made even tougher to stop from an unintentional screen by Kevin Shattenkirk.
“Overall, I’m just happy with how I played,” said Lundqvist, who also dazzled with a first-period glove save on Craig Smith to keep the game scoreless. “Technically, I felt good. Mentally, I think that’s the toughest part sometimes when you play these first couple games before you’re in it, to find the right type of focus. But it felt good.”
It looks as if physical winger Cody McLeod might make his season debut Saturday night, as he skated in place of Vladislav Namestnikov on the fourth line during Friday’s practice.
“We’re not sure yet, we’re just trying things,” said Quinn, who had McLeod with rookie center Brett Howden and shoot-first winger Vinni Lettieri. “We’ve got 13 forwards, just moving things around a little bit. We’ll make that decision [Saturday].”
Quinn took the blame for the too-many-men penalty the Rangers took Thursday night, down by a goal with 1:30 left in regulation that stopped them from having a possible 6-on-4 advantage. After Quinn pulled Lundqvist for the extra attacker, Subban was called for interference, and during the delayed stoppage, Mats Zuccarello jumped on to give the Rangers seven skaters.
“Ultimately that’s my responsibility,” Quinn said. “We had the goalie pulled and we got a penalty, and someone jumped out. It was what happened.”
Quinn said that Thursday night, his team gave up “16 even-strength chances, eight of them were off the rush, and five of them were off turnovers — 13 of them were stuff we absolutely can control.”
The Rangers spent a significant portion of Friday’s practice working on how to manage the puck better in all three zones.