This is a scenario that for the last 11 years has befallen other teams around the NHL, the ones that couldn’t depend on their goaltender and thus broke down repeatedly in their own end, if not all over the ice, in trying to cope with the uncertainty of never knowing when the puck would go in and from where.
But not the Rangers, not since Henrik Lundqvist effectively claimed the No. 1 job in nets from Kevin Weekes midway through the Swede’s rookie 2005-06 season. Issues up front? The Rangers have had those, all right. Issues on the back end?