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The New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning open their third round series on Wednesday with Game 1 in New York. While big names like Nikita Kucherov, Artemi Panarin, Victor Hedman and Adam Fox all headline the series, one of the most interesting aspects of the matchup will undoubtedly be the goaltending battle.
For the Rangers, Igor Shesterkin has been the team's most valuable player and was the top goalie in the world this year. He posted an outstanding .935 save percentage in 53 games with New York this season and was a massive reason for the team getting back to the playoffs. Shesterkin posted the highest single-season save percentage since Tim Thomas back in 2010-11 (minimum 40 games played) and is pretty much a lock for the Vezina Trophy this season, regardless of what happens in this Lightning series.
Shesterkin has already proven capable of performing in the postseason as well. Despite some rough games against the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round, he's rebounded in a huge way, posting a .939 save percentage over his last 10 games since then. Even factoring in the entire playoff stretch where he was pulled in both Games 3 and 4 against Pittsburgh, Shesterkin has managed a .928 save percentage overall – and the only goalie remaining in the postseason to post a higher save percentage while starting at least one game is Tampa Bay's Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Vasilevskiy has posted a .932 save percentage through 11 games this postseason and while Shesterkin was key in getting New York to the postseason, Vasilevskiy has been significant in the Lightning's back-to-back Stanley Cups. Shesterkin arguably stands out a bit more on New York and although the likes of Adam Fox, Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad headline a good group for the Rangers, this year was all about Shesterkin. With Tampa Bay though, they have such a deep group of skaters both up front and on the blue line, that Vasilevskiy's name may not always be right at the forefront. Nobody's debating his accomplishments and status as one of the world's best but with a roster including names like Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman, Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point and others, the focus can sometimes be on others or the team's recent success as a whole.
Thing key with Vasilevskiy is how he's consistently able to rise to the challenge for the Lightning and come up big when it counts. His career playoff save percentage is actually quite a bit higher than his career regular season save percentage and through Tampa Bay's last three three playoff runs (from 2019-20 to the current postseason), he's posted a ridiculous .932 save percentage over 59 games despite a huge workload and an obviously high quality of competition.
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Even looking at his first round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs is really interesting. He was actually pretty shaky through the first five games of the series and had allowed 18 goals over the five games. Even through regulation in Game 6, he was decent but not outstanding. However, when the Lightning was being completely outplayed in overtime with their season on the line, Vasilevskiy was perfect, keeping Tampa Bay around long enough to score and even the series. From that point on, over the last five games between Game 7 against Toronto and all four games against the Florida Panthers, Vasilevskiy has managed an absurd .978 save percentage. He's allowed just four goals on 185 shots over those five games.
In terms of how each goalie has historically performed against their third round opponent, Shesterkin has won all three games he's played against the Lightning in his career with one shutout and a .958 save percentage. Vasilevskiy, however, has actually managed just three wins in nine career games against the Rangers, posting a .913 save percentage, which is quite a bit lower than his career save percentage. Given Shesterkin only entered the league in the 2019-20 season, he's only faced the Lightning as they've been a top team, while many of Vasilevskiy's games against the Rangers actually came when they weren't a playoff team. Again, it's a small sample size and it doesn't really mean much but it's at least an interesting stat.
Even though the series features a matchup between two of the highest-scoring teams in the league, expect the goaltending battle to be an absolute key for success. Both Shesterkin and Vasilevskiy have the ability to completely steal games for their respective team and if one stumbles, it could be difficult for their team to catch up against the other.
So while there's a ton of hype around the matchup between the Colorado Avalanche and Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Final, and rightfully so, the Eastern Conference Final between the Lightning and Rangers has quite the storyline of its own. The West may have Connor McDavid vs. Nathan MacKinnon squaring off – arguably the two greatest players in the world – but the East features a dream goaltending matchup. Rarely do we see the top two netminders in the world go head to head, let alone deep in the postseason with the stakes so high.
