This will be a bittersweet moment for me and for millions of Rangers fans. Henrik Lundqvist's number 30 is going to be raised to the rafters at Madison Square Garden. It is a fitting end to a glorious career that, sadly, had but one blemish: no rings.
It was not from lack of effort, or talent. As I wrote in a piece from last August, Lundqvist was the "greatest Ranger NOT to win a Stanley Cup in the history of the franchise." In the Mount Rushmore of the organization, there's Messier, Leetch, Gilbert and King Henrik.
What about Mike Richter, you say? Certainly the goalie who stoned Pavel Bure on a penalty shot in the Cup finals should be on that mountain. He would, except for one thing: Hank was better. Of course he was better; deep down you know he was. And that's coming from someone who was a Mike Richter fan.
Pick a metric: wins, shutouts (both regular season and playoffs), save percentage, goals against average, the game sevens, the 2012 Vezina trophy, and Lundqvist was far superior to Richter. Put aside the Cup win for a moment and be honest. If you had one game to win and one goalie to put between the pipes, who would you choose? You could make the argument that Richter benefited greatly from playing on a championship-caliber team while Lundqvist gave an otherwise good team a chance at becoming one. Among his contemporaries, only Martin Brodeur was better.
But this is not the time nor the place for comparisons. This is a time for honoring the life's work of one of the greatest athlete's the sport has ever known; a man who brought honor to the game he loved with every fiber of his being; and whose professionalism and competitive spirit knew no equal.
I've been watching "30 Days of 30" on MSG Cable, and I'm still amazed at the acrobatic saves he made against the Penguins and Canadiens in the 2014 playoffs and the Caps in both the 2012 and 2015 playoffs. To paraphrase a well-known baseball analogy, the man left it all on the ice. He did everything humanly possible to drag all three teams across the finish line, but, alas, somethings were beyond even the King's reach.
As we watch the emergence of Igor Shesterkin into an elite goalie, it's worth noting that his predecessor set the standard by which he and all future Rangers' net minders will be judged. Whether Igor ends up eclipsing Lundqvist's records remains to be seen; but one thing is certain: he will obviously have to be a lot more durable than he has thus far been.
As for me, I will forever be grateful for the thrills he gave all of us; and I will treasure the wins he willed into being, and, yes, saddened at what might've been. He has earned this moment, this honor, and this place in Rangers history.
To quote Shakespeare, "we shall not look upon his like again."
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