The Rangers promoted Igor Shesterkin from Hartford on Monday. Shesterkin, believed to be the team's goalie of the future, was excelling in this his first year with the Wolf Pack. He was recently named to the AHL All-Star, which is helmed by Kris Knoblauch, his coach at Hartford. Shesterkin has a 1.93 goals-against average and .923 save percentage in 23 games in the minors.
OFFICIAL: Rangers recall goaltender Igor Shesterkin from @WolfPackAHL.
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) January 6, 2020
First @NHL recall for Igor Shesterkin. â˜‘ï¸ pic.twitter.com/ZDZtd35pZk
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) January 6, 2020
Henrik Lundqvist missed Saturday's game with a minor illness, so maybe this call up is related to that so that New York has a pair of goalies for practice and a back up for Tuesday. Alexandar Georgiev just played his 60th game in the NHL, so he is waiver-exempt from getting sent down and the Rangers aren't sending him down any time soon. In addition, you wonder if Shesterkin is given a start, which could depend on Lundqvist's status.
The promotion might be a way to reward Shesterkin and give him a taste of the future to avoid him exercising his KHL opt-out now and maybe in the future. Nothing has come to light that he is considering pursuing that option. What is known is that by getting promoted, his salary goes for the time he is in the NHL from the 70K he was making in the minors to the prorated 925K as part of his ELC. For now, this may be injury-or reward-related with further information hopefully to come to light.
Update: per Larry Brooks and Rick Carpinello, the call up is not health related for the goalies. This means that Shesterkin promotion is likely to give him a look at the NHL level. Probability is that he starts against Colorado tomorrow, nothing like getting thrown into the fire immediately.