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Henrik Lundqvist Out 4-6 Weeks: Rangers Trade on Horizon?

By Mike Hrankiwskyj

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Various outlets have reported that Ranger goalie Henrik Lundqvist will miss the next four-to-six weeks with a throat injury.  The team and coach Alain Vigneault have been quiet for the most part on the injury, only stating they’ll provide more information later today and that Lundqvist would not accompany the team on its trip to Nashville this weekend.

Lundqvist took a puck to the neck on Saturday against the Hurricanes and despite being stung, finished the game.  He played two nights later against Florida, winning again.  No one knows yet the exact injury and if playing exacerbated the issue, but it was at least a questionable decision to go back to him so soon after being struck with the puck.

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    • Lundqvist has been the face of the Rangers’ franchise during his career and has been an absolute workhorse, starting 60 or more games in the last eight non-shortened seasons.  And that doesn’t include playoffs where he has often been the reason why the Rangers have been able to achieve success come spring time.  Even this season where Rick Nash is leading the league with 32 goals, everyone knows the Rangers’ fates rest on the shoulders of Henrik Lundqvist.  The news today is a crushing blow to the organization.

    However, now the Rangers must turn to backup Cam Talbot to hold down the fort. Talbot has actually performed sensational in his 33 career games (29 starts), posting a 17-10-2 record, .935 save percentage, and 1.81 goals against average.  But that was all accomplished as the clear number two behind Lundqvist.  Now, he’s “the man” for a team that sits in third place in the Metropolitan Division with 64 points, eight points clear of the ninth place Panthers.

    If out for the four-to-six week timeline, that’ll be 15-20 games that Henrik Lundqvist will be sidelined for.  Even if the team has confidence in Talbot, it makes sense to make some phone calls around the league to get the prices on available goalies.  The team called up Mackenzie Skapski, the 20-year old with 24 career AHL games to backup Talbot (interestingly enough, Skapski was born on June 15, 1994…or one day after the Rangers’ last Stanley Cup win.  Sure, it doesn’t mean anything, but hey, I thought it was interesting).

    The Rangers can’t afford to go through a quarter of their season with a Talbot-Skapski tandem.  There isn’t a Ryan Miller or Jaroslav Halak available now as there was at last year’s trade deadline, but goalies like Jhonas Enroth, Ben Scrivens, and James Reimer should be available at reasonable prices.  Those guys aren’t going to replace Henrik Lundqvist (I mean, who can replace arguably the best goalie in the game), but they would at least give the Rangers more veteran options and a NHL-caliber goalie to turn to if Talbot can’t handle the starter’s gig.

    The return for those types of goalies need to be reasonable for the Rangers.  They don’t have a first round pick this year (thanks to the Martin St. Louis trade), and didn’t have one last year or 2013.  The team’s farm system has taken a hit in the past few seasons as the team has made several “win now” trades to acquire veteran help at the expense of the future.  It worked well enough last year to get to the Stanley Cup Finals, but at some point the credit card bill comes due, and with a lack of impact youth near ready, salary cap issues, that bill may come soon.  So the Rangers need to also be mindful when they go shopping for another goalie.

    But, general manager Glen Sather may have no choice.  The Rangers are among the hottest teams in the sport, going 19-5-0 in their last 24 games to challenge the Islanders and Penguins for first in the division.  However, with today’s news of Henrik Lundqvist’s injury, the team probably needs to re-focus their efforts on maintaining their spot in the standings and avoid any prolonged droughts that can knock them out of the playoff picture all together.  Sather has made some very smart trades recently, and he is going to pull another rabbit out of his hat soon here.  Who knows…maybe this injury is a blessing as it’ll keep Lundqvist fresh come playoff time? Silver-linings, Ranger fans.

    The season is beginning to get short and if the Rangers want to ensure they’ll be around to defend their Eastern Conference crown in April, they need to make a trade as soon as possible.  My guess is that there will be another goalie in Ranger-blue soon.

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