Igor Shesterkin Will Miss Rest Of The Season As Rangers ‘Couldn't Be More Disappointed’

Igor Shesterkin will miss the rest of the 2026-27 season after suffering a lower-body injury during the New York Rangers’ 3-1 loss to the Washington Capitals on Friday night.

The injury occurred in the second period as Shesterkin went way out of his crease to challenge the puck carrier, Pierre-Luc Dubois. Upon sliding back into his crease, Shesterkin’s right skate made contact with the post, and he immediately collapsed to the ground, pounding the ice in pain.

The 30-year-old goaltender remained on the ice for a lengthy stretch of time before being helped to the bench by Sean Durzi and Marcus Pettersson, unable to put any weight on his right leg.

“Couldn't be more disappointed,” Sullivan said of Shesterkin’s injury. “I know how much playing means to him. He’s obviously one of the cornerstones of this organization, and I'm disappointed for him because he's such a fierce competitor. He loves hockey. He loves playing. He's in good hands from a medical standpoint. We'll do everything to get him back as soon as we can.”

Shesterkin had started the season playing at an extremely high level, posting a .926 save percentage heading into Friday night’s game in Washington.

Mike Sullivan declined to clarify whether the injury was an ACL tear, but regardless, it’s a serious and long-term injury, with a lengthy recovery and rehab process ahead of him.

“It's our friend. It's our teammate, and when that happens, you think about them,” Mika Zibanejad said. “You obviously feel bad that they have to go through it. It's just a tough situation – obviously for us, but mostly for him. So, that's the situation that we're in.”

For the Rangers, this injury is a devastating blow.

After the Rangers’ win over the Utah Mammoth on October 4, Mike Sullivan described the Blueshirts as a unit that has to “build a good team game” around Shesterkin in order to have success.

The Rangers have revolved their entire structure and identity around Shesterkin serving as the team’s main engine, and now that he’s out of the picture for the remainder of the year, it leaves the organization with a ton of questions and uncertainty about where they go from here, with 78 games remaining this season.

“Part of the identity we are trying to create is being hard to play against,” Sullivan said. “By extension of that, being hard to play against is being stingy defensively. I think if anything, it (Shesterkin’s absence) adds a heightened level of importance on trying to limit the quality of scoring chances against and creating offense off our defense. I don't think it changes anything from our standpoint as far as what the identity of our team is and how we need to play in order to set ourselves up for success.”

With Shesterkin out for the season and Joonas Korpisalo still expected to miss another month due to a lower-body injury, Dylan Garand is slated to take on the starting goaltending role for the Rangers for the foreseeable future.

The Rangers are also expected to call up Spencer Martin from the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League, but Sullivan emphasized that he envisions Garand commanding the majority of the starts while Korpisalo remains sidelined.

“Dylan is a great kid,” Sullivan said. “He’s another fierce competitor, he loves hockey, and he has aspirations to play in the NHL. He’s a good goalie. Everytime we’ve put him in the net, certainly since I've been here, he's made timely saves. He's given our team a chance to win each and every time he's been in the net. We think he's very capable, and he's going to get an opportunity here.”

J.T. Miller said on Friday night that the Rangers won’t let Shesterkin’s injury “take the wind out of our sails” after a strong 4-2 start to the season, but it’s hard to imagine Shesterkin’s absence not setting back the early-season progress New York has made.

There was certainly a somber mood around the Rangers’ practice facility on Saturday afternoon as the team took the ice and spoke with the media in the wake of the announcement that Shesterkin would miss the entirety of the season.

However, the team is uniting around the same message and mentality.

“We just stay in the movement,” Sullivan said. “I think we’ve got a resilient group. There’s good energy around the team. We've talked about that all along here. I think the team's played really well in this early part of the season, and we just got to continue to keep building our team game.”

Time will only tell whether the Rangers are able to manage without their star goaltender or if this injury will ultimately derail their season and newfound momentum.