It should be done – DONE! – with all due respect, but the Rangers must say bye-bye to Jonathan Quick as a starter for the remainder of the regular season.
If the Blueshirts expect to make the playoffs, they must go with Igor Shesterkin – playing every game – all the way.
That means that Iggy must start eleven straight games, beginning Tuesday in Los Angeles. Shesty was superior yesterday, taming Vancouver 5-3 at The Garden's Sam Rosen fete.
"It was like watching the Vezina Trophy Shesterkin," says The Old Scout. "He carried his supposedly desperate team that had only a dozen shots on goal. That's crazy."
Even crazier is that the offense was saved by Fourth Line Waterboy Jonny (Don't Call Me John) Brodzinski. With a pair of critical goals, Brozzy is a late candidate for the Steven McDonald hustle prize.
On "Sam Rosen Night," the crowd was relieved to note that Big Al Lafrenière helped out a bit.
"But the only thing that matters," adds The Old Scout, "Is the W and the fact that they're only six points behind the slumping Devils."
Getting back to Iggy Goalie, the idea of playing 11 straight games is neither impossible nor unrealistic.
Hall of Famer Glenn (Mister Goalie) Hall played 502 straight games and that's not counting playoffs either. And he never beefed about it.
The Old Scout: "The way Montreal has come on so strong – and with the Islanders hangin' in there – the Rangers don't have much of a margin for error."
According to my stats-schedule-odds vice-president Jess Rubenstein, there are folks out there who calculate playoffs odds every day.
"Right now 'Moneypuck.com has the odds for the Rangers making the Wild Card at 20.7 percent," Jeff reports. "One reason for that is that the Canadiens have played two fewer games than the Rangers."
Granted, the climb is uphill and the Rangers must keep winning and the only way that will happen is if Shesterkin starts all games from here to the end.
With a little bit of luck and a lot of lgor, the Rangers still might find themselves beyond the Blueshirt horizon and in beautiful playoff day.