The outstanding play of Igor Shesterkin in Game 6 helped lead the Rangers to the conference finals.

Long before anyone picked the Rangers to win The Stanley Cup, I went on record and wrote that the Blueshirts will do it sometime in June.

My premise remains – despite the Canes scare – that the team with the best goalie wins the prize.

And that – more than anything – explains why Carolina's noble stickhandlers are now golfing and the Broadway Blueshirts are licking their chops, secure in the knowledge that they can beat either Boston or Florida.

Yes, Shesterkin is better than Jeremy Swayman or Sergei Bobrovsky.

No matter how you shake it – or shook it – the New York-Raleigh series would be tied right now had the goaltending been equal.

The 18,680 screamers who jammed PNC Arena last night figured the game was secure for the home team when the second period ended, 3-1 for the Canes.

It was a reasonable assumption. Rod Brind'Amour's troops had been all over the visitors like a lion licking his chops over a caught wildebeest.

Everything the Rangers did was either wrong, very wrong or a little bit late. The fair assumption was that Wise Man Brind'Amour would keep it that way.

Ah, but Roddy can't play goal and neither – in the third period when it counted – could Frederik Andersen.

Here's what I mean. The Rangers' Magic Mika tries to go short side. Andersen stops him with his goalie skate. But before he can get his glove on the rubber Kreider gets there first and pokes it in.

From a hermetically-sealed 3-1 lead, it's now 3-2 and – all of a sudden – the momentum swing goes to New York because Krieder smells a stiff in the enemy goal and then proves it two more times.

"We gave them two goals," Brind'Amour lamented after the game although he could have said "My goalie gave them four goals."

Absolutely full credit to Kreider for exploiting the holes in the Raleigh Dam. Meanwhile, Shesterkin made Sibby Aho and Jordan Staal look like Simpleton Ferg as Iggie stopped them both on his doorstep.

Ergo: It is – and was – all about goaltending.

That's why I'm confident that it doesn't matter whether Boston or Florida emerge alive from their tournament.

Shesterkin reigns – and so do the Blueshirts!