NHL analysts agree: Igor Shesterkin should be fine in playoff debut

Igor Shesterkin has proved plenty this season, establishing himself as one of the league’s best goaltenders and a young Rangers star.

But like many of his teammates, there is one thing Shesterkin has not yet done — or even had the chance to do: Prove himself in the NHL playoffs.

That process begins with Game 1 of a first-round series against the Penguins on Tuesday night, and two particularly interested observers believe he is up to the task.

They are former Rangers goalies Henrik Lundqvist and Steve Valiquette, who will watch together across the street from Madison Square Garden as MSG Networks studio analysts, and who on Monday talked about Shesterkin on a video call with reporters.

“I think he’ll handle it fine,” said Lundqvist, who added that Shesterkin’s calm demeanor likely will serve him better than more experience might have.

“He’s a calm guy. That will help him going into this. Sometimes you talk so much about experience and that you need this and that to have success. At times you need that, but there’s a lot of times where actually it’s easier to go in fresh. You don’t overthink it — just go out and play.

“You see a lot of young goalies have success early on in the playoffs because they don’t feel as much pressure or they don’t overthink.”

Valiquette believes that stylistically, Shesterkin is a good match for the Penguins.

“The good news is that with Pittsburgh being good at breakaways, good at getting to the net for rebounds, broken plays and east-to-west plays, those are all plays that Shesterkin overperforms for the last three years since he joined the Rangers,” Valiquette said.

“He’s really remarkable. He’s fascinating. He overperforms every single chance type that I looked at, and they’re really in line with what strengths Pittsburgh does have. So I think it lines up well for him to have a dominating series.”

Shesterkin, 26, had a 2.07 goals-against average and six shutouts in the regular season. But the Rangers, their fans and everyone else in the league is curious to see how he will respond now.

Anson Carter, an analyst for both MSG and Turner, said on a video call last week that while most of his fellow Turner analysts do not expect a deep run by the Rangers, Shesterkin could fuel one. Carter called him “special.”

Carter recalled Rangers goalie coach Benoit Allaire saying when Shesterkin joined the NHL that he had “hockey sense like Wayne Gretzky.”

“I was like, ‘Benny, what the hell are you talking about? He’s a goalie,’ ” Carter recalled. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, but he’s always in position. Pucks just hit him, because he knows exactly where the play is going before the play actually happens.’

“Watching him play the last couple of years in the league, Benny has been right . . . I believe if you have a player like him, if he plays up to his capabilities the way he played in the regular season, the Rangers do have a chance. And once you get on that roll, anything is possible.”

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.