Will the New York Rangers win a Cup during King Henrik’s reign?

Will the New York Rangers win a Cup during King Henrik’s reign?

[paypal_donation_button]Will the New York Rangers win a Cup during King Henrik’s reign?

Even with how difficult it can be to win a Stanley Cup, the league’s superstars usually manage to get their names on it at least once in the course of their career. Still, there always seem to be those players that, despite careers full of accolades, never manage that pinnacle achievement. This seems especially incomprehensible when that player is a goaltender of Henrik Lundqvist’s caliber, especially given the kind of stats he’s put up since joining the league in 2005. In the 2014-15 NHL playoffs, Lundqvist did everything he could to help the New York Rangers win the Cup short of score the goals himself, with a mind-boggling 1.6 GAA and .944 save percentage through the first two rounds. If the rest of his team had played up to his level, the Rangers would have won, hands down.

Even though he hasn’t yet won a cup, 33 year-old Lundqvist has brought home his fair share of accolades. He was nicknamed ‘King Henrik’ by his second month in the NHL because of his amazing skill and athleticism. He’s the only goaltender in NHL history to reach 30 wins in each of his first seven seasons and the first New York Ranger to be named the Most Valuable Player in five consecutive seasons, from 2006-07 to 2010-11. He’s been nominated for the Vezina Trophy three times, has won it once, and among active goaltenders is second in career regular season shutouts (56) and wins (348) behind only Roberto Luongo. Since adding Lundqvist to their line-up, the New York Rangers have missed the playoffs only once (in 2009-10) and consistently allow among the fewest goals in the league over the course of any given season, typically ranking between third and fifth in goals allowed (and still ranking 9th, well above their station, in their 2009-10 playoff miss). Hockey is of course a team sport; you can’t attribute all of this solely to the goaltender, but having someone like King Henrik minding the net certainly helps.

Lundqvist is signed with the Rangers through the 2020-21 NHL season, meaning if he’s going to win a cup, the Rangers are probably the team he’s going to do it with. On the flip side of this, if the New York Rangers want to bring home the Stanley Cup, they should probably aim to do it during Henrik Lundqvists tenure. Goaltenders of this quality are few and far between, and a high-quality net-minding performance is necessary to any successful post-season bid.
Consistently successful in the regular season, the Rangers will be the first to tell you those stats don’t count for much once playoff hockey starts. The Rangers have won the President’s Trophy three times in their history, including once with Lundqvist in net (2014-15); only once, in the 1993-94 NHL season, has a league-leading regular season tally converted into a Rangers Stanley Cup victory. The two division titles and one conference title the team earned between 2005 and 2015 resulted in moderate playoff success, translating to deep runs (the Conference Finals in 2011-12 and 2014-15, the Stanley Cup Finals in 2013-14) but no championship victories. Everybody knows the Rangers are good in regular season play. The question is what it’s going to take to get them to a Stanley Cup victory.

Offensive consistency has been the Rangers’ main sticking point in post-season play. It doesn’t matter how well Lundqvist tends the net if the team in front of him can’t manage to score. While it’s more difficult to score in the playoffs overall given the higher level of play, the Rangers top five scorers have consistently seen a significant drop in goal production between the regular season and the playoffs. Rick Nash is especially guilty on this front. He scored 26 goals in the 2013-14 NHL season, 42 in the 2014-15 NHL season — and only 8 in both years’ playoffs combined. That averages out to a little less than one goal every five games, not enough to lead any team to the Stanley Cup. Still, if the Rangers can increase their post-season production, it seems like only a matter of time before they’ll win it all. If they can’t do it for the city of New York, you have to think they’re at least trying to do it for their King.