Shesterkin Is Out for the Season, and the Rangers' Net Belongs to a 24-Year-Old

The New York Rangers announced on Saturday that Igor Shesterkin will miss the rest of the 2026-27 season with a lower-body injury, Reuters reports, eight days after he became the first goaltender in franchise history to score a goal. The announcement came a day after Shesterkin was helped off the ice in Washington, and in the same breath the club said backup Joonas Korpisalo will miss another four weeks. A team that started Saturday on top of its division now has neither of its two contracted NHL goaltenders.

What happened to Shesterkin in Washington?

His right skate caught the post as he scrambled back into his crease. Shesterkin had come out to cut off a play during a Capitals power play in the second period on Friday, and sliding back into position he jammed the skate into the goalpost and fell with the leg bent under him, Reuters reports. He had stopped 13 of the 14 shots he faced. He stayed down for several minutes, struck the ice in pain and was helped to the bench by two teammates without putting weight on the leg, USA Today reports.

Captain J.T. Miller called him a pillar of the team after the 3-1 loss, Reuters reports. Coach Mike Sullivan said the club is disappointed for a fierce competitor and will do everything it can to get him back as soon as possible, USA Today reports. On Saturday the club confirmed what the pictures on Friday suggested: as soon as possible is next season.

Why is the timing of this injury so strange?

Because Shesterkin’s season had just produced its signature moment. On October 2, in the home opener against Tampa Bay, he shot the puck the length of the ice into an empty net with 2:34 to play, becoming the 18th goaltender in NHL history to score a goal and the first Ranger ever to do it, the Associated Press reports. He said afterwards that his view was blocked and he did not know whether he could celebrate. For two games he was tied for the team lead in goals.

The hockey underneath the novelty was just as strong: a 3-1-0 record, a 1.79 goals-against average and a .927 save percentage across five starts, Reuters reports, for a Rangers side that finished last in the Metropolitan Division last season and started this one 4-2-0. The distance between a goalie goal and a season-ending announcement turned out to be eight days.

Who is Dylan Garand, the 24-year-old taking over the net?

The goaltender the whole league passed on in September. Garand was sent to the AHL after training camp, cleared waivers and was recalled only because Korpisalo was already hurt, USA Today reports. He replaced Shesterkin on Friday, and his one start this season was a 22-save shutout in a 2-0 win at Detroit on October 2, Reuters reports. Sullivan told reporters he expects Garand to carry the bulk of the starts until Korpisalo returns in about four weeks, USA Today reports.

Garand is a 2020 fourth-round pick in his second NHL season, with three appearances as a rookie behind him, theScore reports. That is the whole of the Rangers’ safety net for a month: a 24-year-old with four career starts, on a team whose October had otherwise been the story of a division flipped upside down since Semyon Varlamov returned across town after 676 days and two knee replacements in the Islanders’ crease at the Garden.

Does the Hellebuyck situation suddenly matter to the Rangers?

It is the question the announcement forces. Connor Hellebuyck’s holdout has left Winnipeg’s net to a running public argument, complete with a fan-built website counting his forfeited pay at roughly 45 cents a second. USA Today raised the fit directly on Saturday: a three-time Vezina winner who wants out, an $8.5 million cap hit the Rangers can absorb this season precisely because Shesterkin is shut down, and a team with the assets to bid.

The same paragraph explains why it probably does not happen. Shesterkin is signed through 2033 on the richest goaltending contract in league history, theScore reports, and Hellebuyck is signed through 2031. Two contracts like that cannot share one crease beyond a single emergency season, which is why the likelier Ranger path is the unglamorous one: Garand for a month, Korpisalo after that, and a smaller rental if the division lead survives.

What happens next for the Rangers?

A month of evidence about their own depth chart. Garand’s shutout in Detroit says he can win an NHL game; nothing yet says he can carry a starter’s schedule behind a team that was outplayed at five-on-five even while Shesterkin was standing on his head in the season’s first week. Korpisalo’s four-week timeline sets the first checkpoint, and the Capitals team Shesterkin was hurt against is spending its own season staging Alex Ovechkin’s farewell, which means the division race will not pause for New York’s emergency.

The Rangers have not named the specific injury and have not discussed surgery. What they have is a date to survive until Korpisalo returns, a 24-year-old who was on waivers a month ago, and a season that flipped from a goalie goal to a goalie crisis in eight days.