EDMONTON, Alberta — The league has changed so drastically in the past few years that Henrik Lundqvist doesn’t see the value in looking back.
The Rangers goalie knows how different things are since he broke into the league in 2005, or the year he won the Vezina Trophy in 2012, or even the year his team won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2015. The game is more open, more frantic. It’s more difficult on goaltenders.
And that’s why most teams now have a steady rotation of two netminders that can both carry a substantial workload — just as Lundqvist is doing with Alex Georgiev, set to get his second straight start of this Canadian road trip here against the Oilers on Tuesday night.
“You can’t just compare how it used to be all the time,” Lundqvist told The Post before their annual New Year’s Eve game on the road. “Things change. The game has changed, the amount of scoring chances is different. The intensity of the game is different. So you can’t get stuck and compare to what it used to be. You just have to deal with what’s in front of you.”
Lundqvist will turn 38 years old on March 2, and by everyone’s account, he is in terrific shape. He has had stretches where he has looked as sharp as ever, and stretches where he seems a bit off. That might be just as much a product of the play in front of him from the youngest team in the league, as well as just the general openness of the way the game is being played.
Lundqvist got 21 starts in the team’s first 39 games — on pace for 44 starts total — and that has been a bit of an adjustment. The days of more than 65 starts in a season are over, and preparation has therefore had to change, as well.
“Your approach has to be a little different than it used to be for my career,” Lundqvist said. “It used to be play and play and play, and I was probably a little bit more relaxed doing that. You just have to adjust to this. … Your focus, it’s easier to get to that place when you play a lot. I feel like you have to work harder to be in that place when you don’t play all the time.”
Coach David Quinn hasn’t had much of a straight rotation between Lundqvist and Georgiev as he has ridden the hot hand. Georgiev started three in a row as October turned to November, and then beginning on Nov. 6, Lundqvist started 10 out of the next 14. That went into a stretch when Gerogiev started six of the next eight.
And so it goes.
“It works,” Lundqvist said. “Both of us obviously want to play, but you have to make sure what we’re doing is best for the team. So we just have to go with it.”
It’s a very measured attitude for a player who has been renowned for his competitiveness during this remarkable 15-year run on Broadway. Lundqvist chose to stick with the rebuild two years ago when management approached him and asked if he wanted to waive his no-move clause to go elsewhere and chase that elusive Stanley Cup.
And it hasn’t been easy. There are the two straight postseason misses, and an uphill climb if they want to stay in the mix this year. Things can still go awry in the lead-up to the Feb. 24 trade deadline, and go sideways afterward — just as it has over the past two years. Those team-wide collapses have been hard on Lundqvist, both mentally and for his statistics. That is partially why Quinn and management made a declaration that he is going to play less this season, the hope being that he stays fresh for the second half when they want to make a push.
Yet thus far, goaltending has been a strength. And the third member of the group is waiting in the wings, as Igor Shesterkin bides his time playing terrific for AHL Hartford.
It’s all new for Lundqvist, and right now, there is little reason for him to look back and compare to the way it used to be.
“You do as good as you can to adjust to a new mindset,” Lundqvist said. “Part of that is understanding the big picture, what’s going on in the league, how the game is being played, the intensity. So maybe you get a better understanding of the big picture. But you just have to work at that.”
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