WINNIPEG, Manitoba — It comes as no surprise that Henrik Lundqvist is content with his lot in life. The Rangers franchise netminder is fully aware what comes with the territory of his job description, and understands it sometimes can be a lonely place — like it is right now.
“That’s the role I have, the goalie never changes,” Lundqvist said Thursday morning at MTS Center, where he is set to back up his understudy, Antti Raanta, against the Jets.
Lundqvist has not had the best start to this season, a few sparkling performance in the midst of mediocrity. He has given up four goals in two of the past three games, including the 4-2 loss to the Islanders in Brooklyn on Tuesday. He has spoken at length about how he hasn’t made “the extra save” this season, and it has become ever so clear that his margin for error is razor-thin.
“That’s the role I choose,” Lundqvist said. “You can’t afford sometimes any mistakes, sometimes one is enough to not win a game. But you live with it. You try to obviously minimize that and be on top of things all the time. But when that doesn’t happen, you just have to believe in yourself and the structure. I feel like I’m tracking the puck well, moving well, it just comes down to some bad decisions at times that cost me.”
Like the decision he made Tuesday to go for a poke check on Shane Prince, getting a piece of the puck while pulling himself well out of position to allow Andrew Ladd to sweep one into the gaping net and give the Isles a commanding 3-1 lead.
“Every time a puck comes to a certain area, you make a decision on how to move,” Lundqvist said. “It’s up to me to read that situation — is he going to shoot, is he going to pass? The big thing is not to think anything, just wait to see what’s going to happen. As a goalie, you can never be ahead of the play. You have to wait and react and be patient.”
Lundqvist had started 21 of the first 27 games, and was 12-8-1 with a .912 save percentage and 2.55 goals-against average. For comparison’s sake, he has a .920 save percentage and a 2.29 GAA in his 12-year career.
He is going to get another crack at it with his planned start on the second leg of this back-to-back Friday night in Chicago against the high-flying Blackhawks. The United Center is one of the loudest buildings in the league, and the pressure will be high with their explosive offensive talents.
Of course, Lundqvist has made a career of performing his best when the stakes are the highest. That is what earned him the seven-year, $59.5 million deal he signed back in 2014, keeping an annual $8.5 million salary-cap hit on the books for the 34-year-old Swede through 2020-21, with a full no-move clause.
Which was mostly an afterthought during the past two years, but has now become a topic of conversation again as Lundqvist’s semi-struggles have persisted. For him, it can be — and has been — periods of brilliance that are spoiled by one slight slip-up.
“I know when I’m on top of it and when I’m a little off,” Lundqvist said. “There have been games when I feel on for 55 minutes, and then you have a couple minutes when it’s a little off, maybe. And that’s something I need to correct.”
The Rangers need Lundqvist to be at the top of his game if they want get out of the 4-5-1 funk they are in over the previous nine games. It only has gotten more challenging with Rick Nash (groin), Matt Puempel (concussion) joining Mika Zibanejad (broken leg) and Pavel Buchnevich (back) on the injured list. It also doesn’t help that J.T. Miller (knee) and Jimmy Vesey (upper body) are dealing with their own ailments.
So the Rangers team that was so dynamic and fast through their 13-4-0 start has now come to a standstill, and they are going to look to their old backbone for some support.
It’s a familiar place for Lundqvist, and he embraces his role.
“I think it’s fine-tuning a lot of the times,” he said. “Instead of winning one, losing one, you think it’s a big thing to fix, but it’s not really. It’s a couple small things, personally and as a group, that you can tweak it to do a little bit better.”