NASHVILLE, Tenn. — After his best performance of the season on Thursday night in Dallas, Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist will get rewarded by sitting and watching Saturday night’s game against the Predators.
Backup Cam Talbot will get the nod in nets following a game in which Lundqvist made 41 stops — a career-high 23 in the first period alone — en route to a 3-2 win.
“I’m just kind of in awe watching sometimes, just like, ‘How the hell can he can do that?’ ” Talbot said at the Centennial Sportsplex practice facility on Friday. “Any time a goalie plays like that, he gives the team a chances to win. He’s a big-time goalie, and I’m just trying to follow in his footsteps.”
Talbot went to college at Alabama-Huntsville, which is only about a two-hour drive away. When he first got the recruiting call from the school, the native of Caledonia, Ontraio, said he thought it was a joke. But he researched the school, they flew him down there and he loved the campus, staying three years.
Now, as a 26-year-old rookie, he’s backing up Lundqvist, and doing all he can to learn from the experience.
“I don’t really look at it as a competition between me and him,” Talbot said. “He obviously did a hell of job [Thursday] night, and I’m going to try and do the same.”
Defenseman and alternate captain Marc Staal did not practice, citing a maintenance day after taking a shot off the outside of his right ankle on Thursday. He said his plan is take the morning skate on Saturday, and then determine if he will play against the Predators.
Both he and coach Alain Vigneault are expecting him to be in the lineup.
Michael Del Zotto had a pretty frank assessment of his game on Thursday, his first one back after being a healthy scratch for the previous three.
“I thought my compete level was there,” Del Zotto told The Post. “I just have to build off it. I have to try and keep getting better each game, whenever I’m back in, and keep moving forward.”
Del Zotto, 23, took Justin Falk out of the lineup, which will stay the same for Saturday. As for what he learned while watching from the press box?
“You can’t take anything for granted,” he said. “You never like sitting out, so when you do get back in, do whatever you can to stay in the lineup.”
Young forward J.T. Miller will be scratched on Saturday for the third straight game.