The condition of Henrik Lundqvist’s knees was apparently lost in translation when a Swedish newspaper reported that the goaltender is taking weekly cortisone shots to deal with lingering pain from a goal-mouth collision late in Game 4 of the Pittsburgh playoff series.
“I took one cortisone shot in each knee during the first week of August, and that’s it,” said The King, who stopped all 12 shots he faced in playing the first two periods of the Rangers’ 2-1 preseason Garden victory over Ottawa last night. “I can still feel twinges once in a while, I have to extend my stretching routine and I have to [ease into] warmups, but it isn’t anything that’s going to affect my game.”
Lundqvist was not compromised in either the ensuing Game 5 overtime defeat in Pittsburgh that ended the Rangers’ season or in the World Championship Tournament in which he represented Sweden a week later.
“I could feel it,” said Lundqvist. “I knew I couldn’t hurt myself by playing, but when I was still feeling pain over the summer, I went for the shots after talking it over with the Rangers and the [medical] staff.
“The only time I notice it now is if I don’t stretch properly, or if I forget and start to kick out at the first few shots I see at the start of warmups. I can also feel it a little bit when I stretch at an [extreme] angle, so I’m trying to stay more compact in my movements.
“That’s what Benny [goaltending coach Benoit Allaire] wants me to do anyway, so maybe this is going to work out to be positive for me.”
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Petr Nedved, attempting to make the Rangers on a tryout after playing last season in his native Czech Republic, helped his cause with an impressive game between Aaron Voros and P.A. Parenteau that included the first goal . . . Lauri Korpikoski got the second goal on a deflection . . . The Markus Naslund-Scott Gomez-Nikolai Zherdev line had an energetic night, producing 14 shots on goal, with a half-dozen coming from each winger . . . Thomas Pock played well, inserting himself into the battle for the slot as seventh defenseman on a team that might only carry six, given salary-cap implications.
Rangers are at Tampa Bay tonight and New Jersey tomorrow.
PRESEASON Rangers 2 Senators 1