Henrik Lundqvist rarely gets a night off.
But the Rangers’ goalie will have to wait at least six days between starts. The Rangers, who last played Saturday in Sweden do not play again until this Saturday, when they travel to Long Island to face the Islanders.
The seventh-year goalie has never been injured in his Rangers’ career and has appeared in 70 or more games in four of the past five seasons. Last season, he started 67, after the Rangers finally signed a quality backup in Martin Biron. The thinking was Biron would be insurance in case Lundqvist got hurt, but also could help spell Lundqvist from time-to-time.
In November 2010, Biron started five of the team’s 16 games, giving Lundqvist some much-needed rest. But when he was in the middle of another few starts in February, Biron broke his collarbone, leaving Lundqvist to play the Blueshirts’ final 26 games of the regular season.
Lundqvist never likes having time off, but said this current break was much needed.
“Sometimes, it could be tough, but I think this time it was the perfect for us,” Lundqvist said yesterday at the Rangers practice facility in Greenburgh, N.Y. “We have a pretty busy schedule and traveling so for us to take a couple of days off and have a good practice is perfect timing I think.”
After coming home from a European trip that saw the Rangers play five games in nine days (three exhibition games followed by two regular season games), in three different countries, the Rangers have a week off between games — something that rarely occurs in the NHL. Even the winter break and the All-Star break gives teams just 4-5 days off.
So will the longer break hurt or help Lundqvist? One can argue both ways: Either the long layoff will be beneficial for rest, or the time off will not keep him fresh.
“There’s a lot of different ways you can go at it,” Lundqvist said. “I’m not going to think to much about how [the coaches] are going to use [Biron and himself]. I’m just going to be ready for every game, and when they tell me to play, I will play.
“I think we’ll do something similar to last year,” he said, referring to getting a bulk of the starts in the first month, with Biron getting more playing time as the season goes on. “I think we had a pretty good system. I felt pretty fresh all year. But I’m not going to put too much thinking into it. Whenever they tell me to play I will be ready.”
To no one’s surprise, coach John Tortorella, who always wears his poker face when discussing which goalie will start, didn’t give anything away yesterday on how he plans to use Lundqvist and Biron on the teams’ five-game, 10-day road trip.
“Marty is going to play his games,” Tortorella said. “However well Hank plays is still not going to take away what I think is best for him in the big picture. In hoping that we get there in the end and continue playing. So it is the same philosophy.”