Colin Stephenson: Rangers took a big risk waiving Dylan Garand
Rangers goaltender Dylan Garand looks on against Chicago in the second period of an NHL game at Madison Square Garden on March 27. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Hours before they faced the Tampa Bay Lightning in their home opener at Madison Square Garden Thursday, the Rangers recalled goaltender Dylan Garand from AHL Hartford and placed backup goaltender Joonas Korpisalo on injured reserve with what a source said was a lower-body injury. According to the source, Korpisalo is expected to be out on a week-to-week basis.
It was a stunning development, and the timing was funky. Korpisalo backed up Igor Shesterkin in the season opener Tuesday in Boston, and participated in the Rangers’ 17-minute practice Wednesday afternoon. He was not one of the five players who skated Thursday morning, so his injury must have been suffered off-ice.
Regardless, Korpisalo getting hurt showed how big a risk it was for the Rangers to send Garand down to Hartford Monday. Before they could do that, they had to first place him on waivers and hope no one would claim him. So the Rangers rolled the dice and took a chance that no one would take the 24-year-old Garand, who had a 1.62 goals-against average and .948 save percentage in three games with the Blueshirts at the end of last season, and only makes $875,000.
They got lucky that no one did.
Imagine if someone had claimed Garand and then Korpisalo got hurt? The Rangers would have been left with 31-year-old journeyman Spencer Martin, who has a career save percentage of .881 in 72 NHL games, as their emergency call-up.
Could the Rangers have trusted Martin, who was 1-3, with a 4.13 GAA and .864 save percentage in six games for them last season, to play Friday’s game in Detroit? Or would Shesterkin have been asked to play both ends of the back-to-back, and then come back and play Sunday’s home game against Utah, as well?
Based on all the saves Shesterkin had to make on all those odd-man rushes in Boston Tuesday, the 30-year-old Russian is going to have a monumental task as it is to help keep the Rangers in the playoff race this season. Having a solid backup goalie is the least the Rangers can do to allow him to get proper rest during the season. They can’t afford to run the risk of wearing him out.
That was why, in the wake of Jonathan Quick’s retirement, GM Chris Drury traded a fourth-round pick to Boston to get the 32-year-old Korpisalo, a 12-year veteran, as opposed to simply handing the backup job to Garand. After seeing how the team collapsed when Shesterkin and Adam Fox missed 13 games due to injury last season, it was evident that a backup goalie has to do more than just play once a week; he needs to be a guy the Rangers can count on to carry the load if Shesterkin has to miss two or three weeks with a minor injury. Korpisalo offered that security, with Garand pushing him from behind.
But since both of them needed to clear waivers before they could be assigned to the minor leagues, the Rangers were always going to have to take the risk of losing one of them.
The safer gamble would have been to waive Korpisalo, because it’s unlikely anyone would have claimed him and his $3 million cap hit. Safer still would have been to carry all three goalies, though that would have been awkward, and would have meant placing either Matthew Robertson or Scott Morrow (probably the 23-year-old Morrow) on waivers. The Rangers instead chose to expose Garand and hold on to both Robertson and Morrow.
Morrow, a right-shot defenseman who can run a power play, might have been attractive to several teams had he been exposed to waivers. There’s a good chance the Rangers might have lost Morrow if they’d made him available.
So they kept him. But right now, that means they have eight defensemen on the roster. And given how well 18-year-old first-round pick Alberts Smits played in the preseason and the season opener, there’s no reason to believe he’s not going to be a lineup regular every night. So, apart from injury to one of the righthanded defensemen in the lineup ahead of him, who knows when or if Morrow will be able to get into a game?
The Rangers gambled when they sent Garand down. And they won. Good for them.
It doesn’t mean they made the right choice.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
