While Tampa Bay and Colorado are in a bitter battle for the Stanley Cup, the National Hockey League has given out players individual awards at the end of the regular season.
And of course, Russian fans first of all expected to see Rangers goalkeeper Igor Shesterkin among the winners, who throughout the season impressed not only spectators, but also teammates with an excellent game.
“It’s always great to have such a goalkeeper who, in principle, just needs to start scoring,” his teammate Artemy Panarin once joked at a press conference.
The reliability of the Russian is really impressive.
In the regular season, he managed to win 36 wins in 53 matches with his partners and was one of the best in two statistics: a safety factor of 2.07 and a percentage of saved shots of 93.5%.
As a result, the Rangers became the second team in the league in terms of the number of goals conceded - 207. Only the Carolinas had less - 202.
In the playoffs, Shesterkin's statistics did not get worse.
And Igor's great merit is that the Rangers made it to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they lost to Tampa 2-4 in the series.
According to forward Chris Kreider, the team won some matches only thanks to the Russian.
“Obviously, this is certainly a well-deserved victory.
All year he was our best player.
Without him, we certainly would not be where we are today.
He helped us move forward and single-handedly won matches.
I give my vote to him if it affects something, ”Kreider said after the Russian was nominated.
However, the opinion of hockey players in this case was not taken into account.
The winner of the award for the best goalkeeper of the season "Vezina Trophy" was traditionally determined by the vote of the general managers of the clubs.
However, they were unanimous in their decision: Shesterkin earned 154 points, by a wide margin ahead of the closest pursuer - Jacob Markström from Calgary (53).
Interestingly, 29 experts out of 32 put the Rangers goalkeeper in first place.
Thus, Igor became the third Russian goalkeeper to win the trophy.
Before him, Sergei Bobrovsky and Andrei Vasilevsky succeeded in doing this.
The goalkeeper of "Tampa", by the way, this time became the fifth - in the voting he scored 14 points.
Behind the Lightning wall is Islanders player Ilya Sorokin (11).
At the ceremony, Shesterkin admitted that the trophy presented to him was the merit of the entire team and coaches, and also thanked his parents and wife for their support.
In addition, he said that the past season turned out to be eventful for him, as his wife is expecting her first child.
“It means a lot to me.
When I debuted in the NHL, I didn’t even think about it, but sometimes you still think: “Maybe I have a chance.”
I didn't play in the first preseason game against the Islanders.
In the second period, some child showed me my photo, which said: “To the future owner of the Vezina Trophy ... And I thought: “Why not?
We have the right team for this."
Everyone helped me a lot.
This is a team victory, ”the official website of the NHL quotes Shesterkin.
However, the sediment from the failure in the semi-finals of the Stanley Cup, Igor still remained.
According to him, after the defeat, it is now difficult to follow the struggle of Tampa and Colorado.
“Yes, watching the Stanley Cup Final from the side is very difficult, because we have a great team and we deserved to play in the final.
I think it was a good experience for us, next season we will become stronger,” added the goalkeeper.
The first to congratulate Shesterkin on the victory were the Rangers hockey players, who recorded a short video for him.
Not without jokes from Panarin.
"Hey Six!
Congratulations buddy!
Keep up the good work.
You deserve this award.
Thank you for my block shots too, right?
Have a good summer,” said the Russian.
Shesterkin also claimed the Hart Trophy, which is awarded to the most valuable player of the season.
However, this prize went to Toronto forward Oston Matthews.
In the voting, he scored 1630 points, the second was Connor McDavid from Edmonton (1111), and Shesterkin - only the third (738).
Minnesota forward Kirill Kaprizov (126) took seventh place, and Washington Capitals forward Alexander Ovechkin took tenth place (10).
Interestingly, Matthews became the first Maple Leafs player in 67 years to win this nomination.
The last owner of the Hart Trophy before him was Ted Kennedy in the 1954/55 season.
In the symbolic team of players of the 2021/22 season, only Shesterkin was among the Russians.
He was joined by Roman Yozi (Nashville), Cale Makar (Colorado), Auston Matthews (Toronto), Mitchell Marner (Toronto) and Johnny Gaudreau (Calgary).