There may be many players who are struggling for the New York Rangers right now, but there is one player on the team doing everything he can to help the Rangers win hockey games.
That player is goaltender Jonathan Quick. Quick, 38, continues to be a bright spot on a team that is struggling to consistently play well.
As of this writing (Friday night, January 3), Quick is 6-4 with a 2.54 goals-against average, a .913 save percentage, and two shutouts. Not bad for a goaltender who is facing an average of about 33 shots per game, eh?
Quick was especially good on Thursday night, January 2, in a 2-1 win over the Boston Bruins. He was named the first star of the game as he stopped 32 of 33 shots, many of the spectacular variety.
With the Rangers pinned in their zone early in the second period and clinging to a 2-0 lead, Quick made three sensational saves in a row, bringing the Madison Square Garden crowd to its feet. In making these three stops, Quick continued to show his team and the rest of the league that he is still one of the quickest goaltenders in the league.
In speaking to New York Post Rangers’ writer Mollie Walker after the game, Rangers forward Reilly Smith spoke about the kind of presence that Quick provides between the pipes and how it helped propel the Rangers to a big victory.
“He’s so calm and collected,” said Reilly Smith, who assisted on Mika Zibanejad’s opening score. “He makes three huge saves in a row and he just goes about like nothing just happened. He does a good job kind of settling momentum for us. I think he did a huge job just pretty much taking a win for us tonight. He made some saves that probably would’ve gone in and that changes the momentum of the game and gives us a little bit of a cushion.”
Rangers’ head coach Peter Laviolette told reporters after the game that the team needed Quick to come up big in that moment.
“In that period he made a lot of good saves, but then he made two or three really great saves that we needed at that point,” Laviolette said.
This is something that Quick has been doing ever since he joined the Rangers as a free agent in the 2023 offseason. Whenever he has been called upon in his tenure with the Blueshirts, Quick has gone out on the ice and done everything he can to help his team win games.
Quick battles to stop pucks, makes big saves, calms things down when his team needs a breather, and provides the team with a veteran presence. This is someone who has won three Stanley Cups (two as a starter with the Los Angeles Kings and one as a backup with the Vegas Golden Knights), a Conn Smythe Trophy as the league’s most valuable player in the Stanley Cup playoffs (2012) and is a goaltender who is now just one win away from 400 career victories.
One Ranger who appreciates Quick’s veteran leadership is rookie Brett Berard. Berard told Walker after the game that Quick has helped Berard’s transition into the NHL go smoothly.
“Every day I come to the rink, [he’s the] first one to say hi,” Berard said of Quick. “We have team gatherings and he’s always with us, the young guys, making sure that we’re fitting in with everybody. He’s a special guy and someone I’m super grateful to be around early in my career and to learn from. He’s a legend in this game. It’s pretty cool to watch him.”
With Igor Shesterkin’s status still unknown, Quick is going to need to try and continue to steal games for his hockey team if they want to get back into the thick of the playoff race in a very tight Eastern Conference. Based on his history and what he has done for the team both this season and last season, there is no reason to doubt that the man Rangers fans call “Quickie” can get the job done.
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