Making back-to-back starts for NHL goaltenders has become the equivalent of recording complete games for major league starting pitchers: long ago and forgotten, other than in ballads of glory.
Friday, I had suggested in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that Igor Shesterkin, who has started on consecutive days four times in his NHL career with a 4-0/2.25/.933 slash line on his second games, should go back-to-back this weekend with the Rangers in Columbus on Saturday and at the Garden on Sunday against the Oilers.
If not this weekend, then when? is the question I posed. It still stands. If you have an asset you value as the most valuable in the world, and this is the most important time of year, shouldn’t you ride him as much as reasonable?
Ah, but there’s the rub, matey. One man’s definition of, say, reasonable, is, say, just about every man’s definition of, say, reasonable. At least, that is, when it comes to goaltending rotations around the league.
