Henrik Lundqvist offers outdoor expertise in advance of Rangers' Winter Classic appearance
The Hall of Fame goaltender ended his storied career with a 4-0 record in outdoor games, which still stands as an NHL record.
Goaltenders are notorious creatures of habit, with few as committed to their routine as Henrik Lundqvist.
That was all thrown for a loop on Jan. 26, 2014.
The New York Rangers played the New Jersey Devils as part of the NHL’s Stadium Series that afternoon at Yankee Stadium, and when the game was delayed for over an hour due to sun glare reflecting off the ice, Lundqvist decided to find a quiet space, pop in his headphones and rest his eyes.
The next thing he knew, he was woken suddenly.
“Someone came running in and were just like, ‘We’re on the ice in 30 minutes!’” the Hall of Famer recalled on a recent phone call with The Athletic. “I was just scrambling to get ready.”
The chaotic scene left Lundqvist groggy and out of sorts, with the Devils beating him three times on the first eight shots of the game. But he locked it down from there, stopping each of the final 14 shots he faced while the Rangers poured in six straight goals to seize a 7-3 win.
It marked the most goals Lundqvist allowed in four outdoor appearances, but it didn’t blemish his perfect 4-0 record in such contests, which still stands as an NHL record. It began with a 3-2 Winter Classic win over the Philadelphia Flyers at Citizens Bank Park in 2012, followed by a pair of 2014 victories over the Devils and Islanders at Yankee Stadium, and culminated with a 3-2 overtime win against the Buffalo Sabres at Citi Field in the 2018 Classic.
Lundqvist ended his storied career with an impressive 1.98 goals against average and .934 save percentage while playing in the elements.
“To me, it was a big game,” he recalled. “Even if it was game 35 or 40, or whatever it was, it didn’t feel like that. It felt like a playoff game, something unique, different. There was so much buildup going into every game, so you wanted to make the most of it. It almost felt like a playoff game, in a way, because of the buildup. You talked about it for a while, and the anticipation was pretty big going into each one of them for different reasons. I was very excited to play in them, that’s for sure. And then when you put extra attention to all the details and put maybe a little extra pressure to have a good game, I felt like it worked out pretty good.”
The Rangers upped their overall record in outdoor games to 5-0 with their 6-5 OT thriller over the Isles at MetLife Stadium in the 2024 Stadium Series, with the franchise’s sixth appearance set for Friday at 8 p.m. against the Florida Panthers at loanDepot Park in Miami.
It will be a distinctly different experience than the games Lundqvist played in. The Florida climate is the obvious one, with temperatures expected to be in the low-60s at the time of puck drop. The league believes the slightly lower-than-usual temps will help alleviate concerns about maintaining the ice surface, while the nighttime start will eliminate any of the shadow issues that disrupted Lundqvist’s routine 12 years ago. In a recent interview with NHL.com, Steve Mayer, the president of NHL content and events, hinted that the retractable roof will be closed when fans enter loanDepot Park but open at some point before or during the game.