Henrik Lundqvist’s first season-opener wearing the Blueshirt is the only season-opener the then yet to be named King would spend on the bench.
It was Oct. 5, 2005, 12 years to the day before the 35-year-old goaltender established a franchise record with both his 12th consecutive and 12th overall opening start Thursday at the Garden against Colorado.
The Rangers were in Philadelphia on the night the NHL re-opened for business after the league’s board of governors had canceled the 2004-05 season in order to get their precious hard salary cap and nobody knew quite what to expect from them.
Well, not quite. Everyone knew what to expect, and that was an eighth consecutive season out of the post-season tournament, and as a bottom-feeding lottery team that would be in the running for one of the following June’s top draft pics.
Everyone, that is, except Jaromir Jagr, who on the eve of his first full season on Broadway boldly declared that the Rangers would indeed make the playoffs. His proclamation drew titters from the assembled press who accepted his announcement as the lunatic ravings of man of advanced age. He was, after all, already 33.
Kevin Weekes, signed as a free agent late in the summer preceding the season that was not played, was the No. 1 goaltender and in nets while the 23-year-old Swedish rookie Lundqvist was on the bench as the backup.
What was it that Jagr had counseled the press throughout camp. Oh, right; that Lundqvist, whom No. 68 had known from international play, was not genuinely a rookie but a “world-class goaltender.” Sure.
And sure enough, after Jason Strudwick had given the Rangers a 1-0 lead in the first period in Philadelphia, the Flyers scored three straight goals and were up 3-1 early in the second and 3-2 entering the third period.
And that is when whatever had come before the lockout was left behind forever. It was Jagr from the right circle scoring the first of what would become his franchise record 24 power play goals tying the score at 6:28 and then it was Jagr from the right circle again scoring the second of his PPG’s and of franchise record 54 goals overall at 11:26 for a 4-3 lead. What?
The Rangers left Philadelphia with a 5-3 lead on their way to a 100-point season and the club’s first playoff berth since 1997. The lesson is this: you don’t know what you don’t know until the puck is dropped.
Weekes would be supplanted by Lundqvist as the No. 1 within a couple of months, even if then-head coach Tom Renney resisted the urge to make it quasi-official until late in the season. The following year, Weekes was the backup as Lundqvist got the first in this series of 12 straight openers.
And it was Jagr again who stole the show.
You’ll remember that No. 68 suffered a dislocated left shoulder throwing a wild punch at the Devils’ Scott Gomez late in Game 1 of what would become a New Jersey sweep of the 2006 first round. Subsequent surgery kept Jagr out of the following exhibition season as he spent most of camp rehabbing.
So when the Rangers opened at home against the Caps on Oct. 5, Jagr—who said that he didn’t think he could shoot—was truly making his 2006-07 debut.
And up the right side he came on the season’s first shift, taking a feed from Martin Straka before beating Olaf Kolzig from the right side on the season’s first shot. It was 1-0 at 0:29 in what became a routine 5-2 victory.
The next year, Lundqvist might have thought it was a habit. Because though the goal did not come from Jagr, it was Michal Rozsival scoring on the first shot of the season’s first shift, this time at 0:37 for a 1-0 lead against the Panthers at the Garden in another 5-2 victory.
Lundqvist and the Blueshirts would open in Prague the following season even as favorite son Jagr began his self-imposed KHL exile in Omsk. The Rangers would defeat the Lightning 2-1, before splitting the next two openers.
And then, on Oct. 7, 2011, Lundqvist led the Rangers onto the ice in Stockholm, home in the literal sense in Sweden for the first of a pair of Premier Games. This was a 3-2 overtime defeat to the Kings — bad OT penalty by Ryan McDonagh, you might remember — throughout which the King was celebrated.
There followed a couple of more routine opening night defeats before victories to open each of the last three years. So Lundqvist entered this one 7-3-1 in openers and the Rangers 8-3-1 since the lockout, the first of which still stands as the most memorable.