Henrik Lundqvist didn’t know how many more times he would get a chance to play for his country, so he packed his bags, packed his wounded competitive spirit and was set to ship off to Paris and Germany for the World Championships on Friday.
The Rangers’ franchise netminder made the decision Wednesday night, one day after his Blueshirts were eliminated from the playoffs with a 4-2 loss to the Senators in Game 6 of their second-round series. Lundqvist, 35, has played in four World Championships, most recently in 2008. He also has represented his country in three Olympic games, including winning the gold medal in 2006 in Turin, Italy.
With the NHL recently declaring it would not attend the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea — albeit in a posturing manner toward renegotiating the collective bargaining agreement with the Players’ Association — and the fact Lundqvist’s brother, Joel, is the captain of the Swedish team, he decided not to mope about a bygone season with the Rangers and move on quickly.
“My brother is the captain there, and I haven’t played with him for 12 years,” Lundqvist said at the team’s break-up day Thursday in Tarrytown. “Also the fact that we’re not part of the Olympics. I see this as an opportunity to play for my country one more time and with my brother. I’m going to go there and try and finish really strong this season, and I’m going to reflect.”
It was a difficult season for Lundqvist, putting up the worst numbers of his career, with a 2.74 goals-against average and a .910 save percentage. He still showed flashes of brilliance in the postseason, but there also were some disparaging low moments, including giving up four or more goals in three of the losses to the Senators.
“I think the highs were definitely there this year for me, personally,” he said. “Had a lot of good games. I think the part that I need to improve on next season is the games when I need to be OK or good. I think that dropped a little bit this year a couple times.”
The Ranges had a legitimate chance to win the Stanley Cup this season, but Lundqvist and his mates lost three games against Ottawa while holding leads with under five minutes to play. It was a tough way to lose, and Lundqvist goes into another summer without a Stanley Cup.
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“It’s my dream, it’s my goal to win,” he said. “But right now, in this moment, you just reflect on what happened and try to move on, try to have an even better season next year.”
So before going off to rest and then start training again sometime in the middle of the summer, Lundqvist is going to get one more shot of competitive adrenaline with his brother and his countrymen. He said he “definitely [has] gas left in the tank here” and is going to bring that with him in hopes of winning something this year.
“I was hoping to play for another month,” Lundqvist said. “That was our goal. That was my mindset. It was very disappointing to end the season like we did. We’ve got to accept it. Obviously it’s over here.”