- Bobrovsky, 35, and Shesterkin, 28, played together on the Russian national team several times and reconnected during All-Star weekend this season.
- Shesterkin is 8-2-0 with a .923 save percentage and a 2.40 goals-against average in this year’s playoffs.
FORT LAUDERDALE — Two of the NHL's best goaltenders will take center stage when the Florida Panthers take on the New York Rangers in the Conference Finals.
Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky and New York’s Igor Shesterkin, two of the best netminders to ever come out of Russia, will face off starting Wednesday with a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals on the line.
”It’s going to be a good challenge,” Bobrovsky said. “They have a good team, good goalie, good offense, good defense, it’s going to be fun. He has some experience. He played in the Conference Finals a couple of years ago, so it’s not going to be easy to score on him.”
The two are familiar with each other. Bobrovsky, 35, and Shesterkin, 28, played together on the Russian national team several times and reconnected during All-Star weekend this season.
“He’s just a good, balanced goalie,” Bobrovksy said. “It’s not going to be easy to score on him and it will be a good challenge.”
Shesterkin has been lights out in the playoffs throughout his career. He had a 30-game stretch spanning from the first round of the 2022 playoffs to the second round of this year’s playoffs where he allowed no more than three goals in any game, going 19-11 with a .935 save percentage.
Shesterkin is 8-2-0 with a .923 save percentage and a 2.40 goals-against average in this year’s playoffs. He's 21-16 with a .927 save percentage and a 2.43 goals-against average in 38 career playoff starts.
”He is one of the top goalies in the league in how he moves and how he reads the game,” said Panthers defenseman Nikko Mikkola, who briefly played with Shesterkin after being acquired by the Rangers at last year’s trade deadline. “I think those are the guides as to why he’s been so good for the past few years. We need to figure it out, get to the net and shoot the puck and I think we’ll be fine.”
Panthers already have beaten Tampa Bay's Andrei Vasilevskiy, Boston's Jeremy Swayman
The Panthers already have run into two of the best goaltenders in the league in Tampa Bay's Andrei Vasilevskiy and Boston's Jeremy Swayman in their first two playoff matchups.
Vasilevskiy, who backstopped the Lightning to two Stanley Cups, finished the playoffs with an .897 save percentage and a 3.22 goals-against average. The Panthers were able to score six goals on Swayman on two occasions after he finished the first round with a .950 percentage.
Florida coach Paul Maurice doesn’t know much about goaltending — nor does he know why someone would want to be a goaltender — but he does know the Panthers are going to be prepared for the same challenge they faced the past two rounds.
”It’s a great matchup. That’s probably the only part of this I can answer,” he said. “I know body language, I know effective goaltenders on teams, I know when to get a guy out, when not to. But I have no idea what the hell you do or what you’re thinking about in there.
“But there have been some spectacular goalies from all over the world and we are going to see a matchup of two great ones. And it’s a theme for our playoffs because Vasilevskiy was very strong at certain points in that series. I think Swayman had a .955 [save percentage] at some point in our series. We’re going to get to four teams in a few hours and there’s going to be some world-class players in the opposition and on our side, too.”
What made the Panthers so successful against those goalies was getting bodies to the net, taking their eyes away from the play and picking up second-chance opportunities near the blue paint whenever they come.
Against a goalie as composed as Shesterkin, those rebounds will be few and far in between, but their slew of physical players near the net will need to take what they can get.
Captain Aleksander Barkov laid out that roadmap best after Swayman stopped 38 of 39 shots in Game 1 of the second round.
“We just have to work harder,” Barkov said. “Not just offensively, but in all parts. Obviously getting to the net more and making his life uncomfortable. We need to keep working.”
The Panthers scored six goals against the Bruins in Games 2 and 3 by sticking to that game plan. It won’t come that easy against Shesterkin, but it is a good-enough blueprint.
More:Five Reasons why Florida Panthers can win the Stanley Cup championship as playoffs near
As for Bobrovsky, his numbers don’t look all that pretty — a .902 save percentage and a 2.37 goals-against average — but the 8-3 record says more than both of those things. He has come up with some timely saves on high-danger chances behind a team that does not give up a high volume of shots. It has not been easy, but he has gotten the job done for Florida to this point.
”I think every game brings its own challenge,” Bobrovsky said. “It’s a new game, it’s a new opponent. I don’t know what I’m going to face. You could face 30 shots, you could face 40 shots, or you could face 10 shots. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. We know our structure and we’re going to try our best to execute and do our best to win the game.”
Stanley Cup Conference Finals
Game 1: Panthers at Rangers
Wednesday, 8 p.m., ESPN
