Igor Shesterkin shows poise in net to lead Rangers over Avalanche in his NHL debut

Igor Shesterkin’s hands shook as he made his way to Madison Square Garden on Tuesday. The 24-year-old goalie, known for his preternatural poise, “couldn’t even drink water,” he said through his interpreter.

And you could say that the first seven minutes of Tuesday’s game against the Avalanche were all his worst fears come to fruition. They scored twice. The Rangers defense lagged badly.

You could say that, but Shesterkin wouldn’t. Turns out, his hands stopped shaking just in time.

Shesterkin made 29 saves, including 27 on the last 28 shots, to push aside one of the most potent offenses in the NHL as the Rangers defeated the Avalanche, 5-3, at Madison Square Garden, snapping a three-game skid. Ryan Strome scored the go-ahead goal at 13:39 of the second period. Artemi Panarin had an empty-netter with 27 seconds left for his third point.

“Honestly, I wasn’t panicking,” Shesterkin said. “I kind of just laughed it off and I saved the next goal and gained confidence as the game went on.”

And that was despite a few inconvenient details. There were turnovers and missed defensive assignments to contend with and the Avalanche came into the day leading the league at 3.6 goals per game. The Rangers had allowed 25 goals in the previous six games.

“He looked calm the whole time,” Strome said of Shesterkin. “He looks like he’s done it for a while and he’s got that kind of demeanor that’s relaxed and I think it showed tonight.”

It didn’t start that way. J.T. Compher scored just 4:44 into the game and, two minutes later, Nathan MacKinnon took advantage when the puck skipped over Adam Fox’s stick, converting a breakaway for the 2-0 lead.

But as it turned out, the Rangers weren’t so much laying down on the Avalanche as giving them a needed head start.

They got on the board at 8:57, when Strome’s shot was tapped in by Chris Kreider in front of the net. It was Kreider’s 14th point in as many games. Next, Mika Zibanejad collected Tony DeAngelo’s centering pass and chipped it over Phillip Grubauer’s right shoulder to tie it at 15:23 of the first. At 8:05 of the second, Brady Skjei buried a booming slap shot to give the Rangers their first lead.

The Avalanche got back to basics shortly after that as Compher tipped in a feed from Andre Burakovsky to tie it again at 11:32.

Strome continued the goal flurry two minutes later, when he scored off a draw, to put the Rangers back up. And, in what should easily be more nerve-wracking than the car ride to the arena — the final period of a tight game — Shesterkin proved as steady as the Rangers could hope.

Good thing, too, because Shesterkin is the heir apparent to the throne that Henrik Lundqvist built. He had been nothing short of untouchable in the AHL. He was 15-4-3 in 23 games, and his 1.93 goals-against average was the best in the league. His .932 save percentage is second. He’s been so good, coach David Quinn said, that he’s given the Rangers little choice in the matter, even if having three goalies is a bit cumbersome. Tuesday, Alexandar Georgiev was the healthy scratch, while Lundqvist backed up Shesterkin.

“We didn’t hesitate to give him a taste of Ranger hockey,” David Quinn joked, referencing the less-than-stellar defense. “To be tough enough to kind of pull himself together — just like our team, I thought we played really well. There was a lot to like . . . not just our goalie.”

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.