Rangers’ Lundqvist Already Eager for Next Season at LinesMaker

Rangers’ Lundqvist Already Eager for Next Season

NEW YORK (NHL/Rosen) — For the first time in a while, New York Rangers goalie Hen­rik Lundqvist’s expec­ta­tions don’t match those of his fans.

The most faith­ful Blueshirts fol­low­ers will tell you that Lundqvist, with­out ques­tion, should win the Vez­ina Tro­phy at the annual NHL Awards Show on Wednes­day in Las Vegas. He’s a final­ist along with the Kings’ Jonathan Quick and Nashville’s Pekka Rinne.

Most of those same fans will also say he should win the Hart Tro­phy, despite the fact that just being a final­ist for the League’s MVP award along with Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin and Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos caught the typ­i­cally alert and aware Lundqvist totally off-guard.

“No, I never really thought about that [being a final­ist for the Hart],” said Lundqvist, who also joins Malkin and Stamkos as a final­ist for the Ted Lind­say Award, which is given to the most out­stand­ing player as judged by the play­ers them­selves. “That’s just a big bonus. It’s a pretty amaz­ing feeling.”

Not as amaz­ing as it would be to win either the Vez­ina or the Hart. Lundqvist has yet to col­lect a piece of hard­ware in three pre­vi­ous trips to the annual NHL Awards show, but clearly his odds this year, with being a final­ist for two tro­phies instead of one, are bet­ter than they ever have been.

How­ever, Lundqvist isn’t expect­ing to win any­thing Wednes­day night. It’s a totally dif­fer­ent feel­ing from the one he gained while back­stop­ping the Rangers this season.

After record­ing 109 points, earn­ing the top seed in the East­ern Con­fer­ence and get­ting within two vic­to­ries of the Stan­ley Cup Final, the expec­ta­tions around the Rangers are the high­est they’ve been since Lundqvist arrived in New York in 2005.

Lundqvist knows it — and he loves it.

“I just like the feel­ing to expect, to expect more out of every­body on the team,” Lundqvist said. “When I got here some years ago I think a lot of peo­ple were hop­ing and were not really sure, but with this year, I hope we con­tinue build­ing, and that’s to expect more out of every­body, to want to be a top team. To be that you have to push your­self hard, because it’s not just going to happen.

“Every­body had a fun year, but we need to come back and try to be even bet­ter because we came up short.”

Lundqvist got closer than he ever had before this spring. He was bounced out of the East­ern Con­fer­ence Semi­fi­nals in 2007 and 2008, but this year he took the Rangers to Game 6 of the East­ern Con­fer­ence Finals against New Jer­sey before the Dev­ils extin­guished their cross-river rivals on an Adam Hen­rique over­time win­ner at Pru­den­tial Cen­ter a few weeks ago.

Regard­less, Lundqvist still fin­ished the play­offs with career-bests in wins (10), goals-against aver­age (1.82) and save per­cent­age (.931). His 39 wins, 1.97 GAA and .930 save per­cent­age in the reg­u­lar sea­son were all career-bests as well.

“I can only speak for myself; it moti­vates me a lot to work on my game and come back, try to be even bet­ter,” Lundqvist said of falling two wins shy of going to the Stan­ley Cup Final. “Just to get a taste of it, it’s excit­ing, but at the same time we didn’t reach the ulti­mate goal, we didn’t get to where we want to be. But to get a taste of it, I think it’s good for the future. We have a young group, a bunch of guys that hadn’t been there before, it’s exciting.”

The whole sea­son, all of it lead­ing up to the Awards show Wednes­day night, was excit­ing for Lundqvist.

In addi­tion to get­ting mar­ried last sum­mer, Lundqvist, who has a baby on the way this sum­mer, started the 2011-12 sea­son with the Rangers in Europe. He received a hero’s wel­come as he returned to Gothen­burg, Swe­den, and played a game against his old team from the Swedish Elite League, the Frol­unda Indi­ans — who hap­pen to be cap­tained by Lundqvist’s twin, Joel.

Lundqvist back­stopped Frol­unda to the Swedish Elite League cham­pi­onship in 2005.

Then he got to open the reg­u­lar sea­son in Stock­holm, Sweden’s cap­i­tal city. A few months after return­ing Lundqvist became a main sto­ry­line on HBO’s “24/7″ series, which doc­u­mented the Rangers’ and Fly­ers’ road to the 2012 Bridge­stone NHL Win­ter Classic.

“Every­body had a fun year, but we need to come back and try to be even bet­ter because we came up short.” - Hen­rik Lundqvist reflects on the Rangers season

Of course, Lundqvist won the Win­ter Clas­sic game at Cit­i­zens Bank Park on Jan. 2 with 34 saves, includ­ing a bril­liant stop on Danny Briere’s penalty shot that would have tied the game with 20 sec­onds left in the third period.

Once that was over and nor­malcy returned, Lundqvist kept up his end of the bar­gain and helped the Rangers fin­ish the reg­u­lar sea­son with 109 points, the most in the East­ern Con­fer­ence. They needed seven games each to beat the Sen­a­tors and Cap­i­tals before New Jer­sey knocked out Lundqvist and the Rangers in six.

“This was a great year. There were so many things that hap­pened that you learn from,” Lundqvist said. “You start in Europe, had the Win­ter Clas­sic, a lot of dis­trac­tions — good dis­trac­tions with HBO — and it was fun. I def­i­nitely see this as a really spe­cial year. I just hoped it would con­tinue for a cou­ple more weeks, but we’ll try again next year.”

The expec­ta­tion around the Rangers is they will suc­ceed because of this past season.

Lundqvist saw a young defense corps, led by a top four of Dan Girardi, Ryan McDon­agh, Marc Staal and Michael Del Zotto, develop right in front of him. Ryan Calla­han got com­fort­able in his role of cap­tain while new­comer Brad Richards got com­fort­able in New York. Mar­ian Gaborik played in every game and scored 41 goals. Chris Krei­der, the 20-year-old sen­sa­tion out of Boston Col­lege, joined the team dur­ing the play­offs and played like a veteran.

And that’s only the begin­ning. Lundqvist said he can tell the cul­ture in New York has changed from hop­ing good things will hap­pen to expect­ing them to happen.

“That’s a good thing when peo­ple expect more out of you,” Lundqvist said. “It’s a good thing when you can look around the room and expect good things out of every­body. This is def­i­nitely the right step and a good direc­tion for us as a club. As a player, just me per­son­ally, I think it’s been a great year and thing to be a part of.

“I’m just hop­ing that one day I’m going to lift that Cup. That’s my goal. That’s my dream.”

That’s his expectation.

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