Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin scores goalie goal against Lightning

New York Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin scored the first goal of his NHL career in the third period of Thursday’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Madison Square Garden.

Shesterkin, 30, became the first goalie in Rangers history to score a goal when he shot the puck the length of the ice into Tampa Bay’s vacated net with 2:34 remaining in regulation time.

The ultra-rare goalie goal put the cherry on top of what went into the books as a 5-1 Rangers win. Mika Zibanejad, Pavel Dorofeyev, Eeli Tolvanen, and Gabe Perreault also scored to help the Rangers improve to 1-1-0 on the season.

Shesterkin also stopped 24 of the 25 shots he faced on Thursday to lift the Rangers to the win. Nikita Kucherov was the lone Lightning skater to beat Shesterkin in the game.

One of the NHL’s top goaltenders, Shesterkin is coming off his fifth consecutive 25-win season with the Rangers. The 6’1″ netminder went 25-19-6 with one shutout and a .912 save percentage in 51 games with the Rangers in 2025-26; he’s 1-1-0 with a .936 save percentage (and a goal) in his first two appearances this year.

A fourth-round pick (No. 118 overall) of the Rangers in the 2014 NHL Draft, Shesterkin came up through the SKA St. Petersburg system in his native Russia before coming to North America in 2019. After a brief stint with the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack in 2019-20, Shesterkin was quickly promoted to the Rangers and has remained their undisputed starter ever since.

In 327 career NHL games over parts of eight seasons with the Rangers, Shesterkin has posted a 188-108-28 record, 22 shutouts, and a .917 save percentage; he’s gone 23-20 with a .928 in 44 playoff games with the club. He won the Vezina Trophy with the Rangers in 2022.