- Igor Shesterkin found the empty net late in the Rangers’ 5-1 home opener win over the Lightning
- No goalie in Rangers history had ever been credited with a goal before Thursday
- Read below for the goalie goal video, the bench line celebration and the Sorokin backstory
Igor Shesterkin finally did it.
The Rangers goaltender scored into an empty net with 2:34 left in Thursday’s home opener, sealing a 5-1 win over the Lightning at Madison Square Garden. It’s the first goal of his NHL career and the first goal ever credited to a goalie in Rangers history.
Watch Shesterkin’s goalie goal:
Tampa Bay had pulled Andrei Vasilevskiy for an extra attacker while trailing 4-1, and Shesterkin made them pay. Nobody else touched it, so the goal went down as unassisted.
Then came the best part. Shesterkin skated down the bench for the goal line and collected fist bumps from his teammates like any skater would.
Check out the celebration, via Peter Baugh of The Athletic:
Oh, and he was pretty good at his actual job too. Shesterkin stopped 24 of 25 shots, with only Nikita Kucherov beating him in the second period, and took first star honors.
Mika Zibanejad, Pavel Dorofeyev, Eetu Tolvanen and Gabe Perreault also scored for New York, which bounced back after dropping its season opener to Boston.
Other goalies saw this coming years ago. In 2023, NHL.com polled netminders around the league on who would score the next goalie goal, and Shesterkin was a popular pick.
His buddy Ilya Sorokin beat him to it, though. The Islanders goalie was credited with a goal on March 1, 2025, when Steven Stamkos sent an errant pass into Nashville’s empty net and Sorokin was the last Islander to touch the puck.
Here’s Sorokin’s goal from that night:
Sorokin couldn’t resist a shot at his friend after that game.
“I knew I’d do it before Igor.”
That rivalry goes back further. Sorokin called Shesterkin “a bad shooter” at 2023 All-Star media day, and the Rangers goalie fired right back.
“Unfortunately, he’s so bad,” Shesterkin said. “If we had a soccer net, maybe he can score.”
Shesterkin didn’t need a soccer net on Thursday. He needed an empty one, and he got it.
