Ben Pawlak Sat, October 10, 2026 at 10:53 PM UTC · 4 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After being injured in Friday night's 3-1 loss against the Washington Capitals , Rangers star goaltender Igor Shesterkin is out for the season , a massive blow to the Metropolitan Division leaders.
In addition, the goaltender who was acquired to be Igor's backup, Joonas Korpisalo , will be sidelined for at least another four weeks with a lower-body injury.
This leaves 24-year-old rookie Dylan Garand as the team's starter for the time being.
The good news is that Garand has shown real promise as a starter (thank goodness he went unclaimed on waivers a few weeks ago!).
The bad news is that the Rangers current backup goaltender is 31-year-old Spencer Martin , who has a career 87.5 percent save percentage through 72 games played in the NHL, and was only recently cleared from a lower-body injury of his own.
Behind Martin is emergency backup goaltender (EBUG) Remmington Keopple , a 24-year-old who played 19 NCAA games across four seasons at Cornell between 2022 and 2026.
With this in mind -- assuming that the Blueshirts can't convince Jonathan Quick or Connor Ingram to come out of retirement, and don't have the leverage to swing a trade for an established NHL goaltender such as Connor Hellebuyck -- let's take a look at three realistic options the Rangers could bring in to serve as Garand's backup, including two third-string goalies under one-year contracts with other NHL teams and one current free agent.
32-year-old Canadian Matt Murray is very familiar with Rangers head coach Mike Sullivan. As a rookie with Sully's Pittsburgh Penguins in 2015-16, he replaced legendary veteran Marc-André Fleury in the first round of the playoffs, posting a .923 save percentage and 2.08 GAA across 15 games as the Pens emerged as 2016 Stanley Cup Champions.
Murray spent five years in Pittsburgh, two seasons in Ottawa, and three seasons in Toronto, which included a 21-month absence due to bilateral hip surgery. Last season, he started four games for the Seattle Kraken as the third-choice goaltender behind Joey Daccord and Philipp Grubauer . A small sample size, yes, but Murray recorded strong marks in both save percentage (.922) and goals against average (2.21).
That serious hip injury could be the reason why Murray remains an unrestricted free agent, but with proven NHL experience and familiarity with the Rangers' head honcho, he could be worth a flier.
25-year-old Remi Poirier has yet to make his NHL debut, but in my opinion, that's no fault of his own. A sixth-round pick in 2020 by the Dallas Stars, Poirier was unsurprisingly unable to dislodge either of the members of a premier goaltender tandem in the form of Jake Oettinger and Casey DeSmith , who have been the team's unquestioned starter and backup for three seasons running. Last season with the AHL's Texas Stars, Poirier was something of a bell cow, starting 52 games and recoding a .912 save percentage alongside a 2.61 GAA.
Similar in many ways to Garand, Poirier was waived by the Stars in late September, but unlike Garand, Poirier was claimed by another team. Now the third-choice for the New Jersey Devils behind Jake Allen and Nico Daws , Poirier's $850,000 contract expires at season's end, when he's set to become a restricted free agent.
With Poirier yet to make a start for the Devils, a crosstown trade to the Rangers could give him the chance to prove he's got what it takes to be a full-time NHL backup.
Drafted by the Rangers at the tail end of the 2014 NHL Draft's second round, 6'5" American netminder Brandon Halverson has made just two NHL starts since. And yet, the 30-year-old's stock is seemingly on the rise.
Halverson struggled mightily during his time in the Rangers organization following the draft, bouncing around from the OHL to the AHL and even the ECHL (one tier below the AHL). After a brief stint in Germany's second-tier, he was signed by the Tampa Bay Lightning and dominated the AHL during the last three seasons, saving 91 percent of the 2421 shots on goal he faced with the Lightning's AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch.
A free agent this past offseason, Halverson earned the third-choice gig in Dallas with the AHL's Texas Stars, and as I mentioned earlier, Dallas's AHL starter is merely an insurance policy for Oettinger and DeSmith.
On a one-year, $850,000 contract, trading for Halverson to serve as Garand's backup could be a low-risk, high-reward reclamation project for the Rangers.
Source: Sport
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