Rangers’ top goalie prospect Dylan Garand likely to finally make debut

Dylan Garand knew the number off the top of his head. He knew that, between the regular season and playoffs, he’d logged over 160 games with AHL Hartford, and he was right. Before the Rangers recalled him Friday, Garand had served as the Wolf Pack’s goaltender 165 times. 

In a way, it captured the breadth of experience the 23-year-old has collected after the Blueshirts selected him in the fourth round of the 2020 NHL Draft, but it also doubled as a glimpse at how complicated his path to the NHL has been.

With Igor Shesterkin entrenched as their $92 million goaltender and 40-year-old Jonathan Quick — the winningest American-born goaltender in hockey — entrenched as the backup for at least another three weeks, Garand’s chances have been limited.

Even when the Rangers needed a goalie to give Quick the occasional reprieve earlier this year with Shesterkin on injured reserve, they turned to Spencer Martin instead of their top goaltending prospect. 

But this week, Garand could finally make his NHL debut. He could finally get a chance to show the Rangers that he could be their backup next season behind Shesterkin.

With Quick day to day due to an upper-body injury, head coach Mike Sullivan said that “depending on how this week plays out, I would anticipate Dylan playing.” The Blueshirts have five games in eight days starting with a back-to-back Sunday and Monday.

It would mark the latest instance of the Rangers testing their youth while in the middle of a public retool, and while Garand said he doesn’t want to think too far ahead, the debut would be a long time coming. 

“A little bit,” Garand said after practice Saturday in Tarrytown, when asked if he’s thought about his debut. “… I think for me, especially over the last year or so, I’ve really gotten to know myself, and thinking about the future and stuff like that, I don’t tend to play my best. So just trying to stay in the present moment, and if I get an opportunity, then great. It’s just another game. I’ve played, including playoffs, over 160 American League games, so it’s just another game. 

“But it would be really cool for sure.” 

It hasn’t been a smooth regular season for Garand — his save percentage has dipped from a .913 last year to an .896 through 36 games — to this point, but Garand felt as if he had played “really well” over his last nine or 10 games with the Wolf Pack.

That marked a different tone from early January, when Martin was summoned after Shesterkin’s injury and Sullivan said Martin, the 30-year-old who’d appeared in just six games for Hartford at that point and was more than two years removed from his last NHL game, gave the Blueshirts the “best chance to win.” Garand had earned call-ups before, including earlier this season when Quick landed on injured reserve, but that never led to an appearance. 

Since The Letter 2.0, the Rangers have given 2023 first-round pick Gabe Perreault an extended look on their first line. They’ve given 22-year-old Jaroslav Chmelar consistent reps on the fourth line. They’ve used time on the penalty kill as windows of opportunity to experiment with younger pieces such as Tye Kartye. Garand, then, would be another player to capitalize on the organization’s current strategy. 

“There’s a lot of things that have gone into the decision to bring Dylan up,” Sullivan said. “The biggest point is that he’s played extremely well in Hartford. He’s given those guys a chance to win night in and night out, and he’s deserving.” 

Until this point, the marquee start in Garand’s career occurred last May, when he logged a game for Team Canada in the IIHF Men’s World Championship and stopped all 11 shots against Slovenia.

He occupied a place on the goaltending depth chart alongside likely future Hall of Famer Marc-Andre Fleury and Jordan Binnington — gold medalists at the 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off, respectively. That allowed him to get a taste of NHL life, Garand said.

When he’s with the Rangers, he’s able to observe and learn from Quick, who he asked Saturday about what he remembered from his first game, and Shesterkin. 

And finally, according to Sullivan’s tentative plan, Garand might get a chance to translate that knowledge, that experience from all those AHL games, into an NHL game. 

“The thing about the American League, it’s the second-best league in the world but nobody really wants to play there in the sense that we all want to play in the NHL,” Garand said. “Like, we don’t take it for granted. We’re playing professional hockey for sure, but everyone’s dream is to play in the NHL.”