[ad_1]
Published:
Updated:
Henrik Lundqvist is bought by the New York Rangers and has taken a couple of days to digest.
As difficult as when Mats Sundin and Börje Salming left Toronto or when Peter Forsberg’s troubled foot finally broke even the grumpiest will.
It is the end of an era.
And a career that has been elegant and classy.
After fifteen seasons with the New York Rangers, he has been forced to resign as king of Broadway.
You don’t leave empty-handed.
His annual $ 1 million signing bonus he receives remains intact and he receives another $ 1.5 million both this season and next.
But money is of no interest in this context.
Photo: JOEL MARKLUND / BILDBYRÅN
The big question is what happens now, when Henke is free to go wherever he wants, play for whoever he wants, and give the Stanley Cup dream one last chance.
Mens.
It would be hard for me to see Henrik Lundqvist in a non-Rangers jersey.
The same has happened with other icons
As much as I had to watch Börje Salming ride for the Detroit Red Wings the final season of his NHL career, or Mats Sundin finish for the Vancouver Canucks.
Something was wrong.
And I know Salming at least sometimes regrets that he ended up the way he did, even though the Red Wings paid him what he was worth and far more than he earned in one season in Toronto.
In the same way, Henrik Lundqvist and the New York Rangers are synonymous with each other.
And the fact that it was bought was not an immediate shock. The NHL is a business, a salary cap, and is driven by business interests and not nostalgia.
The same has happened with icons like Mats Sundin, Börje Salming and Daniel Alfredsson.
Even the Colorado Avalanche ultimately decided not to try to keep its eternal hero Peter Forsberg when he disappeared as a free agent from the Philadelphia Flyers in 2007.
Now Henrik Lundqvist finds himself in the same difficult situation.
It was a different time then
And it is far from being in the same situation as Sudden & Co, which were still attractive in the market.
The 38-year-old Henke may aspire to a spot as a second goalkeeper in a market full of big name goalkeepers looking for new jobs.
Come in and play maybe fifteen, twenty games in a season.
Photo: JOEL MARKLUND / BILDBYRÅN
I know that many expect me to make a Ray Bourque, the hill that after 22 seasons in a row threw himself to the Colorado Avalanche for a chance to win the Stanley Cup.
That was exactly what happened in 2001.
But it was a different time then, a more limited number of top teams.
It was easier to predict a future Stanley Cup challenger.
Today is more of a lottery.
But it is up to Henke to make that decision and whatever he chooses, he has deserved it.
Because even if it is not possible to say that the race is over, it still feels like a point.
As classic as Ravelli’s penalty save
I am grateful for all the great moments that I had to follow closely.
The breakthrough at Frölunda which yielded two golds at the Swedish Championship in 2003 and 2005 and then the Olympic gold at Turin in 2006.
His save when Olli Jokinen had an open goal there in the closing seconds of the Olympic final against Finland is for me as classic as Thomas Ravelli’s penalty save against Romania in the 1994 World Cup.
It was as decisive as Nicklas Lidström’s 3-2 at the beginning of the same period.
Photo: MATTHIASHANGST / BILDBYRÅN
Lundqvist played big in the 2006 Olympic final.
No, Henrik is by far the best Swedish hockey goalie of all time.
You can’t get bigger.
No one has had such a long career in such a vulnerable position.
The competition is murderous with only one place to fight and it took fifteen years for someone in the Rangers organization to prove themselves better.
Never escaped
Henrik Lundqvist’s reflexes have also slowed down over the years.
And when Sweden took on sensation Finland in the World Cup quarterfinals in Slovakia 2019, I think it was the first time I saw Henke play a bad game.
Or what could be called bad after five conceded goals.
There he became a scapegoat, relentlessly criticized on social media that floods all losers today.
But after the game, he was one of those who lined up, stayed in the mixed zone and answered all the questions. No matter how unpleasant they were.
The same thing happened with Tommy Salo after the hit against Belarus at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.
They never escaped the inaccessible security of the changing rooms.
They chose to stand up and take the shit even in the most difficult moments.
Now Henrik Lundqvist’s future is something he and his family can decide.
But what he has already done is enough and left over to be called an icon and eternal hero.
And as I said:
It has been style and class to the end.
Photo: JOEL MARKLUND / BILDBYRÅN
Published:
