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Ex-Rangers goalie drafted before Shesterkin recalled again by Lightning
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- Ex-Rangers goalie drafted before Shesterkin recalled again by Lightning
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Goaltender Brandon Halverson, selected two rounds ahead of Igor Shesterkin by the New York Rangers in the 2014 draft, returned to the NHL again on Friday when the Tampa Bay Lightning recalled him from Syracuse of the American Hockey League for the second time this season.
The Lightning called up Halverson briefly in early December, and he made his third NHL appearance, a six-second cameo, without facing a shot on goal during a 3-2 shootout loss to the New York Islanders on Dec. 13. The Bolts returned him to Syracuse a few days later.
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Tampa Bay will be seeking a franchise-record 12th straight win when it visits the St. Louis Blues on Friday night.
Halverson is 12-6-2 with a 2.42 goals-against average and an .899 save percentage in 20 games for the Crunch. He has three shutouts, tied for second among all AHL goaltenders. Halverson had a five-game winning streak from Nov. 19 to Dec. 19, when he got the win and had an assist in a 5-3 victory over Hartford, the Rangers' AHL affiliate.
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The Rangers selected Halverson in the second round (No. 59 overall) in 2014, then chose Shesterkin in the fourth round (No. 118). Shesterkin came to North America from Russia in 2019 and had become one of the NHL's top goaltenders; Halverson made one appearance in relief for the Rangers in a 6-3 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Feb. 17, 2018.
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The Rangers let him become a free agent in 2019. He signed a two-year AHL contract with Syracuse on Nov. 28, 2023, and inked a two-year, two-way contract with Tampa Bay on Feb. 3, 2025. Halverson's second NHL appearance, and first start, came with the Lightning in Salt Lake City on March 22, when he allowed five goals in a 6-4 loss to the Utah Hockey Club (now the Utah Mammoth).
The 29-year-old has played in 129 AHL games with Syracuse, Tucson and the Hartford Wolf Pack, the Rangers' top affiliate; he is 59-49-17 with a .901 save percentage, 2.72 GAA, nine shutouts and three assists.
Ex-Rangers goalie Halverson recalled again by Lightning
The native of Traverse City, Michigan, turned pro with the Rangers organization in 2016-17 after twice playing for the United States at the World Junior Championship — winning a bronze medal in 2016. Shesterkin was taken in the fourth round (No. 118) that year, but the Moscow native opted to remain in Russia and became a star in the KHL until he signed with the Rangers on May 3, 2019, and came to North America for the 2019-20 season.
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By then, Halverson was already well-traveled.
He split 2016-17, his first pro season, between the Rangers' ECHL affiliate in Greenville, South Carolina, and Hartford, then did the same in 2017-18 — with the exception of Feb. 17, 2018. That's when Halverson backed up Henrik Lundqvist and made his NHL debut after "The King" was pulled in the third period of a game against the Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre, having allowed five goals on 27 shots.
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Halverson stopped five of six shots in 12:33 of playing time in a 6-3 loss . That appearance made him the eighth U.S.-born goaltender to play for the Rangers. Keith Kinkaid became No. 9 when he played in 2020-21 and 2021-22, and Jonathan Quick, who joined New York last season as Shesterkin's backup, is the 10th. Quick became the first U.S.-born NHL goalie with 400 wins when the Rangers defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 on Feb. 2, 2025.
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But Halverson's career since that night in Ottawa hasn't gone the way he'd planned.
With Shesterkin under contract with the Rangers, Lundqvist still on hand and promising newcomer Alexandar Georgiev also battling for playing time, there was no place for Halverson after he split 2018-19 between Hartford and Maine of the ECHL.
Instead, he became a free agent, spent most of 2019-20 with Norfolk of the ECHL and played four games for ECHL Wheeling in 2020-21 before a high ankle sprain ended his season.
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Halverson didn't play at all in 2021-22 when he was recovering from knee and wrist surgery (instead, he worked on a farm), then returned to the ice in 2022-23 with Bayreuth in Germany's second division.
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Halverson went to camp in the fall of 2023 on a PTO with Syracuse and won four of five decisions before earning a two-year AHL contract from the Crunch in late November. He ended up splitting time between Syracuse and Orlando, the Lightning's ECHL affiliate, but excelled at the AHL level, where he was 7-3-3 in 14 games with a 2.18 goals-against average, .913 save percentage and one shutout.
It was the best showing of his professional career to that point. He was named Syracuse's starter in the 2024 Calder Cup Playoffs, when he was 3-4 but finished with a 2.19 GAA and .916 save percentage.
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