Andrey SenchenkoSport correspondentAll materialsEmail to the author For the first time since April 2019, the Tampa Bay Lightning lost in two games of the same series in a row, again losing to the New York Rangers. The champions of the last two seasons of the National Hockey League were not rescued even by Nikita Kucherov, who repeated the achievement of Alexander Ovechkin. On the eve of the second meeting of the final series of the Eastern Conference of the NHL playoffs between Tampa and the Rangers, the former goalkeeper of a number of league clubs and the ex-goalkeeper of Lokomotiv and CSKA Moscow's Steven Valikett, who now works as a hockey analyst, spoke vividly about one of the key confrontations in this fight for a ticket to the Stanley Cup final — the duel between Andrei Vasilevsky and Igor Shesterkin. According to the Canadian, in Russia the rivalry between the two Russian goalkeepers is supposedly considered like a battle. «In Russia they talk a lot about this. They look at the confrontation between Shesterkin and Vasilevsky as a war and a battle for power. According to many, Shesterkin is ready to win the crown. And Igor understands how important his rivalry with Vasilevsky is for Russia. Andrei is also aware of this. Shesterkin is still in the status of an outsider, but he is doing everything to remove his opponent from the throne, although I do not see any similarities between them either in technology or in other elements» — Valikett said. There is some truth in his words. The Russian public really sees in the rivalry between Vasilevsky and Shesterkin not just a personal duel, but also a struggle for the title of the best goalkeeper in the world. In recent years, this status belonged to the Tampa goalkeeper, but now Igor is actively hitting Andrei's positions. This was noticeable throughout the entire playoffs, and in the first face-to-face meeting in the finals of the East, when Vasilevsky conceded six goals on 34 shots, and Shesterkin made 37 saves, without bailing out only twice. It got to the point that the whole «Madison Square Garden» in unison yelled: «Igor's better! Igor's better!» (Igor is better! Igor is better! — trans.) Today, both goalkeepers did not miss the opportunity to once again draw all the attention to themselves. Whose performance was brighter, judge for yourself. But Vasilevsky, having reflected 25 shots, took on several truly powerful shots that the partners on the field could not block. “Flew” to the goalkeeper of “Tampa”, for example, from Jacob Truba and Artemy Panarin. Khlebushek hit the Lightning goal five times. And this despite the fact that they like to blame Artemy for his alleged unwillingness to throw on goal in favor of passing to a partner.
