Ex-Rangers goalie picked before Shesterkin rejoins Lightning for playoffs
Brandon Halverson will be one up this spring on Igor Shesterkin, the goalie the New York Rangers took two rounds after him in the 2014 draft: He’ll be part of a team taking part in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, at least for a day.
The Tampa Bay Lightning recalled Halverson from Syracuse of the American Hockey League on Sunday morning, hours before the opening game of their first-round playoff series against the Montreal Canadiens and four days after he lost 4-2 to the Rangers in the regular-season finale for both teams. Despite the win, the Rangers (34-39-9) finished last in the Eastern Conference; the Lightning (50-26-6) edged the Canadiens for second place in the Atlantic Division and had the third-best record in the East.
Halverson is 24-11-6 with a .905 save percentage, 2.42 goals-against average and an AHL-leading six shutouts for the Crunch. The native of Traverse City, Michigan, has played in 152 career AHL game between the Crunch, Tucson Roadrunners and Hartford Wolf Pack; he’s 71-54-21 with a 2.67 GAA, .903 save percentage and 12 shutouts.
The recall Sunday was Halverson’s second this week and fourth of the season. The Lightning returned him to Syracuse after he allowed four goals on 21 shots in the loss to the Rangers, dropping his career NHL record to 0-2-0 with a 4.71 GAA and .804 save percentage.
Tampa Bay called up Halverson briefly in early December; 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. The Lightning recalled him again in January, but he did not play.
Halverson can become an unrestricted free agent on July 1, and his AHL numbers indicate he could be a target of a team like the Rangers that needs to improve its goaltending depth.
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.
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, 2025. when he allowed five goals in a 6-4 loss to the Utah Hockey Club (now the Utah Mammoth).
Ex-Rangers goalie Halverson recalled by Lightning before playoffs
The 30-year-old 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.
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.
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 announced his retirement from the NHL on April 13 after spending the final three seasons of his career with the Rangers, is the 10th.
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 then-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.
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.
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.
Halverson followed that by going 22-11-7 with a 2.22 GAA, .915 save percentage and five shutouts in 2024-25.
