Rangers set for backup goalie battle after acquiring Korpisalo from Bruins
The New York Rangers are loading up goaltending depth behind Igor Shesterkin.
The Blueshirts acquired veteran Joonas Korpisalo from the Boston Bruins on Wednesday for a fourth-round pick in the 2028 NHL Draft and AHL forward Kalle Väisänen.
Korpisalo backed up Bruins starter Jeremy Swayman in each of the past two seasons. He has 334 games of NHL experience, and his acquisition sets up a competition with rookie Dylan Garand to be Shesterkin’s backup in 2026-27.
The 32-year-old, a third-round pick by the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2012, was 14-9-6 with a 3.15 goals-against average and .894 save percentage in 31 games (28 starts) for Boston last season.
On the surface, the trade for Korpisalo is confusing from a Rangers perspective. They just re-signed Garand, who was a pending RFA with arbitration rights, to a two-year contract worth $1.75 million.
Signing Garand signaled to many that the Rangers were poised to give him the backup job behind Shesterkin. He was 2-0-1 in three starts after a late-season callup with a 1.62 GAA and .948 save percentage.
But Korpisalo has an NHL contract for two more years that will cost the Rangers $3 million of cap room per season, per PuckPedia, after the Ottawa Senators retained 25 percent of his contract when they traded him to the Bruins on June 24, 2024. He has a modified no-movement clause that includes a 10-team no-trade list, and he would have to clear waivers to be sent to the AHL.
That means Korpisalo’s addition is likely to push Garand back to AHL Hartford. However, the Rangers would have to pass Garand through waivers to do so.
Rangers set goalie battle between Joonas Korprisalo, Dylan Garand
Genaral manager Chris Drury felt he needed to make a move for a veteran goalie to replace recently retired Jonathan Quick.
Drury undoubtedly wants to keep a freak collision from dooming another year. Shesterkin’s lower-body injury, sustained on Jan. 5 after he collided with J.J. Peterka during a 3-2 overtime loss to the Utah Mammoth, hastened the Rangers’ last-place finish in the Metropolitan Division and Eastern Conference.
The Rangers didn’t give up much to acquire Korpisalo. A fourth-round pick has a low probability of becoming an NHL regular, and Väisänen, a fourth-rounder in 2021, had just four points (three goals, one assist) in 51 games for Hartford last season, his first in North America.
But it could be argued that trading anything is too much to part with for Korpisalo. He’s a replacement-level backup goalie whose advanced numbers (minus-1.13 all-situation GSAA, .838 high-danger save percentage, as per Natural Stat Trick) are both worse than Garand’s from the NHL last season — albeit in a much larger sample.
The move also seems to fly in the face of the Rangers’ purported “retool” — Drury sent “Letter 2.0” less than six months ago, then signed a veteran goalie who could block a promising young potential backup. Garand will have just one more season of team control when both his and Korpisalo’s contracts expire after the 2027-28 season.
It never hurts to have depth in goal, especially since Shesterkin has topped 60 starts just once in his seven-year NHL career (61 in 2024-25). But there are numerous low-priced NHL goalies on the market who could have pushed Garand but also started in Hartford without a $3 million AAV.
