Igor Shesterkin at long last makes grand Rangers entrance

I must have had homework to do. That had to be the reason I was not at the old Garden — the one on Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets — on Dec. 9, 1967, for the most hyped pro sports debut in this town in, well, in all of time.

Bill Bradley was making his NBA debut for the Knicks after having spent the previous two years studying at Oxford following his graduation from Princeton, for which he played while nearly taking down Cazzie Russell and No. 1 Michigan in the 1964 Holiday Festival at the Garden.

If you want to get a feel for how hyped it was when Bradley first pulled on the Knicks No. 24, the pregame warmup session against the Pistons was announced on radio by Marv Albert.

No lie.

“And Bradley waits for the ball in the layup line,” the greatest play-by-play announcer of his era said, or at least close to it. “Takes a bounce pass from [Howard] Komives, and lays it in off the glass.”

You’d have heard an ovation in the background, the capacity crowd amped as if it were Game 7 of the 1970 Finals against the Lakers that was nearly three years away, and Marv describing Bradley “bending down to tie his right shoelace, flexing his knees, taking a jumper from 15 feet and, yes.”

You didn’t even have to be there, you could listen to it. The final score, 124-121 Pistons, and the final stats for Bradley, eight points on 3-of-6 shooting from the floor and 2-of-6 from line with five rebounds and two assists, were almost immaterial.

It was the hype that would be remembered.

No one announced the Rangers’ warmups at the Garden on Tuesday. Don LaGreca in the broadcast booth did not call Igor Shesterkin’s work on the line rushes. It wasn’t quite that. But don’t let anyone tell you that the goaltender’s debut was not one of the most anticipated in franchise history.

The Knicks waited two-plus years for Bradley. The Rangers had waited five-plus years for Shesterkin since drafting the native Muscovite in the fourth round of the 2014 entry draft. The Rangers waited for Shesterkin as long as the Cowboys once waited for Roger Staubach.

The first time Shesterkin touched the puck, 1:58 into what became a 5-3 victory over the Avalanche, the fans roared as he turned a dump-in into a 100-foot headman pass onto Kaapo Kakko’s tape. The building groaned when the very first shot the 24-year-old faced was deflected past him at 4:44. And then again when the third got by him on a Nathan MacKinnon breakaway at 6:34.

One-for-three might win a batting title, but not the Vezina.

“It wasn’t ideally how I wanted it to go,” Shesterkin said through a translator. “But I wasn’t panicking. I laughed it off and gained confidence as the game went on. I’m very grateful for the support from my teammates and the fans.”

The Rangers were committed to keeping the puck away from the net at Shesterkin’s end and taking it to the one at the other end while cashing in opportunistically. The Blueshirts kept their errors to a manageable number and kept the league’s highest scoring team in check to break their three-game regulation losing streak.

As they did so, Shesterkin played with poise. Hours after his hands were shaking so badly on the way to the building that he couldn’t drink water — he told the story on himself — he was soaking in cheers every time he touched the puck.

It’s not that the fans have been waiting for someone to replace Henrik Lundqvist, not at all. It is that the fans had been waiting for the heir for five years while he recorded miniscule numbers in the KHL. It isn’t about what have you done for me lately, but what can you do for me next year and the one after that and the ones after that when, if the blueprint holds, the Rangers should contend for the Stanley Cup.

The fans knew about Lundqvist when he came onto the scene in 2005, also five years after he was drafted, but there was zero sense of anticipation. It took, however, only three starts for the legend to be born. It was Oct. 15, 2005, following a 5-1 victory over the Thrashers at the Garden when Lundqvist, announced as the first star, did a victory lap around the Garden, raising his stick and glove in salute to the crowd that chanted his name.

“I just wanted to show the fans the same respect they showed to me,” he said. “The fans chanted for me the last couple of years, but this is New York.”

The fans were chanting on Tuesday, too.

“Igor … Igor … Igor.”

They were chanting for Shesterkin.

For more on the Rangers, listen to the latest episode of the “Up In The Blue Seats” podcast:

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