Alain Vigneault seemingly had it clear in his mind, the exact look he received when telling franchise goalie Henrik Lundqvist before each of the past three seasons how many games he planned to play him.
“Anytime I tell him at the beginning of the year that I’m shooting for 20 games or 25 games for the backup, he’s giving me this crazy look like I don’t know what I’m talking about,” Vigneault said after Tuesday’s practice, one day after declaring first-year backup Antti Raanta was going to play about once a week down the stretch.
“[Lundqvist] wants to play, and that’s normal,” the coach continued. “He’s a competitor, he wants to be in goal, and he wants to help his team win. But at the end of the day, I have to look at the big picture, and Antti’s time is coming here.”
It might be, but not yet — certainly not for Wednesday night’s prime-time matchup against the Penguins in Pittsburgh, a game that is no doubt being billed as Lundqvist versus Sidney Crosby, and is no doubt rightfully billed as another chapter in the battle between two of the league’s brightest stars.
But this will be the 23rd start in the past 24 games for Lundqvist, a number that sounds worse than it is considering the span encompasses the four-day Christmas break and seven-day All-Star break. His team has emerged from a holiday-time quagmire that almost sunk this season of high expectations, now carrying a three-game winning streak for the first time since before Thanksgiving, along with a 9-4-1 record over the previous 14 games.
And that turnaround has helped Lundqvist feel better, both physically and mentally.
“I feel pretty fresh,” Lundqvist told The Post on Tuesday. “A big thing is the last week or so, the games I played, the team has been playing really well, and we’ve had a lot more time with the puck, which makes the game feel not as intense for me as the games before that. That makes a big difference.”
When Lundqvist was asked to project just the smallest bit, thinking ahead to what it might take to be fresh come possible playoff time, he just shook his head. His narrowed focus of the schedule, of that drilling mantra of one day at a time, is utterly convincing.
“I haven’t looked at all,” he said. “I pretty much know who I’m playing the next game and that’s it. I don’t look at who we’re playing or where we are next week.”
That is left to Vigneault, in consultation with goaltending coach Benoit Allaire. One thing they can agree on is just like the team as a whole, Lundqvist’s game has gone through ups and downs this season. He was outstanding to start the season, far and away the main reason the Blueshirts got out to a franchise-best 16-3-2 start. But then his game fell off a bit, and even as the team’s play got better, the results weren’t there.
“I think right now what I see from Hank is the Hank that I saw at the beginning of the year,” Vigneault said. “He’s on top of his game, confident about the way he’s playing. He went through a stretch there where the team might have been playing better, and he was playing OK. We’re like every team in the league — OK and it’s going to be hard for us to win. Coming from the goaltender, that’s just how important that position is.”
Which also is why Lundqvist has played so much. After Raanta was forced to miss three games due to a concussion sustained on Dec. 17 in Minnesota, he has gotten only one start, on Jan. 17 in Washington. Hard to really evaluate his recent play, but Vigneault still found a way.
“Obviously [Raanta] has to play better than he did the last couple of games,” Vigneault said. “I expect more from him. He’s very aware of that. He’s going to play soon here.
“But I want our guys to focus on Pittsburgh here. And as far as Hank’s workload, he likes to play.”