New Jersey Devils: Henrik Lundqvist Was An Honorable Rival

Henrik Lundqvist was always an honorable rival to the New Jersey Devils.

The New Jersey Devils have had a long run of battle with the New York Rangers since the Devils arrived in the National Hockey League in 1982. Every since the 2005-06 season, it has largely featured Henrik Lundqvist in net for the New York Rangers. He is one of the best goalies in the history of the National Hockey League and deserves to be recognized as such.

A lot of Devils fans like to rip on Lundqvist for two reasons. The first is that he has never won the Stanley Cup. The second is that he was never quite as good as Martin Brodeur in almost any way. The argument of “the Devils had better defenseman in front of him” gets thrown out a lot but in the second half of Brodeur’s career, he didn’t have all that great of defense in front of him.

Well, forgetting about the Brodeur vs Lundqvist debate for a bit, if Lundqvist is ever going to win a Cup, he might have to choose a team wisely because he is being bought out by the New York Rangers. The transaction hasn’t officially happened but it can be made official as early as today according to multiple reports. He is 37 years old so it will be interesting to see what his options are.

As much as he annoyed us by making it really hard to score goals on the Rangers throughout his career, he always fought hard with class and dignity. Even when Adam Henrique scored his famous overtime goal back in 2012, Lundqvist took the loss with class and appeared to be a good sport in the handshake line. There should be no ill-will against him from this fanbase once he is no longer a member of the Rangers. If anything, now we may finally get to cheer him on.

The Devils and Rangers haven’t had a match without one of Martin Brodeur or Henrik Lundqvist as a member of one of the two organizations since the 1990-91 season. That is a long time and an era that neither fanbase will ever forget.