Henrik Lundqvist to miss 2-3 weeks with lower body injury

New York Rangers starting goalie Henrik Lundqvist has been sidelined with a lower body injury.

Unfortunately for Rangers fans, the team will be without their star goaltender almost until the end of the regular season, with the team’s announcement that Lundqvist will be out for 2-3 weeks.

Lundqvist was ruled out of the Rangers’ game on Thursday in Carolina, and it appears the injury that kept him out there is more serious than it seemed.

The 35-year-old Swede has a .913 save percentage this season in 51 games for the Rangers.

New York has called up another Swedish goalie in Magnus Hellberg from the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack. Hellberg has a .902 save percentage this season in Hartford, recording 11 wins for the Rangers’ last-place farm team.

Hellberg has featured already for the Rangers this season, playing just under 20 minutes of a game against the Dallas Stars in January, in which he stopped all four shots he saw.

Expected to take on the brunt of the goaltending duties at Madison Square Garden in Lundqvist’s absence is backup Antti Raanta, who has performed well this season in 23 appearances. Raanta has the NHL’s eighth-best save percentage at .922, as well as the 11th-best goals against average with 2.32.

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With this timeline, Lundqvist will be out until around the end of the regular season, making him likely to be available for the Rangers’ first playoff series.

The Rangers will be fighting down the stretch for position in the Metropolitan Division, currently sitting in the Eastern Conference’s first wild card spot with 88 points. They’re four points back of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who hold third place in the Metro.