Igor Shesterkin’s deadline for record contract with Rangers is nothing to fret over

Aaron Judge had an Opening Day negotiating deadline in 2022 when he was coming up on the final year of his contract before free-agent eligibility, and that seems to have worked out just fine for No. 99 — perhaps the first time ever in a hockey column that numeral does not refer to Wayne Gretzky — and the Yankees. 

And so there is no need to overreact to the news that Igor Shesterkin has set a similar deadline as the Rangers franchise goaltender approaches the final year of his contract ahead of unrestricted free agency. 

This may represent an attempt by Shesterkin’s party to create additional leverage, but in reality this changes nothing. The goaltender has hand. Everyone knows it. That’s not a reference to his glove hand, either. 

Shesterkin is going to become the highest-paid goaltender in NHL history. There is no doubt he will surpass the $10.5 million per that Carey Price earned with Montreal off the eight-year contract that kicked in with the 2018-19 season when the cap was set at $79.5M. So in Year 1, Price ate 13.21 percent of the cap. 

The Post’s Mollie Walker’s report on June 2 that the goaltender would seek $12M per has been verified by several sources, and I would be shocked if GM Chris Drury has yet not talked about an offer of between $10.5M and $11M per if numbers have been exchanged. The term presumably would be seven or eight years. 

But it’s my information, also previously reported, that Shesterkin is also aiming to become the highest paid player on the Rangers and in franchise history. That would mean exceeding Artemi Panarin’s annual $11,642,857 on the wildly mutually beneficial contract that has two years to go.