The Rangers and goalie Henrik Lundqvist are hoping 2019 is different.
His numbers alone he'd like to improve. His save percentage was .907 and his goals against average was 3.07 last season. Both were career-worsts, but also very much a product of what was going on around him with the team's rebuild.
With that in mind, he's not worrying about 2018 at all.
"Well, I think the past is the past," he said. "You move on. Every year, new challenges. We have a new team. You've got to look at the possibilities and the good things that we can accomplish this year, not so much what happened last year, where we were as a team. We're moving forward and that alone gives you a lot of positive energy," Lundqvist told The Athletic.
"So the past is the past. Let's see what we can do this year. We're all excited and we just have to figure out how good we can be this year. That's something we just have to as a group figure out the next few weeks, then set our goal for this year," he added.
But at 37, Lundqvist already knows at least in one way things will be different. Having played upwards of 70 games a season at times in his career, the Rangers plan to cut him down moving forward. He told Newsday he's fine with that.
"I'm not going to focus too much on how many starts,'' he said. "I'm going to work as hard as I can and be ready when they tell me to play. And obviously I hope it's gonna be a lot of games. But, what a lot of games as I don't know. I don't know a number and we're not going to target a number. It comes down to how I play; how they play.''
They being other goalies on the Rangers' roster. Alexandar Georgiev and Igor Shesterkin are the two main contenders that Rangers fans could see doses of in 2019-20.
If Lundqvist does play less, the team will hope he doesn't lose momentum serving as a backup, but perhaps the extra rest for him could provide the Rangers with more wins next season as well. Exactly how many games he plays this upcoming year remains to be seen.