TARRYTOWN ‒ For the first time in three years, Igor Shesterkin went home.

The Rangers' goalie spent his summer in Russia, an opportunity for his young family to visit with relatives and catch up with old friends. He called it "refreshing."

"I hadn’t seen them in a long time, so we had a couple dinners, a lot of talks," he said, noting that his previous trip was back in 2021. "I was happy to be there."

Rangers camp observations: Jacob Trouba clears the air regarding trade rumors

By soaking in the quality time and training for a new season, Shesterkin was able to detach himself from the outside chatter surrounding the final year of his contract.

The 28-year-old is marching toward unrestricted free agency next summer, at which point he would become one of the most coveted players on the market. It would behoove the Rangers not to let him get there by negotiating an extension as soon as possible, with Shesterkin sharing his point of view following Friday's double-session practice at the MSG Training Center.

"I love the organization, I love the team, I love the fans," he said. "So, of course, it would be great to stay here, but you never know what can happen."

The unknown is the unnerving part for Blueshirts' fans.

It's widely believed that New York will have to make Shesterkin the NHL's highest-paid goalie to get it done, which would mean surpassing Carey Price's $10.5 million average annual value. But how much more it will take?

The two sides are nowhere close at the moment, according to a person with knowledge of the situation, who spoke to lohud.com, part of the USA TODAY Network, on the condition of anonymity. The Rangers would like to keep the AAV as close to that $10.5 million figure as possible, especially as they anticipate new deals for ascending young players Alexis Lafrenière and K'Andre Miller next summer. But it seems Shesterkin's camp is aiming significantly higher.

"We’re going to do everything we can to make sure he’s here for a long time," team president Chris Drury said earlier this week.

The best way for Shesterkin to maximize his value, particularly if he puts together another good season, would be to create a bidding war on the open market. Whether he's willing to push it that far is a lingering question, otherwise a compromise in the $11 million-plus range remains most likely.

"I have one more year, so I don’t care about it," he said. "It’s work for my agent. I just want to be focused on my game and practice every day."

It's hard to envision where the Rangers would be without their No. 1 goalie, who has been their backbone throughout each of their last three playoff runs. He's posted a .929 save percentage across 43 postseason starts in that span, with his 29.75 goals saved above average ranking as the NHL's best by a wide margin of 15.99, according to Natural Stat Trick.

His regular seasons have been a bit more uneven, albeit still quite good. Shesterkin hasn't come close to matching his historic .935 SV% while winning the Vezina Trophy in 2021-22, with a penchant for midseason slumps creeping in each of the last two seasons. But he finished strong in both of those campaigns, including a .929 SV% and league-best 18.59 GSAA after the 2024 all-star break.

"We don't have an all-star break this season," he quipped. "I need to be better right away."

There's an argument to be made that Shesterkin is the world's best netminder, which is precisely where NHL Network ranked him on its most recent list. And there's an argument that the Rangers' Stanley Cup hopes would go up in smoke if he ever left for another team. His dominance allows them to overcome deficiencies in other areas, which is why leverage sits firmly in No. 31's hands.

The coming months could sway negotiations one way or another, but Shesterkin insists he isn't looking backwards or too far ahead. He knows the best way to ensure his financial future is to focus on here and now.

"Right now, we have a new season, and we need to talk about this time," he said. "I just want to be ready."

A fast start

The first two days of training camp have featured three groups, with one very closely resembling what the opening-night roster could look like.

The way head coach Peter Laviolette sees it, why waste time separating your go-to guys when they can get a head start on chemistry and preparation now?

"It's an opportunity to get them going right away and do exactly what you saw (Friday), which is kind of pound them with speed and pace and systems and get them back going in the quickest way that we can, as opposed to waiting eight days into camp or nine days into camp," he explained.

That cohesion and familiarity has led to a roaring start.

The NHL group led off Friday with back-to-back sessions totaling more than two hours, with only a brief break in between for ice cleaning. They may not have been the crispest practices − "The quality right now is not great enough," Artemi Panarin said − but there was no shortage of intensity. The work rate was high and the downtime was limited, with players buzzing around all morning and clearly feeling heavy legs by the time they were through.

"I usually start camp the same way, or I have for a while," Laviolette said. "It is training camp, so there's a lot of pace in there. I don't like to stop too much and go to a board. I don't like to slow it down. I want to keep it going. It's about conditioning. It's about getting in game shape, skating shape. But in the same sense, there's a lot of systematic stuff that you're putting in, too. The first half, I thought, was really fast and really moving. The second half just slows down a little bit."

Panarin-Trocheck-Lafrenière line stays hungry

The NHL group didn't change much from Thursday.

A few of the roster-bubble players were swapped out, with forward Matt Rempe and defensemen Ben Harpur and Connor Mackey replacing forwards Adam Edström and Brennan Othmann and defensemen Matthew Robertson and Chad Ruhwedel. But the meats and potatoes of the lineup remained intact.

The top-three lines were unchanged, with Panarin, Vincent Trocheck and Alexis Lafrenière on one, Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad and Reilly Smith on another, and Will Cuylle, Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko on the third. Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren also remained together on the top D pair, with the only notable shift coming on the bottom two. K'Andre Miller practiced alongside Braden Schneider, while Zac Jones skated with captain Jacob Trouba.

Laviolette has stressed competition and repeatedly said he'll try out different combinations during this camp, but he seems to have some strong leanings early on. That especially applies to the Panarin-Trocheck-Lafrenière line, which registered as the NHL's highest-scoring trio last season.

"They did a lot of good things for us, and hopefully, they're looking to the build off of that," Laviolette said. "Nothing is set in stone, but I haven't broken that line up yet. ... It just doesn't make sense to take that into a different direction."

Lafrenière was a standout at Friday's practice.

He was one of the only players who noticeably scored on Shesterkin multiple times and looks poised to build on last year's ascension, during which he registered a career-high 57 points (28 goals and 29 assists).

"He can be a game-changer every game," Panarin said. "That's what I see right now. He came in shape and he looks pretty good. I’m glad to see that. I don’t think he was just eating boogers all summer because he had success here."

Panarin has no plans for complacency (or booger eating), either.

The reigning team MVP is coming off career highs in points (120), goals (49) and shots (303), but when I brought up some of those accomplishments on Friday, he implored me to "remind me about my mistakes" instead. Why? Because he believes those doubts and criticisms push him to be at his best.

"I thought about a lot of bad things last year, not about good things," he explained. "Because good things can get me relaxed a lot of the time and make me less hungry than I should be."

Vincent Z. Mercogliano is the New York Rangers beat reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Read more of his work at lohud.com/sports/rangers/ and follow him on Twitter @vzmercogliano.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Rangers' Igor Shesterkin wants to stay in NY, but 'you never know'