The Swedish goalie, who spent his 15 N.H.L. seasons with the Rangers, indulged New York and was a rare hockey player whose stardom eclipsed his sport.
This low roar would start in one section or another at Madison Square Garden, the sounds of feet stamping and hands clapping and voices bellowing, and as the chants spread and spread it felt like the old building was quaking: HEN-reek, HEN-reek. Down on the ice, Henrik Lundqvist had just stopped a breakaway or saved a puck with his head or completed a shutout — or, he had just been tending goal, game after game, a source of constant comfort at a position that bedeviled other franchises but not, for the better part of 15 years, the Rangers. Lundqvist’s splendid career concluded Friday, when he announced his retirement in his native Sweden. A heart condition sidelined him all last season — he underwent open-heart surgery in January — and Lundqvist,39, told the New York Post that, with more inflammation discovered in April, the risks were too great to continue. Since he never played a game for them, it’s easy to forget that Lundqvist signed with the Washington Capitals in October 2020, less than two weeks after the Rangers bought him out, and perhaps it’s just as well. Lundqvist played in New York and lived in New York, but he was also of New York. The city in 2005 welcomed this handsome goaltender with great hair (and soon, bespoke suits). And as he led a team that had floundered for seven straight seasons back to the playoffs, it conferred upon him a measure of celebrity unattainable for many a hockey player. He became as recognizable by face as by name. He is a man with varied interests, and there was no better place for him to explore them — music, fashion, culture — or to nurture his whole self. Living first in Midtown, then Tribeca, he performed in a band with the tennis legend John McEnroe.
