Rangers Ryan Lindgren and brother Charlie giving parents awesome ride with NHL/AHL playoff

June 27, 2024

NEW YORK — When Bob Lindgren watches his son Charlie play goal, he gets, as his family says, “really twitchy.”

But that’s being kind.

“I try to put someone between us,” says Jennifer Lindgren, Bob’s wife and mom to Springfield Thunderbirds goalie Charlie Lindgren and New York Rangers defenseman Ryan Lindgren.

“If you’re in the seat next to him, you’re liable to get hurt,” Charlie says, laughing hard.

Bob, a former standout goalie from Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis who played for the St. Paul Vulcans and had a cup of coffee at the University of Michigan in the mid-80s, sits in the stands and mimics glove and kick saves and blocker stops whenever a puck comes his son’s way. He’ll also do that in his basement when he watches Charlie, a lefty who catches with his right hand, play on TV.

“Oh gosh, my dad, Scott, would get the biggest kick out of Bob,” says Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Brady Skjei, once Charlie’s high school teammate at Lakeville North High and Charlie’s best friend since elementary school. “My dad would sit next to him at high school games and literally get kicked in the shin or hit in the shoulder. Bob fakes making saves like he’s in net. Every move Charlie makes, Bob is all on it.”

While the animated Bob Lindgren is the edgy goalie dad, Jennifer gets more nervous watching the youngest of their three boys, Ryan, play.

At 24, Ryan is four years younger than Charlie but suddenly looks way older due to his impressive playoff beard. And he has earned the playoff look. In his fourth year in the NHL, Ryan is a warrior on skates. He’s physical, he blocks shots, he’s terrific on the penalty kill and if a goalmouth scrum incurs, he’s likely to be in the middle of it.

“I get so nervous worrying he’s going to get hurt,” Jennifer says. “He’s all over the place and skating here and causing a ruckus there. He’s hitting guys and getting hit and getting in those scrums.”

“Jennifer gets scared whenever Ryan gets hammered into the boards and stuff like that, but he always seems to bounce back,” Bob says.

It’s an exciting and nerve-wracking time for the Lindgren family, which includes middle brother, Andrew, 26, who is also a former high school and collegiate goalie and is currently in cadet training to become a Minneapolis firefighter.

Both Ryan and Charlie Lindgren, who has played 29 NHL games for the Montreal Canadiens and St. Louis Blues, are in the final four of their respective leagues with the hope of winning a Stanley Cup and Calder Cup, respectively. Ryan’s Rangers, who got a second-period goal from Lindgren during Thursday night’s 3-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, are down 3-2 in the Eastern Conference final, while Charlie’s T-Birds are up 2-1 in the AHL’s Eastern Conference final against the Laval Rocket.

A 5v5 goal for the Rangers, in this economy? Ryan Lindgren opens the scoring, 1-0. pic.twitter.com/WFsBlWiUoP

— Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) June 10, 2022

Last Sunday, Ryan had a 3 p.m. game while Charlie was starting a 5 p.m. game.

“It was pretty wild,” Charlie says. “We’re in the gym warming up before the game, and the Rangers game is on. Obviously I had a lot of interest in it and you’re kind of glued to the TV. It’s been awesome for my family. For both of us to be playing this late in the year, I mean, that’s what you want.”

But it was hectic for the Lindgrens’ parents in the basement of their South Minneapolis home.

They had two TVs going at the same time, but both TVs can’t be seen from the couch, so Bob sat on the steps in order to see both.

“It was kind of brutal, and you can’t focus on one of them, but we made do,” Bob says, laughing.

Unfortunately that night, both boys lost. Ryan was on the ice for a last-minute goal by Ondrej Palat, and Charlie gave up four goals on 26 shots to his old team, the Rocket.

“My wife said, ‘Couldn’t they have scheduled it a little differently for us?’” Bob says, laughing. “That’s the way it goes. Sometimes the Lindgrens are 2-0, sometimes they split. That night, we were all on the short end of the stick.”

Andrew, Charlie and Ryan Lindgren (Courtesy of the Lindgren family)

The three Lindgren sons took different childhood paths with their hockey.

Charlie played at Lakeville North High, then two years of junior with Sioux Falls in the USHL and three years at St. Cloud State before signing as a free agent with the Canadiens in 2016. Andrew played at Eagan High, then two years of junior in the NAHL and four years of NCAA Division III hockey at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minn.

Ryan played on a traveling tournament team as a peewee through the Florida Everblades, then three years at Shattuck-St. Mary’s, including bantams and ninth and 10th grades. He went to the U.S. National Team Development Program in Ann Arbor, Mich., for his final two years of high school and was drafted in the second round of the 2016 NHL Draft by the Boston Bruins. After playing two seasons at the University of Minnesota, he signed with the Rangers, who had acquired his rights a month earlier as part of the Rick Nash trade.

“I always get so mad at the people that say he was just a throw-in,” Jennifer says, laughing. “I’m proud of all three of my sons — most importantly for the people they have become.”

Charlie Lindgren has had a terrific season overall. He was 5-0 with the Blues with a 1.22 goals-against average and .958 save percentage and went 24-7-1 in the regular season for Springfield with a 2.21 goals-against average and .925 save percentage. He tied for fourth in the AHL in wins, was third in goals-against average, tied for second in save percentage and tied for fifth with three shutouts. In the playoffs, he’s been platooning with Blues 2018 fourth-round pick Joel Hofer, who is 6-0.

“He’s had a heck of a year and they’ve got a great team,” Ryan Lindgren says. “It seems like they’re making a run here.”

Charlie Lindgren (Jerome Miron / USA Today)

Ryan scored a career-high four goals and had 15 points in 78 regular-season games for the Rangers, with a plus-18 rating and 48 penalty minutes. He was second on the team with 141 blocked shots and third among defensemen with 129 hits. Paired with his best friend from the USNTDP, Adam Fox, Lindgren is tied for third in the NHL during the playoffs with 37 blocked shots and has two goals and four assists in 16 games to go along with a team-best plus-9 rating.

He’s also clearly playing through a significant lower-body injury, sustained during the second-round series against the Hurricanes.

“He’s a great example of very high character and what it takes to win,” Rangers teammate Ryan Strome says. “I think there’s a lot of guys in our dressing room that are pretty selfless right now and do anything they can for the team, and he’s a great example. When he’s on the ice, you see the difference he makes, with his poise and his willingness to block shots and take a hit and defend well.

“He makes great passes and has pretty underrated (offensive) instincts. He’s such a warrior and a battler, and I think it’s infectious on our team. He plays every game like his last, and these playoffs are right up his alley.”

Charlie and Ryan are very different people but have similar personalities.

Skjei knows them better than most. Charlie was a groomsman in his wedding last summer in Newcastle, Maine., and Ryan is his former Rangers teammate and “like a little brother to me. I mean, I’ve known him since he was a little kid.”

“Just very easy-going guys, easy to get along with. Seems like no one dislikes either of them,” Skjei says. “It’s just so cool to see both of them having a chance to win a Cup, although it’s pretty bittersweet with Ryan.”

That’s because the Rangers rallied from 2-0 and 3-2 series leads to beat Skjei and the Hurricanes.

Bob Lindgren coached all three of his boys until bantams. Charlie and Andrew always took to goal and wanted to follow in their dad’s footsteps. So how did Ryan go the opposite direction and become such a hard-nosed defenseman?

That question brings laughter from the entire family.

“Probably being the youngest child and getting pushed around by his older brothers,” says Bob.

“Of course, he could probably beat both me and Andrew up now no problem,” Charlie says. “Ryan has always had this competitive edge to him. He’s just always played with that fire.”

“Also, when he was growing up, Charlie and Andrew always had all their friends over playing hockey, and Ryan was just trying to survive,” Jennifer recalls. “We had this house where everybody was at. We had a flat driveway, so everybody was playing hockey all the time, and Ryan was just trying to survive. But the other side of it, too, when he started traveling during peewees and went to Shattuck, the coaches really encouraged him to play hard and physical. That changed the whole way he played.

“I didn’t love it, either. Believe me, he was getting kicked out of a lot of games. But I guess it worked.”

Ryan mostly had to shoot pucks at Andrew because Charlie didn’t like his youngest brother shooting on him.

“I really never wanted him to score on me; that was kind of my thing,” says Charlie. “Even whenever his teams would ask me to come out so they could shoot on me, I just wanted no part of it, just because I hated when younger kids scored on me. So then once he got to probably college, I was like, ‘OK, you can come out for my goalie sessions in the summer now.’

“When he scores on me, I’m not thrilled. It’s still a little bit of a kick in the ass.”

Skjei, 28, started to really take notice of Ryan when he got to the Gophers. He loved it when they got to play together on the Rangers — until Skjei was traded to the Hurricanes for a first-round pick in 2020.

“He stood out right away,” Skjei says. “He just makes the right plays all the time. He’s not super flashy with the way he plays but never really gets in trouble. Makes the simple play, makes the right play at the right time of the game. And the last couple years playing next to Fox, he’s been a great complement. That pair has been unreal.”

Charlie jokes that Ryan gives his dad a break from being the stressed-out goalie dad.

“I feel bad for him,” Charlie says. “When I have kids one day, I’m going to think twice about letting them be a goalie. It’s so fun watching Ryan because he is so competitive. He doesn’t care if he’s playing against Sidney Crosby or some callup. He plays everyone just as hard.

“As a goalie, he’s the kind of defenseman you want in front of you. One that’s tough, he’ll block shots. He’s a guy that you can really rally behind. And trust me, I know throughout the playoffs here, he’s been playing through some serious pain and he probably could be out of the lineup. But again, it’s playoff hockey. This is what he’s worked so hard for. Unless he has a broken leg or something, he’s not going to come out.”

Ryan has made that clear — adding his praise for the Rangers’ medical staff in keeping him patched together.

“There’s definitely been some times where it’s a battle and you do whatever you can to get out there,” Ryan says. “It’s a bunch of guys battling through stuff. It’s playoff hockey. You want to be out there helping the team and you battle through whatever you can. Taking bumps and bruises along the way, that’s the style I like. I like to be physical and intense.”

Bob and Jennifer Lindgren don’t get out to see their sons play hockey as much as they’d like. In fact, Jennifer is so busy that she’ll often call her husband during the day and ask, “Which one of the boys is playing tonight?”

Bob, who used to be in the nursery business with a landscaping and gardening store, now drives for UPS. Jennifer is a real estate agent. Earlier this postseason, when the Rangers and Thunderbirds made the playoffs, Bob and Jennifer flew east. But the respective schedules for the Rangers and Thunderbirds weren’t out yet, so they crossed their fingers and hoped they guessed the dates correctly.

Turns out the Rangers and Thunderbirds were playing the same night.

Bob went to Springfield because he hadn’t seen Charlie play in person in three years — “so I had to go see him” — while Jennifer went to watch Ryan at Madison Square Garden.

Last round, Bob, Jennifer and Andrew traveled to New York for Game 6 against Carolina, while Jennifer, her father, Ed Fleetham, and her nephew got to see Ryan score in person during Thursday’s Game 5, nearly score another, play masterfully on the penalty kill and, as is his staple, leave the ice at the end of the game bloody — this time on his left temple while he jawed at Tampa Bay’s Nick Paul.

“We’re both nervous hockey parents, but we don’t nitpick,” Bob says. “I coached them long enough. Now, I just want to be the dad, and they get enough of that from their actual coaches. They don’t need it coming from me. We’re just hoping both of these runs end pretty special for both boys.”

Charlie and Ryan Lindgren (courtesy of the Lindgren family)

Ryan is living the bachelor life. He bought a home in Edina, Minn., recently on a small lake, and he’s recruited former Gophers teammates Jack Sadek, Tyler Sheehy and Sam Rossini as roommates. Charlie also lives in Edina, and last summer he eloped with his fiancee, Mikki, who went to high school with Charlie and Skjei.

The plan this summer is to have a celebration up at their cabin.

“He’s got the cutest, best wife in the whole entire world,” Jennifer says. “We love her to death. But they both don’t get to spend much time in Minnesota. I keep thinking, ‘Geez, their summer’s going to be so short.’ But obviously it’s well worth it.”

Bob keeps thinking about how cool it would be if the Lindgrens get to host two Cup celebrations this offseason.

“Now, that would be something special,” Bob says. “We’re proud as peacocks and we love watching both of them. It’s just an awesome ride to go through as parents.”

As nerve-wracking as it is.

(Top photo: Dennis Schneidler / USA Today)

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