The Lindgrens watched with divided loyalties Sunday afternoon as the Capitals and Rangers kicked off Game One of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Charlie Lindgren took the net for Washington in his NHL postseason debut while brother Ryan Lindgren suited up on defense for New York.
While Charlie and Ryan have no plans to talk until the series is over, the rest of the family is caught in the crossfire of the win-or-go-home series. Rather than attending every game in the first round — or picking just a single city to travel to — the Lindgrens are splitting their time between New York and DC.
“My dad and brother are going to MSG and my mom and Grandpa are going to come to Washington,” Charlie told reporters on Thursday.
Monumental Sports Network’s Al Koken confirmed that the pair’s father Bob and middle brother Andrew were in attendance for Game One in New York.
oh my god theres another lindgren they are literal triplets pic.twitter.com/g1QBYBCwc5
— chris kreider respecter (@jonmoxIeys) April 21, 2024
“(They were) asked are they going to be rooting for either brother, and of course they said ‘no, we can’t root,’” Koken noted, “But Bob, who is a former goaltender, did say he never wants to see a goal get by Charlie.”
Play-by-play announcer Joe Beninati added that Bob Lindgren got especially involved when watching Charlie play.
“I wish we could have a camera trained on the dad because the dad makes saves in the stands a la Charlie throughout…Comes to the game and mimics all the goalie moves,” he said.
The broadcast team’s comments backed up Charlie’s own assessment. With both he and Andrew opting to play in net, Charlie had seen his father’s reactions to their games up close.
“My dad’s already a pretty high-stress guy when it comes to hockey games, and especially (when) his son that plays goaltending,” he said. “I think it’s a little bit different where I’ve seen it live with my brother, Andrew, where I’ve watched him watch Andrew and he’s pretty squirmy in the stands. So I’m sure it’s going to be high-stress for both my parents, but I know for a fact that they’re not going to take this for granted at all.”
Plenty of pucks did make it past Charlie on Sunday as the Rangers earned a 4-1 win to take the series lead. But while four different players scored in Game One, Charlie was able to shut out his brother.
“If [Ryan] scored on me, that would probably be the death of me, I think,” he said back in December. “That’s that not a joke. That would torment me.”
