His dominating play during his rookie season resulted in the New York media and Rangers fans giving him the nickname "King Henrik".

Their interest in hockey grew even stronger when their father Peter took the twins to see Västra Frölunda HC play in Scandinavium, Gothenburg.

In 1993, the family moved to Båstad, Skåne, in southern Sweden to support their older sister Gabriella's tennis career.

In his third straight start, Lundqvist allowed two early first period goals in a game against Timrå IK and was pulled in favour of veteran goaltender Håkan Algotsson.

Lundqvist lost his roster spot to American veteran goaltender Pat Jablonski, who joined the team in October.

National junior team coaches Bo "Kulon" Lennartsson and Mikael Tisell were worried and decided to have a talk with Lundqvist, where they questioned his motivation.

After losing Weekes to injury in the second game of the season against the Montreal Canadiens, Lundqvist made his long-anticipated NHL debut on 8 October 2005, against the New Jersey Devils, stopping 24 of 27 shots in a 3–2 overtime loss.

[7] Five days later, on 13 October, Lundqvist made his home debut in front of a sold-out crowd of 18,200 at Madison Square Garden in what was his first NHL win, a 4–1 victory against the Devils.

[12] He was named to the NHL All-Rookie Team alongside Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, Brad Boyes, Dion Phaneuf and Andrej Meszároš.

Because Lundqvist was tied with Miikka Kiprusoff of the Calgary Flames for third place in balloting, there were four finalists for an NHL individual trophy for the first time in league history.

[15] Lundqvist was named the Rangers Most Valuable Player for the fifth consecutive season (2006–07 to 2010–11), as voted by the Professional Hockey Writers' Association.

[20] On 17 February, Lundqvist earned his 200th NHL win in a 4–3 shootout victory over the Los Angeles Kings at Madison Square Garden.

Lundqvist ended the season with 68 games played with a 36–27–5 record, .923 save percentage and 2.28 GAA as the Rangers narrowly returned to the playoffs having finished as the eighth and final seed in the East.

After making 42 saves in a 3–0 shutout victory over the Boston Bruins on 14 February 2012, Rangers fans began using the term "Lundsanity" in association with Lundqvist, as around this time the term "Linsanity" was being used to describe basketball player Jeremy Lin's meteoric rise to fame with the National Basketball Association's New York Knicks, who, like the Rangers, also play at Madison Square Garden.

[24] On 24 November 2012, Lundqvist participated in "Operation Hat Trick," a charity hockey game held at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City to raise money for Hurricane Sandy victims.

On 3 April, Lundqvist won his 268th game, surpassing Eddie Giacomin for the second most wins in Rangers history, behind only Mike Richter.

On 31 January 2015, against the Carolina Hurricanes, Lundqvist took a shot to his neck from Brad Malone, but completed the game as well as a 6–3 win over the Florida Panthers three days later.

However, tests done the morning after the Panthers game in response to Lundqvist complaining of headaches and lightheadedness detected a sprained blood vessel in his neck.

[36] On 7 March 2019, Lundqvist became the third goaltender in NHL history to play at least 850 games with one franchise in a 3–2 shootout loss to the Detroit Red Wings.

[37] On 3 October 2019, Lundqvist earned his 450th win in the 2019–20 season opener against the Winnipeg Jets, making him the sixth goaltender to reach the mark,[38] and the second one to do so with one franchise.

[39] He made 43 saves in the game, tying a franchise record for most by a Rangers goaltender in a season opener, the highest amount since Gump Worsley in 1955.

[43] However, on 17 December, Lundqvist announced that he would miss the 2020–21 season due to an irregular heartbeat brought upon by pericarditis,[44][45] which required an open-heart surgery that was performed in January 2021.

[52] Lundqvist is the all-time leader among goaltenders, and 11th overall of all players, in games played for the Swedish national junior's ice hockey team.

After an upset 3–2 win over the hosting nation Russia in the quarterfinals, Sweden lost 0–1 against the Czech Republic in the semifinals, and 1–2 in overtime against Canada in the bronze medal game.

[55] Lundqvist's most memorable international performance came at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, where he led Sweden to the gold medal over their archrivals Finland.

[56] In the 2017 World Championship, Lundqvist joined the Swedish team in the group stage and stayed in net for all five remaining games, including the final against Canada.

Sweden finished the tournament in fifth place after a 5–4 overtime loss to Finland in the quarterfinals, marking the only time Lundqvist lost to the Finnish team.

The evening included a silent auction, a Q&A session hosted by NHL Network's Kevin Weekes & an acoustic performance by Henrik Lundqvist and bandmate John McEnroe.

[65] On 29 June 2015, Lundqvist was selected as an athlete finalist for the first ever ESPN Humanitarian of the Year Awards for his commitment to "using the power of sports to transform lives and uplift communities.

[72][73] Also in 2021, he joined TNT as a rotating studio analyst,[74] and was added to their roster full-time during the 2023–24 season, replacing Rick Tocchet.