Rangers coach Peter Laviolette looking to 'build off of last year and get better'
Rangers coach Peter Laviolette speaks on June 4. Credit: Corey Sipkin
GREENBURGH – Year Two of the Peter Laviolette Era is underway, as the Rangers coach and his players assembled Wednesday for the start of training camp for the 2024-25 season. After he got early buy-in from the players at his first training camp last year, and the team went on to win the Presidents’ Trophy, Laviolette said he’s not looking to change much in his second season.
“I'm not necessarily trying to reinvent the wheel,’’ he said Wednesday at his season-opening news conference at the MSG Training Facility. “Just trying to get better at what we're doing, trying to build off of last year and become better. And so, some of the messaging was the same [as Day 1 last year].’’
“Peter did a great job last year, him and his entire staff, coming in and kind of resetting things a little bit here, culture wise,’’ Rangers general manager Chris Drury had said Tuesday. “And I think coming into Year Two, he has a year under his belt, not only dealing with everything that comes with being the Ranger head coach, but knowing our players, not coming in blind. So I’m excited to see what's to come with him and the staff.’’
Continuity will be a theme (and a strength, the Rangers hope) as only four players from the squad that ended last season – fourth-line center Barclay Goodrow, sixth defenseman Erik Gustafsson, and trade deadline rentals Alex Wennberg and Jack Roslovic – aren’t back.
Filip Chytil, who missed the final 72 games of the regular season and most of the playoffs due to a (suspected) concussion, will replace Wennberg as the third-line center, and Zac Jones, the seventh defenseman last season, is expected to step up into Gustafsson’s spot. There might only be two new faces – right wing Reilly Smith and new fourth-line center Sam Carrick – in the lineup on opening night.
“I think there's been some really good continuity here for a few years, even before I got here,’’ Laviolette said. “There's a lot of pieces that have been in place and have played together for not just last year and this year, but maybe three or four years.
“You know, I believe in the players that we have in the room,’’ he continued. “I do like what we have.’’
Laviolette insisted there will be opportunity for young players to force their way onto the roster if they prove in training camp that they deserve to be there. When asked whether forward Alexis Lafreniere, who had a breakout season last year with a career high 28 goals and 57 points, might get the chance to play on the top power-play unit this season, he pointed out that the power play was great last season (third-best in the league, with a 26.4% success rate), but said Lafreniere may get a look on the top unit in camp.
“You do try to find the balance sometimes, between something that was really successful and then mixing it up and moving around,’’ he said. “But there will be opportunity where things will get looked at differently through training camp, and not just for [Lafreniere], but other players.’’
Laviolette was asked if Florida, the team that eliminated the Rangers in the Eastern Conference finals and went on to win the Stanley Cup, is who the Rangers are chasing this season as they try to win their first Cup since 1994.
“I don't know what's going to happen down there [in Florida], or what's going to happen with other divisions, or what's going to happen in the West,’’ he said. “And we should just focus on what we're doing.
“But it's a long year, and I know that you need to build something to get stronger as a group, to give yourself a chance to become champions, like Florida did. They earned it and they won it. They'll be a good team again.’’
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
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