Rangers devote good chunk of time to their specialty teams at practice

GREENBURGH — After the Devils scored three power-play goals in five opportunities against them on Wednesday and the Boston Bruins got one in three tries on Thursday, it was apparent that it was time for the Rangers to start putting in some serious work on their penalty kill to get ready for the regular season.

“Yeah, we’ve got to spend a little more time on it,’’ defenseman Jacob Trouba said Thursday.

So after Friday’s day off, the Blueshirts returned to work Saturday and devoted a good chunk of their practice to working on their specialty teams — both the power play and the penalty kill.

“I just feel like the power-play guys and penalty-kill guys needed a chance just to talk about position, especially the penalty kill,’’ coach Peter Laviolette said after the two-hour practice. “You have to be in the right position, you have to read off of each other and have the right spots covered . . .

“It’s good for the power-play guys just to work five guys [against no defenders] and talk about [what] they wanted to do. And we brought it together to put power play against the penalty kill at the end.’’

With their six preseason games behind them, the Rangers have a few days of practice to work on fine-tuning their game before they open the season Thursday in Buffalo.

They’ve run through Laviolette’s systems for five-on-five offense, neutral zone and defense, and they did a little power-play work early last week, but they hadn’t gotten a chance to work on the penalty kill until Saturday.

Assistant coach Dan Muse provided detailed instruction to the shorthanded unit, stopping play every few seconds to adjust where the players should be and where they should position their sticks.

“You’re not moving like you are in the first 45 minutes [of practice],’’ Laviolette said. “The goalies aren’t getting the reps. But it has to get done.’’

“We’re just getting the foundation of our penalty kill positionally,’’ forward Jimmy Vesey said. “We’ve gone over it, some video and stuff, but we haven’t had too much time to practice it. And obviously, special teams are a big part of today’s NHL, so we’re probably going to use these days before the games to hone in on that.’’

n  Cuylle earns a spot

Rookie forward Will Cuylle said GM Chris Drury met with him Friday to inform him he’d made the final roster.

“He just told me ‘Good job’ and why I made the team, and the things I did well, and what he wants to see moving forward,’’ Cuylle said.

Cuylle, who was a second-round draft pick in the 2020 draft, played four games for the Rangers last season.

n  Blue notes

C Filip Chytil, who missed 11 days with an upper-body injury, returned to practice wearing a red no-contact jersey. He looked good, according to Laviolette. “You wouldn’t have known anything was wrong with him,’’ the coach said . . . F Tyler Pitlick, who missed the last two periods of Wednesday’s game against the Devils and did not play Thursday, returned to practice . . . F Alexis Lafreniere missed practice with what the team said was an upper-body injury, but Laviolette said he is OK. “He was out there [skating on his own] this morning,’’ Laviolette said. “I’m thinking that he’ll return [Sunday].’’