Alexis Lafreniere’s continued emergence key to Rangers 2024-2025 season
NY Post
Of all the problems for an NHL team to have at the start of training camp, a burgeoning player needing more opportunities is one any would like to have.
Such is a headlining matter for Alexis Lafreniere and the New York Rangers as they prepare for their first official on-ice session of the preseason on Thursday at MSG Training Center.
It’s one that has taken shape quickly since the second half of last season, when Lafreniere was one of the team’s most consistent skaters after his game finally clicked at the NHL level.
Head coach Peter Laviolette acknowledged Lafreniere’s breakout campaign, but as for exploring an expanded role for the 22-year-old wing, he said that’s what training camp is for.
“There’s definitely a confidence that you see with him in his game, and then watching it build all year into the playoffs,” Laviolette said in his pre-camp news conference with reporters on Wednesday. “He had a very good year. What you’d like to see from a young player, or from a team, is to continue to push every day to find ways to be better. To find ways to do more than you did before. Doesn’t always work that way. But with regard to a team, with regard to a player, you want to see people continue to take the next step.
“He certainly had a strong year that seemed to get better and stronger and more confident as the year went on. We’d like to see him take steps from there.”
With the Yankees on an impressive run of mostly correct decisions, there’s some reason to leave them alone and just let the best team in the American League continue to roll. But they did raise serious doubt and leave room for suggestions (and even ridicule) following maybe the most inexplicable decision of this season, or any season.
The Giants have never been 0-2 under Brian Daboll, until now. They were 2-0 and flying high in 2022 and 1-1 after a rousing comeback in Arizona in 2023. So, this represents a low point as far as early-season difficulties for Daboll and the Giants. They had no business beating the Vikings in the opener and no business losing to the Commanders in Week 2. But here they are.