Rangers' five questions entering training camp

When the Rangers’ veterans report to the team’s Greenburgh, New York, practice facility Wednesday for the start of training camp, many of them will be getting the chance to meet the team’s new head coach, Peter Laviolette, for the first time.

Naturally, there will be an adjustment period, as players and coaches get to know each other, and figure out how best to work with one another moving forward. And there will be all the usual questions that come after a coaching change, like, will the new boss be a “player’s coach’’ or a “my way or the highway’’ type guy?

But following their impressive run to the Eastern Conference finals in 2022, and then their disappointing seven-game first-round loss to the Devils this spring that led to the parting of ways with former coach Gerard Gallant, there are questions about the Blueshirts’ potential, and the best way to maximize that potential, as camp opens for the 2023-24 season.

Here are five of them.

Will Laviolette, the winningest American-born coach in NHL history and a 2006 Stanley Cup champion with the Hurricanes, be able to get the Rangers to forecheck hard, in a way that his predecessors, David Quinn and Gallant, never could?

At his introductory news conference in June, Laviolette said, “It's about pressuring; it's about puck pursuit. It's about the battle level; that ‘compete’ level; the grit.’’

But the roster isn’t exactly loaded with gritty players. And Laviolette, who’s been around the NHL block a time or five, is well aware of who is on the roster. He knows he can’t ask Artemi Panarin to play dump-and-chase hockey. He knows he’ll have to be flexible in his demands.

General manager Chris Drury, talking with reporters at rookie camp last week, said it’s about “identifying when you're able to do things with your creativity, and when you're not.’’ Laviolette will need Panarin and Co. to buy into that.

Drury said he expects Alexis Lafrenière will see some time at right wing in training camp and the preseason. With Panarin and Chris Kreider ahead of him on the depth chart at left wing, the only way for Lafrenière to play on one of the top two lines, is to switch to the right side.

Both Quinn and Gallant tried him there at times in his first three years, but both ended up moving the former No. 1 overall pick back to the left side and playing him on the third line. How long will Laviolette be willing to keep the Lafrenière-on-the-right-wing experiment going this time?

Speaking of Lafrenière, have we seen the last of the “Kid Line’’ with him, Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko?

At breakup day, Kakko, the 22-year-old Finn who was the No. 2 overall pick in the 2019 draft, made it clear that, after posting career highs for goals (18) and points (40) last season, it is time for him to get a larger role as he enters his fifth NHL season. “I think maybe get some power-play time, and also play more,’’ he said when asked what he thought was next for him. Kakko is the top right wing on the roster and should play on one of the top two lines. But if he and Lafrenière both are on the top two lines, who will play with Chytil, who had 22 goals and 45 points in 2022-23 and signed a four-year, $17.75 million contract extension?

Igor Shesterkin got off to a sluggish start last season, and ultimately couldn’t duplicate his Vezina Trophy performance from the year before. But he still made the All-Star team and played a career-high 58 games. Can he start even more games this season? And if he does, will he still be fresh for the playoffs?

Who will be the No. 6 defenseman? Assuming 31-year-old free-agent signing Erik Gustafsson, who had seven goals and 35 assists in 70 games last season for Washington and Toronto, beats out 23-year-old Zac Jones and a few other challengers for the role, what will then happen to Jones? Do the Rangers carry him as the seventh defenseman, or can they trade him?

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

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.