SALT LAKE CITY – It was a quiet Thursday afternoon in the New York Rangers locker room. Artemi Panarin adjusted the photo of Jesus above his locker, the players took off their equipment in silence and Alexis Lafrenière did not expect to speak French.
The representative of the state company having extended his stay in the area, the Quebecer therefore willingly joined in the game.
He will certainly one day write captivating novels about the 2024-2025 edition of the Rangers. Minstrels and troubadours will go from kingdom to kingdom to tell how the residents of Madison Square Garden went high and low this year, experiencing a thunderous start to the season followed by a no less spectacular descent into hell.
Between the two, a general manager, Chris Drury, who is using all means to get rid of his captain and who, according to the most connected journalists in the business, is considering the idea of trading some of his pillars like Mika Zibanejad or Chris Kreider.
Hello atmosphere.
So when Lafrenière lets it slip that there was lots and lots of attention around the team
we understand that he hardly appreciated it.
It’s impossible to completely ignore these distractions, he said. The idea, on the other hand, is to try.
Sometimes it’s harder, that’s for sure. You have to stay in your bubble and play your gamehave fun
mentioned the 23-year-old young man.
You have to realize that, in the National League, there are always going to be rumors around lots of players. You shouldn’t take it too seriously. […] When you think too much, you try to do too much, that’s when you lose a little check mark
added Lafrenière.
Shortly before New York’s infighting began to surface in November, the team was playing .735 (12-4-1), fifth in the NHL. Since then, their 8-16-2 record has put them in 30th place during this period, just one point ahead of the dead last, those poor Chicago Blackhawks.
Production down
Like his team, the former first choice in the 2020 draft also suffered from this rout.
Lafrenière seemed to be on a steady rise for 12 months. He concluded the last campaign as the 15th scorer at even strength in the league with 26 goals, he followed up with excellent series and he continued his momentum at the start of the season by amassing 20 points in his first 26 games.
-Then, he himself admits, he hit the wall, sucked into this whirlwind without succeeding in being part of the solution.
For 12 games, he was content with a meager assist for all his harvest. Since December 9, his 4 points in 17 games rank him 9th among the team’s forwards, even though he has played an average of 2:40 per game on the power play – by far his highest career total – where he took Chris Kreider’s place in the first wave.
When you have long passes like that not to produce, it’s difficult on morale. But there are worse things in life than that. We will try to get through it and play good hockey.
I’m learning all the time. We play against pairs of defenders and defensive trios. You have to learn to produce offense even if you have the best players against you
he continued.
Despite his setbacks, his trainer Peter Laviolette still trusts him. Lafrenière still patrols the right wing of the top line along with Vincent Trocheck and Panarin, in addition to that aforementioned ice time increase at five-on-four.
If he wants to stay there, he will have to quickly regain his splendor, we understand between the lines.
We need production from him, said the Rangers coach. He has talent and he plays with two other talented players. This is a trio that has the potential to be the best on the ice every night. We need that from him.
Things change quickly sometimes in professional hockey. Good or bad fortune too. We are already a long way from the period when observers sometimes associated his name with the Canadian team for the 4 Nations Showdown.
Today, his non-selection for the national team, the Olympic Games, the exchange rumors, the teammates leaving, all that no longer moves him. Throughout the several-minute conversation, Lafrenière continually stuck to one theme: pleasure.
The pleasure of playing, the simple happiness of the hockey player. This incredible season took it away from him at times, he said. And if that doesn’t work, he can always rely on the Christian faith of his teammate Panarin. He’s in the right city to begin with.
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