Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on the 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – NHL Expansion is on the Horizon, on the struggles of New York Rangers forward Alexis Lafreniere
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Friedman: “So you’re always talking about the surprises, who’s still around, who’s still out there. And then you start getting to okay, who hasn’t looked great, and someone just said to me they’ve seen a few Rangers games, and I confess I haven’t really watched them much, but I think there’s a lot of concern about (Alexis) Lefreniere and what’s going on there.
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The one thing I really believe is, I believe the Rangers have bent over backwards to try to create the right environment for him. It didn’t work between him and (Gerard) Gallant, unfortunately. They made the coaching change.
Arthur Staple reported earlier this summer, out of the draft, he heard some rumors about Lafreniere. And I had heard similar, maybe he would be out there but the Rangers came back hard against that.
There’s some teams they hear trade rumors and they laugh it off or they just decide to ignore it because they say ‘If I deny this one and I don’t deny that one, people are going to say, oh that one must be true.’ I understand kind of the trap teams get in with this. But the Rangers came out really hard on the Lafreniere report. They really wanted to protect the kid and put him in the right mental frame of mind to play this year.
Everything they did this offseason was about how can we make him comfortable. We don’t want to give up on him. He still young. He’s only 22. The No. 1 overall pick . He’s talented. We want to make this work. They bent over backward.
I haven’t seen him but people are starting to talk about, ‘boy, he’s looked really, really, rough.’ And look, I think you have to wait until the play starts and you see what it’s like when the puck really drops. But there’s a lot of people concerned about the way this is going.
I’m going to wait to reserve judgment during the season but people are talking about it. This is, I can’t image the Rangers aren’t a little worried about what they are seeing. Based on what other people are telling me.
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It’s just a really tough place to be and think it’s got to be really frustrating for him as human being but I think it’s also got to be really frustrating for the Rangers cause they have tried to do everything to make it work for him this offseason.
Now the one thing the Rangers did try on Thursday night Jeff was they played him (Artemi) Panarin. On the right side with Panarin in their exhibition game against the Bruins. And if you’re trying to get somebody going, that’s the guy to put them with.
He had a bad turnover that led to a two-on-one early in the game but I wonder now if this is going to be the Rangers plan. Let’s try to make this work by putting him with Panarin because I can’t think of a better way to get somebody going in New York.
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Marek: “I think they’re going to give Alexis Lafreniere, again, I think they’re going to give him every opportunity with as many skilled players around him to try and make this work. Like, there’s a lot of jobs that Peter Laviolette has now Elliotte with the New York Rangers and trying to get this team going and to get them back into a playoff position and do some damage. I think one of the top jobs is getting Alexis Lafreniere, and Kaapo Kakko for that matter, going as well.”
Friedman: “100 percent agree.”
