We’re now into the last week of August, and Rangers training camp is just around the corner. Let’s take a look and see if we can project out the camp schedule based on what we know so far. Well, for one thing we know that there are two rookie games scheduled with Philadelphia on Saturday the 12th, and Sunday the 13th. We also know that the main squad has four preseason games with the first scheduled for September 21st.

In previous seasons, the Rangers have also had rookies report on the Wednesday before their games, and that the veterans have reported a week later for weighing in, and then hit the ice on the Thursday of that following week.

So where does that leave us:

Wednesday, September 9th: Rookies report
Wednesday, September 16th: Veterans report
Thursday, September 17th: First on-ice workouts for veterans
Monday, September 28th: Rosters Finalized

Give a day or two on the Rookies, but that feels pretty much like where we’ll be on the dates.

WHO GETS AN INVITE TO CAMP

With the Rookies, we should expect all the signed Ranger prospects under 25 years of age, and with limited NHL experience. We should also expect any unsigned prospects playing in Canadian major juniors to be there. Generally there’ll also be a few European prospects who’ll attend, depending on their commitments to their various league teams.

We should also expect a handful of invites. A few players from the Development Camp held immediately after the draft typically join, as well as a few unsigned guys that the Rangers might have a passing interest in – or somehow know one of the executives or front office guys.

Here’s a preliminary list of the types of players who might be invited though certainly not all of these guys will be there – particularly some of those Europeans – and a guy like Dylan Garand probably won’t be there either given his previous attendance of previous rookie camps.

As for the main camp, we have seen typically that all NHL signed-players, all AHL signed-players and some prospects will attend. So here’s a potential starting list for training camp as well.

AND WHO DOESN’T

Players that the Rangers still hold the rights to, but are no longer considered prospects. In this case that would be Karl Henriksson and Lauri Pajuniemi. We should also probably not expect to see European prospects who we haven’t seen before, or that are on a trajectory out of the organization. A guy like Oliver Tarnstrom would seem very unlikely to be invited.

WHAT ABOUT CAMP SIZE

For Rookie Camp, the final roster is likely to be in the 22-25 player range. Last season it was 22, and the year before it was a little bit larger at 25.

As for the main training camp, don’t be surprised to see something in the range of 60 or so. Last year in Mike Sullivan’s first season as Rangers head coach, he had 61 attendees. Given Sullivan is in his second season and the Rangers have a shorter preseason this year – four games versus the six that has been the standard – there’s a chance this gets reduced a little. It’s already 56 with just the NHL and AHL signed guys, so it should still be in the same ballpark as recent years.

THE FIRST CUT IS THE DEEPEST

Well not exactly, generally we see AHL guys and maybe one or two NHL contracted players sent down first, as well as prospects reassigned to Europe and the minors. Last year it was goaltenders Hugo Ollas and Callum Tung that got sent down just three days into camp. Both had attended Rookie camp, and neither was projected to be in the Rangers near term plans.

The final cuts generally come right before rosters are finally set. Last year Brett Berard had the distinction of being the last cut, and Conor Sheary was officially converted from a try-out to a contracted player – both on October 6th.