The Rangers announced today that training camp will get underway on Thursday, with new head coach Peter Laviolette facing the media tomorrow at 3:00pm Eastern. Camp is scheduled to run from Wednesday through to Saturday with the first preseason game scheduled against Boston on Sunday.
This will be Laviolette’s first training camp as the Rangers Head Coach, having been announced in June, and while we know mostly who’ll be in the opening night roster, we don’t yet have a sense as to how the line-up will be constructed.
In all, 58 players have been invited to camp. The roster (which you can checkout here) includes 32 forwards, 20 defensemen and 6 goaltenders, with no veteran players on Professional Tryouts (PTOs). The lack of PTOs comes as no surprise, with Chris Drury stating as much last week, and a roster that already includes 48 out of a maximum 50 contracts used (though one or two will be sent to the minors and not count).
There were no real surprises on the roster, with perhaps only the absence of some of the AHL contracted players being a difference from the two years under Gerard Gallant. Amongst those who did get an invite are forwards Max McCue and Sahil Panwar, along with defensemen Joe Arntsen, Ryan McCleary, James Petrovski and Seth Barton, all of whom participated in the rookie camp. Barton and Panwar are the only ones signed – to an AHL contract, while fellow AHL contracted player Blake Hillman will also attend.
With the defense a bit thin in prospect depth, it’s perhaps not surprising that we see five non NHL contracted players attended (versus two forwards and no goaltenders). Two uncontracted prospects will also attend, Maxim Barbashev (2022) and Dylan Roobroeck (2023) will fill out the forward roster.
Unsurprisingly, no European-based prospects or NCAA prospects will attend. It’s uncommon for Europeans to travel to the US and then return home if they’re not expected to play the season in North America, while NCAA players would have to provide their own insurance and pay their own costs to attend as part of the amateur requirements for US collegiate sports.
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