Alexis Lafrenière enters Rangers training camp with no obstacles left in his way

A lot has been said about Alexis Lafrenière and whether or not he's lived up to the expectations of a No. 1 overall pick, but heading into this season the New York Rangers have a very exciting young player on a pretty reasonable contract that is motivated to prove the end of last season wasn't a fluke.

It feels like there's been a ton of stopping and starting with Lafrenière, but this season he entered camp as a true top six forward without anyone in his way. In prior years he had to sit back while opportunities were rightfully given to Chris Kreider and Artemi Panarin, but that's no longer the case. It's even worth mentioning the Rangers made a point to go out and acquire Pavel Dorofeyev from Vegas, they signed him to a lucrative contract extension, but he's expected to start the season on the second line.

After finishing the season with 37 points in his final 40 games, the hope is that the Rangers' No. 1 pick from 2020 can be productive the moment the puck drops in the season opener. The opportunity is there for the taking, and early on in camp it seems like he's taken that to heart.

Confidence is key for Lafrenière

It is all good and well that he had a strong end to the 2025-26 season, but he's going to need to keep it up this season if the Rangers are going to have success. At the root of things is having the ability to know that he can produce in a manner that led to the Rangers picking him first overall six years ago.

Via Vince Mercogliano of The Athletic:

"Every successful player needs confidence. I was playing with a lot of confidence, and with really good players. If you play with confidence and make plays out there — and you have good players with you — it’s usually a good result."

The Rangers have missed the playoffs the last two seasons in a row, and for most of last year there were reasons to be legitimately frustrated with Lafrenière given how inconsistent he was playing. Something eventually clicked, maybe it had to do with Panarin getting traded which opened up more opportunities, or he just got refreshed from the Olympic break. It doesn't matter which was the root cause, but the hope is that his turnaround is for real this time.

Coaching staff taking notice with his approach as season approaches

Camp only just started, and we will get more eyes on Lafrenière once preseason games start this week, but Mike Sullivan has enjoyed what he's seen thus far.

Also via The Athletic:

“He deserves a lot of credit for how hard he worked, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that his game performance followed. I’m watching him now in the first couple of days (of training camp). It’s only two days, but just the intentions when he gets on the ice — how hard he’s practicing, the way he’s competing, his attention to detail out there — it’s impressive. It’s inspiring from my standpoint to watch him. I think maybe it’s the maturation of a player.”

Sullivan describing Lafrenière’s state as one of maturation feels like a great description. At a base level his peak has been 28 goals and 57 points, and ideally it would be nice to see if he can be a consistent 30-goal and 75-point player or better. Lafrenière was playing above that pace to end the year, and now the challenge ahead of him is to start the season in that manner and keep on going.

This season will be Lafrenière's seventh in the NHL, and the further away you get from his draft year the more you focus on what he's done and less on what he could become. He will turn 25 on October 11th, and while that is still pretty young, the window for him to show that he can be an elite point per game player is slowly closing.

Rangers decision to extend Lafrenière looking even smarter today

In recent weeks we've seen many young players sign for pretty expensive long-term deals that are at or approaching double figure AAVs, and even though it was once a major point of contention, Lafrenière’s $7.45 million cap hit per season is looking like quite a bargain.

While the Rangers obviously want him to take his game to another level, even if he's pretty close to being the best version of himself that we will see in the NHL, the contract is no longer the albatross some felt it could be.

The NHL's salary cap is $104 million this season, and a year from now it will increase to $113.5 million. A year from now he will only occupy 6.56 percent of the salary cap, and that's a pretty amazing number. If he's able to build on last year's success and get off to an amazing start, that bargain will begin to look even better.

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