Mike Sullivan wants to put Alexis Lafreniere on Rangers’ top power play

New head coach Mike Sullivan broke down his power-play philosophy as it pertains to the Rangers in three clear parts. 

Managing workloads. 

Having different unit variations. 

And ensuring that Alexis Lafrenière has a path to capturing his best game. 

The call to put Lafrenière on the Rangers top power-play unit predates Sullivan by over five seasons, when a ping-pong ball with a Blueshirts crest popped out of NHL’s lottery machine and scored the organization the right to draft the talented wing first overall in 2020. 

A loaded man-advantage unit with heaps of successful history and the three previous coaches who oversaw it deprived Lafrenière of a consistent opportunity over the last few seasons. 

But Sullivan sounded intent on utilizing Lafrenière in a way that’s going to unlock the 23-year-old’s full potential. 

“If we’re going to get the best version of Laf, I think we got to provide a pathway to try to give him an opportunity to capture his very best game,” Sullivan said after the first session Saturday in Tarrytown. “I think some power-play time on that top unit is an essential part of it, and so our intention is to try to provide a pathway for Laf to allow him an opportunity to get his game to another level.” 

Lafrenière, who has finished among the Rangers’ top five even-strength goal scorers in all but one season, rotated into both units along with Vincent Trocheck during practice Saturday.

The first group consisted of Adam Fox, Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad and J.T Miller, while the second featured Will Cuylle, Gabe Perreault, Scott Morrow and Matt Rempe. 

At one point, Sullivan told Lafrenière he wasn’t moving around enough. 

The veteran coach’s push for constant activity and different personnel variations should help a Rangers power play that increasingly became stale and predictable last season. 

“You saw us work six guys into the top unit today,” Sullivan said of the power play, which finished with the fifth-worst percentage in the NHL last season at 17.6. “It gives us the opportunity to present a different look, different sticks, lefties, righties, different positions, completely different look, which makes us — I think — more difficult to defend against because of that.” 

Sullivan said that he, the coaching staff and president and general manager Chris Drury, had lengthy discussions about the composition and logistics of the power-play units.

He said he had multiple objectives in mind when it came to how he wants to utilize his players and manage their workloads. 

While Sullivan doesn’t foresee much of a change regarding the division of ice time between the two units, the Rangers new bench boss wants the top group to evolve.

The first unit has always received a bulk of the allotted time, but Sullivan said the staff is bringing the group new ideas to work with. 

And since there are several top power-play guys who double as top penalty killers, Sullivan is also hyper aware of what kind of toll that can take on certain players. 

“If we’re going to manage workloads appropriately over the course of the season, we’re trying to get the best version of every guy,” he said. “If we go to the same guys in every situation, my experience has been that adds up, as forwards, to 22-plus minutes a night, 22-plus minutes a night times 82 games is an awful lot of hockey. I’m not sure we’re going to get the best version of everybody. The pace of the game today and the physicality of the game, that’s very difficult. There are some players who can handle that, but those are unique circumstances. 

“When you look at the group we have in our top six, our top players also kill penalties. Well, if they’re on the first power play, and they’re in the top six, and they’re killing penalties, and they’re defending the lead five-on-six and then they’re on six-on-five when we’re chasing a game, that adds up to 22-plus minutes. We’ve got to find a way to manage their minutes. That’s big picture stuff that I’ve thought about.”