For Alexis Lafreniere, the start of the 2024-25 season was an extension of last year. He followed up a career-high 57 points with at least one in six of his opening seven games.
He landed the seven-year deal that ensured he’d remain a key piece of the Rangers core well into the future. There was plenty of continuity — skating alongside Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck — for the 23-year-old, too.
Everything had collided to create the opening act of a breakout season.
But since that four-goals-in-seven-games stretch to open his fifth NHL season, Lafreniere has managed just four across the last 17.
His struggles aren’t isolated — the Rangers have started to crater, and their top nine continuing to sputter forced head coach Peter Laviolette to shuffle lines, mix different pieces together and stray from what worked earlier this season and with last year’s Presidents’ Trophy-winning group.
That, eventually, included separating Lafreniere from the duo that helped stabilize his career.
But during a three-day reset between games, Laviolette opted to keep Lafreniere surrounded by Trocheck and Panarin, with extra Jonny Brodzinski skating in place of Panarin (maintenance) on Wednesday.
He went back to what worked for Panarin. To what worked for Trocheck. To, perhaps most importantly given the context behind his trajectory, what worked for Lafreniere. The trio led NHL forward lines in goals last year with 54. They became the centerpiece of the Rangers offense.
And while they could help the Rangers snap out of their funk as early as Friday’s game against the Penguins, ice time with that unit — instead of continued shuffling — could also emerge as the formula for Lafreniere to rediscover his early-season production, too.
“I think it’s possible,” Laviolette said of the line replicating its success from 2023-24. “I think it’s definitely possible. I mean, there’s been lines in history that have gone on and played a few years, multiple years together and have had success. So I think that that’s possible.
“But again, just from a team’s standpoint, I think there’s another level, another gear that everybody has to get to, including that line.”
Lafreniere has skated alongside Panarin and Trocheck at some point in 22 of the Rangers’ 24 games this year, according to Natural Stat Trick, and they lead the Blueshirts’ combinations in minutes logged.
But after Laviolette tinkered with his other units, the tweaks eventually impacted Lafreniere during the loss to the Flyers on Friday. He skated alongside Brett Berard and Trocheck to start the Canadiens game one day later and alongside Panarin and Filip Chytil to start Monday’s blowout loss to the Devils.
Those games extended what has become a six-game stretch without a goal, which marks Lafreniere’s longest drought since early March, and if he can’t manage one against Pittsburgh, it would be his longest span without a goal since January.
His early season pace to shatter a career-best 28 goals from last year has suddenly dipped below that target. So when asked if keeping Lafreniere with Panarin and Trocheck could result in comfort that leads to more goals, Laviolette, succinctly, said, “I think that they’ve proven that they have history that’s successful together, and so yeah, I do.”
For now, Lafreniere will have a chance to prove Laviolette right, though it could be a fleeting window of opportunity.
General manager Chris Drury made it known that the Rangers are open for business with his memo to the other teams last month.
If trades are executed, that could lead to more shuffling — additions and recalibration not as clear cut as the first-line right winger and third-line center needs from recent seasons with this core.
But Laviolette has insisted that he believes the solutions already exist within the Rangers locker room. The group won last year. They won earlier this year, too. Both of those instances involved a productive Lafreniere — and by extension a productive Lafreniere-Panarin-Trocheck trio. So instead of continuing to shuffle, Laviolette went back to his original top nine from the start of this season.
“That’s the way it was there for a little bit,” Laviolette said. “It wasn’t working so you move things around, but a couple days of practice and guys working together, you’d like to think that it can have some positive impact in the game coming up.”
And at the center of those strides, in an ideal Rangers scenario, would be the revival of Lafreniere’s breakout season.