Filip Chytil was back on the ice Saturday with the Rangers, but Alexis Lafreniere sat out the team’s first of five straight days of practice ahead of Thursday’s season opener in Buffalo.
Chytil participated at the team’s facility in Tarrytown — while wearing a red non-contact jersey — after he was sidelined for most of training camp with an undisclosed upper-body injury.
“He looked good to me. He was in a non-contact [jersey], but you wouldn’t have known anything was wrong with him,” coach Peter Laviolette said. “Really good. You wouldn’t have known anything had been wrong with him.”
Lafreniere skated on his own in the morning but was listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury.
“He was out there this morning, and probably. I’m thinking that he’ll return to us [Sunday],” Laviolette said. “And then from there, we’ll see how he does and how he is.”
Lafreniere, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 draft, endured a poor training camp and preseason while adjusting to a position switch from left wing to right wing.
“I think that his camp and a lot of people’s camp have gotten better as camp’s gone on,” Laviolette said.
“I’m sure there’s a lot of guys that would like to have more of an offensive impact in the game. Laf’s probably one of them and I think that will come through time and come with repetition and just understanding the pace and the speed and the identity in which we want to play with.”
“So I thought everybody worked hard. I thought he worked hard. Didn’t get off offensively probably as much as our group would like, but I think that he and the rest of the group are working at it.”
Veteran winger Jonny Brodzinski and defenseman Ben Harpur were among those the Rangers cut Friday who cleared waivers and were assigned to AHL Hartford.