At some point during the 2005-06 season, when Peter Laviolette began to realize that the Carolina Hurricanes might be in the midst of something special, he handed a camera to a rookie forward named Chad Larose.

The instruction was to use it to document road trips and team events — moments the group could remember. Naturally, none of the players wanted anything to do with it.

“Oh my God, did Chad Larose endure a lot of abuse,” Aaron Ward, a defenseman on the team, recalled over the phone Tuesday. “Young kid carrying a camera and we were like ‘Guys, no pictures. Go stand over there with the fans.’ ”

Whatever photos Larose managed to snag, though, turned out to be enough. At the onset of the Hurricanes’ first-round playoff series against Montreal, Laviolette took all the photos off the camera and turned it into a video. The message functioned as a reminder of the group’s togetherness, how they were playing for each other and how close they were off the ice as well as on it.

If all goes according to plan, maybe Laviolette will have the same kind of video to show the Rangers next May. And maybe, like those Hurricanes, it can help inspire the Blueshirts to a Stanley Cup title.

“I talk about guys wanting to go through a wall for him,” Ward said. “That’s the type of stuff he did. … Before it was cool to be a player’s coach, he was a player’s coach.”

Laviolette, who has compiled a career mark of 752-503-25-150 (wins-losses-ties-overtime losses) in five previous stops as an NHL head coach, walks into a star-studded dressing room in which his predecessor, Gerard Gallant, was buried under the weight of expectations. Two consecutive 100-point regular seasons were not good enough for Gallant after a first-round playoff exit, and the mandate in 2023-24 will be to mark the 30th anniversary of the Rangers’ last championship by hanging a banner in Madison Square Garden’s rafters to commemorate a new one.

In addition to his X’s and O’s acumen, Laviolette’s calling card throughout two decades behind NHL benches has been his ability to bring a team together. In his first job with the Islanders, that meant taking the coaching staff to the team Halloween party. In Carolina, it meant bringing the entire team, coaching staff and front office together to watch “Monday Night Football.”

That is not to imply a lax approach. Ward recalled being told in no uncertain terms to lose 15 pounds upon Laviolette’s arrival, before doing so and putting together “the best season of my life.”

“Coaches will be exposed as frauds if you’re not who you say you are,” Ward said. “Lavvy lives what he says. He holds himself to the same standard he holds his players to.”

For the Rangers, coming off the earth-shaking failure of a first-round loss, that could be just what is needed.