4:10PM: Laviolette spoke after practice and said: (NYR):

• On the forward lines, “We have 14 players, so we mixed through the lines. If you saw someone on the left wing its not necessarily because they are not playing the right wing, it’s maybe just they were there on that shift. Instead of having Blake Wheeler go to the left wing when we already have someone who can play the play the left wing, it wasn’t about that….I wouldn’t read anything into practice today other than it was a really good days work, everybody got work and we count on everybody.”

• On Panarin and Zibanejad together, “they’ve both been in a position where they were off games for different reasons. They were both missing a practice or missing a game and so that was the first chance to get them together. There was a plan to get them earlier in the camp and then that plan, as all  well laid plans go, sometimes blow up. So we never got a chance really to see it. I didn’t like the way the game was going, switched the lines up going into the third period just to give it a different look and I liked it. So it’s not because of that, they were planned to be together earlier, I just wanted to look at it and see and thought, just take a look at Kaapo up there and see how he would do with that line, I thought it was really good in practice today. There is a chance that we’ll try that two days from now in the game and see how it looks.”
• Have you settled on the PP players, “I haven’t settled on anything yet because this is really the first day we’ve gotten a chance to work on the PP and actually, it was probably too late in practice, we were starting to fade a little bit from a long day. Tomorrow we’ll work on it and the morning pregame skate we’ll go with it again.”

Laviolette said that “he doesn’t see it that way” in regard to Filip Chytil potentially missing the opener next week. He added “I think he’ll be there, but I can never be sure of all things.”

12:57PM: The PP units being used today are (Brooks):

• Mika Zibanejad, Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck, Adam Fox, Chris Kreider
• Kaapo Kakko, Alexis Lafreniere, Blake Wheeler, K’Andre Miller, Erik Gustafsson

11:16AM: At Rangers practice on Monday, the lines being used were (Brooks):

• Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Kaapo Kakko
• Chris Kreider, Vincent Trocheck, Brennan Othmann/Jonny Brodzinski
• Alexis Lafreniere/Will Cuylle, Barclay Goodrow, Blake Wheeler
• Jimmy Vesey, Nick Bonino, Tyler Pitlick
  • Ryan Lindgren, Adam Fox
  • K’Andre Miller, Jacob Trouba
  • Erik Gustafsson, Braden Schneider
  • Zac Jones, Ben Harpur

Will Cuylle and Jonny Brodzinski are skating as extras. (Stephenson)

Filip Chytil is not skating today but reportedly skated on his own on Saturday. (Brooks)

2:33PM: Louis Domingue and Mac Hollowell were both sent to Hartford after clearing waivers.

Adam Rotter: These are definitely intriguing lines, with the big takeaway being that Alexis Lafreniere is back on the left side on the third line. Instead, it’s Brennan Othmann who is shifted from the left side to the right side and put into the likely top-six. Lines are obviously not set in stone and Filip Chytil’s eventual return will change things, but I’d like to see them go with these lines on Wednesday.

With the season still over a week away it’s wrong to dissect every little thing, but putting Panarin with Zibanejad, and Kakko, gives him some defensive coverage. Same with Lafreniere being next to Goodrow. Kreider, Trocheck and Othmann could form a fast forechecking line, though I wonder if Othmann, as much more of a shooter, wouldn’t be better next to Panarin. They still have a lot of practice time before the season starts, but only two games and I’m guessing that by now Peter Laviolette was probably hoping to have at least some of his lines or at least 2/3s of lines set. But it’s possible that he keeps tinkering and experimenting with things into the start of the season.