Peter Laviolette took a gamble and it seemed to pay off in a big way. 

Leading into the New York Rangers’ Thursday night game against the Minnesota Wild, Laviolette switched up the lines in hopes of finding a spark. 

He placed Will Cuylle on a line with Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck while inserting Alexis Lafrenière alongside J.T. Miller and Mika Zibanejad. 

“Just to switch it a little bit,” Laviolette on why he made the line change. “Some guys were just a little bit snakebit right now. Sometimes you just move the scenery, move Laf back to the left side. Just moved two pieces just to see if it would give us a little bit of something.”

Cuylle moved to right wing and Lafrenière moved to left wing, which was a pretty big change for the two players. 

However, they both took their new positions in stride and helped elevate their respective lines. 

From an individual standpoint Cuylle and Lafrenière played a phenomenal game and these two lines definitely got a jolt from Laviolette’s gamble. 

For Cuylle, he had to adjust to playing with Artemi Panarin as he’s a unique player with a rare arsenal of skill sets. 

“There was a big emphasis on getting to the net,” Cuylle said. “Bread (Panarin) kind of likes to have the puck a lot on his stick skating around, so if I can get to the net, get on his eyes any tie he shoots it, it probably gets it a lot better chance of going in.”

Sometimes it takes making players a little bit uncomfortable in order to find the right solutions. Laviolette knew he needed to make a change with the Rangers fighting for their playoff lives and that’s exactly what he did by flipping Cuylle and Lafrenière. 

We should expect the Rangers to roll out with the same lines on Saturday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets.