Stay The Course: Lafreniere Is Figuring It Out, Kakko Will Too

Since entering the league, Alexis Lafreniere and Kaapo Kakko's success has been measured laterally. Now that Lafreniere is starting to elevate his game, the Rangers need to find hope that Kakko can as well.

Jacob Trouba's interview on 32 Thoughts dropped yesterday and I thought he made a very interesting point. My colleague, Matt Mugno, tweeted out this clip that may have focused on Adam Fox, but there was an interesting comment about Alexis Lafreniere. 

Elliotte Friedman, who is probably the best journalist in today's NHL asked Trouba before the season about helping Lafreniere get to where he wants to go. Trouba's response really caught my attention when he stated "It's not always a straight line." referring to a players development.

Trouba continued on saying "It takes time for people to develop and everyone's on their own trajectory. There's nothing wrong with continuing to work hard and go about your business. He has a great attitude. He's a great teammate, guys love having around the locker room. Just keep developing, keep going about your business and things are going to work out. You put in the work, it's gonna happen for you. Skills there, talents there just continue to work through it."

Through 14 games this season, Lafreniere has tallied 7 goals and 4 assists for 11 points. He is starting to become the player that everyone hoped he would be, but he and Kaapo Kakko have always been compared to one another. So, what should Lafreniere's recent success tell us about Kakko?

Things haven't been going as well for Kakko in the early parts of the season, but the Rangers head coach, Peter Laviolette, remains confident that his moment will come. I asked Laviolette at the Rangers practice yesterday how he can elevate Kakko's confidence. Laviolette told me "I think Kaapo's [Kakko] playing hard. I think he's trying out there and sometimes it doesn't go your way. There's probably a couple of guys on our team like that, that would like that reinforcement of having an impact in the game with offense or some way to tilt the game and feel that confidence. We'll keep working on all the players and our team to try and get everybody firing on cylinders. He is working hard, he's a great kid, he cares. Find that game, find that shift, find that game that unlocks him and gets him going. That would be a real positive." 

I followed up by saying once Kakko gets one, do you think it'll go from there? 

Laviolette had a very lengthy response about this. He went in depth by saying "That's the way it works sometimes. There's peaks and valleys for everybody, you know inside of a season. There's peaks and valleys for your power play. There's peaks and valleys for your team and you hope that there's more peaks. That's how you can find success, then there are valleys, but the same thing holds true for players. It changes from year to year. You never know when [not talking about Kaapo Kakko] a career years gonna be and you never know when your low year's gonna be. That's just a wave of teams and players and like I said, you hope for more of the good stuff and less of the valleys."

Kakko has 1 goal and 1 assist through 14 games this season. He spent a majority on the top line with Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad, but has had a recent stint on the third line with Will Cuylle and Nick Bonino. 

Things might not be going Kakko's way right now, but just like Trouba said in his interview on 32 Thoughts, it's important to stay the course. The good news is that the New York Rangers are winning hockey games without his contributions. The Rangers are 9-0-1 in their last 10 games which is all you can really ask for. 

One thing that Laviolette has done in the early going is reward the guys that are playing well. Kakko just needs one positive thing to get him going and the rest will take care of itself. A week ago when Kakko was swapped with Blake Wheeler, Kakko told the media "I know I haven't been that guy I should be out there."

He knows what he is capable of and is continuing to remain positive throughout this recent slump. Laviolette will continue to have faith in the Rangers former second overall pick.