{"id":505770,"date":"2026-01-10T08:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T08:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/505770\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T08:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T08:51:10","slug":"rangers-noah-labas-return-from-upper-body-injury-imminent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/505770\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers’ Noah Laba’s return from upper-body injury imminent"},"content":{"rendered":"

After dealing with plenty of bad injury news, the Rangers are set to soon get back Noah Laba, perhaps as early as Saturday in Boston.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old has been sidelined since suffering an upper-body injury on New Year\u2019s Eve, but was a full participant in Friday\u2019s practice in Tarrytown, skating alongside Gabe Perrault and Taylor Raddysh.<\/p>\n

Laba has 12 points in his rookie season, with five goals, and coach Mike Sullivan said Friday the team would wait until they see how his body responds before making a decision on his status against the Bruins.<\/p>\n

Sullivan said he\u2019s been pleased with Laba\u2019s first NHL season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s done a really good job,\u2019\u2019 the coach said. \u201cHe\u2019s steadily improved his overall game, game to game, week to week [and] month to month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even with the injury, Laba has appeared in 42 games, more than he did in any of his three seasons at Colorado College.<\/p>\n

Laba said he feels good, and Sullivan said getting accustomed to the NHL schedule is not an easy task for young players.<\/p>\n

\"RangersRangers rookie Noah Laba, who suffered an upper-body injury during their New Year\u2019s Eve loss to the Capitals, may return to the lineup on Saturday against the Bruins in Boston. Hannah Foslien-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the biggest challenges coming from college, where guys are used to playing a 30- or 40-game schedule, is to go to 80- or 100-[game schedule],\u2019\u2019 Sullivan said. \u201cIt\u2019s a significant difference. The intensity, the preparation and all the things that come into play with respect to that can be fatiguing in a lot of ways \u2014 not just physically. [Laba] has done a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n

His potential linemate, Perrault, also showed Sullivan he\u2019s able to make adjustments at this level, as Sullivan noted Perrault \u201chung on to pucks more\u201d in Thursday\u2019s loss to Buffalo.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Vincent Trocheck acknowledged he and his teammates aren\u2019t happy with their recent results, although he wasn\u2019t willing to blame that for the unsportsmanlike penalty he took Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrustration is part of the game, especially when you\u2019re not winning as much as you think you should or deserve to,\u2019\u2019 Trocheck said. \u201cIt\u2019s on us to temper those frustrations and put them to good use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if the penalty was the result of frustration stemming from the team\u2019s poor play, Trocheck said, \u201cThat\u2019s a question for my therapist, probably.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead the expert take on the Blueshirts\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Rangers, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Sullivan said he liked the idea of splitting up veteran defensemen Carson Soucy and Will Borgen in an effort to balance some of the team\u2019s youth on defense, especially in the wake of Fox\u2019s injury.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Matthew Robertson saw time with Borgen \u2014 as did Urho Vaakanainen \u2014 while Soucy was paired with Scott Morrow and Vladislav Gavrikov was with Braden Schneider.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thought was to spread the young kids to veteran guys to help create a little balance,\u201d Sullivan said of the decision. \u201cWe\u2019ll take it game to game and watch and see how the performance is and how the pairs are working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullivan said Gavrikov has done \u201can admirable job\u201d on the power play in the wake of Fox\u2019s injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sample size is still small,\u2019\u2019 Sullivan said of Gavrikov, whose offensive game can be limited. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna try it because we think he\u2019s the best of the options we have. He can shoot the puck [and] has pretty good instincts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After dealing with plenty of bad injury news, the Rangers are set to soon get back Noah Laba,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":505771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[1302,293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-505770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-new-york-rangers","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115869954137670809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}