{"id":443482,"date":"2026-02-03T15:59:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T15:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/443482\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T15:59:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T15:59:14","slug":"noah-laba-has-encouraging-rangers-practice-return-after-injury-scare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/443482\/","title":{"rendered":"Noah Laba has encouraging Rangers practice return after injury scare"},"content":{"rendered":"

The puck came to the corner and Noah Laba charged hard, fighting along the boards for possession.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably safe to say that the rookie won\u2019t be sporting the red noncontact jersey much longer.<\/p>\n

Laba, who exited during the second period of Saturday\u2019s loss in Pittsburgh<\/a> with what appeared to be a potentially serious upper-body injury, was labeled \u201cday to day\u201d by head coach Mike Sullivan on Monday, but the center\u2019s first practice back signaled he could be ready to return for Thursday\u2019s home game against the Hurricanes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe obviously participated today as close to full contact as you can,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n

Laba, who missed three games earlier this month with an upper-body injury, was shaken up after being slammed into the boards Saturday, and favoring his shoulder, forcing his removal from the game after the 22-year-old tried to skate it off during a TV timeout.<\/p>\n

The injury was invisible Monday, providing a break to a team that has shifted its focus to the growth of its young talent. Laba, who left his first training camp as the third-line center after beating out Juuso Parssinen, has shown exciting potential in his debut season.<\/p>\n

The former fourth-round pick has six goals and 10 assists in 53 games this season, recording three points in his past six games.<\/p>\n

\"ELMONT,Noah Laba will likely be back in the Rangers lineup soon. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n

No team is in more desperate need of a break.<\/p>\n

Entering Monday, no team had played more games \u2014 and no team in the East had lost more games \u2014 than the Rangers (22-28-6), who are 3-12-2 since Christmas, and most recently started a three-game losing streak over a four-day span.<\/p>\n

But following a day off Sunday, the Rangers now have their longest gap of the season between games, allowing three consecutive days of practice heading into the final contest before the Olympic break.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe condensed schedule this year has been a challenge,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cWe just went through a stretch where we played four games in six nights and it\u2019s almost like I could say that every week \u2026 We\u2019ve built a game plan here over the next three days. We thought about it well in advance \u2026 Today was the first day with some of the skill stuff we did. We\u2019ll do something a little different tomorrow. We\u2019ll try and get certain guys reps and touches and skill development in certain aspects. We\u2019re gonna work on our team game. We\u2019re also gonna try and get rest and recovery with some of the guys that we\u2019re leaning on with heavy minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna try and maximize this opportunity that we have and we\u2019ll see where that takes us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adam Fox and Conor Sheary both practiced in noncontact jerseys Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The puck came to the corner and Noah Laba charged hard, fighting along the boards for possession. It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5111],"tags":[5,2310,3328,35,5190,5193,4,36,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-443482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-rangers","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-mike-sullivan-nhl","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-rangers","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkrangers","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-rangers","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116007532464197091","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}