He’d been patiently waiting for his turn, and it took just over a month.
The Rangers called up Lias Andersson from AHL Hartford on Monday evening, presumably to put him right into the lineup for Tuesday night’s Garden match against the Canadiens. It would be Andersson’s NHL season debut after the No. 7-overall pick from the 2017 draft played nine games with the big club last season.
Yet Andersson, who turned 20 years old on Oct. 13, did not make the Rangers out of training camp. In a competition general manager Jeff Gorton said “went down to the wire,” Andersson had been barely outplayed by both Brett Howden and Filip Chytil.