Rangers’ season-opening roster has one surprise

The Rangers apparently believe that Lias Andersson and the organization will benefit more by sending the 2017 seventh-overall draft pick back to the AHL Wolf Pack for major minutes than keeping the 20-year-old center in New York as a supplementary player.

So that is what general manager Jeff Gorton and the staff did here on Friday as the Blueshirts cut down to their opening 23-man roster in assigning Andersson to Hartford following a training camp in which the Swede leveled off after a very fast start.

The decision to send Andersson to the Wolf Pack was interlocked with the call to keep Brett Howden, the 20-year-old pivot the club acquired from Tampa Bay as part of the Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller deadline deal, on the NHL roster. Howden, whose stock increased as camp evolved, will likely begin in the role of fourth-line center.

That interlocking decision represented perhaps the only surprise of this cutdown day. The Rangers, as expected, are keeping eight defensemen and 13 forwards. Alex Georgiev, who was very impressive as Henrik Lundqvist’s understudy late last season, nailed down the backup job in nets. Brandon Crawley (abdominal strain), Matt Beleskey (shoulder) and Boo Nieves (concussion) will start on IR.

Andersson, Libor Hajek, Ryan Lindgren, Rob O’Gara, Steven Fogarty, Ville Meskanen and Michael Lindqvist have been assigned to the Wolf Pack while Chris Bigras, Peter Holland, Cole Schneider, Marek Mazanec and Dustin Tokarski have been placed on waivers and would be assigned to Hartford if, as anticipated, they clear.

Vinni Lettieri, 23, who led Hartford with 23 goals last season, also made the initial roster.

The Rangers open the season on Thursday at home against the Predators.

The Rangers opening roster:

Forwards (13): Pavel Buchnevich, Filip Chytil, Jesper Fast, Kevin Hayes, Brett Howden, Chris Kreider, Vinni Lettieri, Cody McLeod, Vladislav Namestnikov, Ryan Spooner, Jimmy Vesey, Mika Zibanejad, Mats Zuccarello

Defensemen (8): Fredrik Claesson, Tony DeAngelo, Adam McQuaid, Neal Pionk, Kevin Shattenkirk, Brady Skjei, Brendan Smith, Marc Staal

Goaltenders (2): Alexandar Georgiev, Henrik Lundqvist

Injured (3): Matt Beleskey, Brandon Crawley, Boo Nieves