With a goal of making the New York Rangers’ NHL roster, Noah Laba wasn’t going to settle for anything less than the best possible offseason training he could find. That meant getting a little creative halfway through the summer.
Living in his home state of Michigan, Laba started out skating in a group led by KHL forward Alexander Chmelevski. But midway through July, Chmelevski and other European professionals left North America to join their overseas clubs. That put the domestic skaters in a bind.
Needing a new group, Laba and his friend Dominic James a forward in the Tampa Bay Lightning organization, took matters into their own hands.
“We couldn’t really find one we felt was up to our standard of hockey,” Laba said. “We were just like, ‘All right, let’s do our own.’”
So Laba and James, both from the Detroit suburbs, rented ice twice a week at Eddie Edgar Ice Arena in Livonia, Mich., and created a group text with as many professional players from the area as they could find. They figured they could cover the cost of the ice if they found 10 players to join their skates. By the end of the summer, they had nearly double. Vancouver’s Max Sasson, Washington’s Matt Roy and Buffalo’s Zac Jones — a former Rangers defenseman — were among those who joined them at points.
Laba’s desire to get a high-quality group together shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who know him. He’s always been determined, said his mom, Leslie Laba. When he was around 10, he had a chance to play for a selective Belle Tire hockey club in the Detroit area. Before he started, Leslie made sure he felt OK about leaving his old team, which had plenty of his friends on the roster.
“It’s not about my friends,” Laba told her. “It’s about hockey.”
Noah Laba poses for a photo in his Belle Tire hockey uniform. (Courtesy of Leslie Laba)
Laba’s desire to train with NHLers this past summer and his desire to join the best possible team at 10 years old reflected a sentiment he shared multiple times in an interview this week: “You are who you surround yourself with.”
Lately he’s been surrounded by New York Rangers.
“He stood out from day one (of training camp),” captain J.T. Miller said. “I’m really happy for him that he was given an opportunity, and clearly he’s getting better and better as the games are going.”
Now 22, Laba has been one of the most encouraging parts of an up-and-down start for the Rangers, who take on Laba’s hometown Red Wings on Friday. The center has blossomed from a fourth-round pick into a legitimate prospect and emerged this fall as a viable NHL center option for New York. He made the Rangers’ opening night lineup and hasn’t come out of it since — a rise that might have seemed like a surprise from the outside but not to Laba himself.
Leslie Laba remembers driving toward a family trip in northern Michigan and listening to the 2020 United States Hockey League junior draft on her phone, waiting to hear her son’s name. The rounds slipped by, and “Noah Laba” never came over the broadcast. None of the 16 teams picked him.
When Leslie talked to her son in the aftermath, his disappointment was clear.
“I really thought that he would be (drafted),” she said. “He was down for a couple days.”
But Laba refocused quickly. Nick Peruzzi, an associate head coach with the Lincoln Stars at the time, invited him to a tryout for undrafted players. When Laba’s mom picked him up at the end, she saw him walking out of the rink with a massive grin on his face. Leslie didn’t need to hear a word to know he’d made the team.
“I had goose bumps from head to toe in the middle of the summer,” she said.
With his 6-foot-3 size and high compete level, Laba quickly showed he was ready for USHL hockey. Peruzzi, now an associate head coach at UConn, immediately noticed his refusal to shy away from tough elements of the game, essential for a player trying to prove himself.
“Everywhere Noah Laba has gone, he’s been able to just chip away at whatever perceived setbacks or hurdles are in his way to find his way into the lineup,” Peruzzi said.
After Laba’s first USHL season, his agent, Chris Lepkowski, recommended he start honing an area of his game that now pops at the NHL level: his skating. Laba worked with Michigan-based skating coach Kim Muir that summer, and she helped him perfect his stride and better use his momentum. Nowadays he’s one of the best skaters on the Rangers. His top speed this season, 23.04 mph, is in the 95th percentile of NHL players, per NHL Edge.
When Rocky Russo took over as Stars head coach in 2021, he had an early conversation with Laba about his professional ambitions. It didn’t take long for the coach to see Laba would have a chance to achieve his goal. He had good hands around the net, killed penalties and played with a nastiness Russo believes will someday emerge with the Rangers.
Laba went undrafted in the 2021 NHL Draft, but Rangers scout Larry Bernard took an interest in him his second season in Lincoln, so much so that Russo jokes he “lived in this building all year.”
After the Stars’ season, Laba left Lincoln to play NCAA hockey at Colorado College. As he followed the 2022 draft during a summer nutrition class, he got a call from the Rangers. He stepped out of the classroom and learned the team had taken him No. 111 overall.
Laba didn’t go back to class that day, but his teacher understood. Getting drafted by an NHL club isn’t an everyday occurrence.
Through most of his hockey career, Laba rarely garnered attention at the national level. No one in the USHL drafted him, and it took two years for the Rangers to pick him in the NHL draft. He made the U.S. roster for the 2023 World Junior Championship but played in only one game as an injury replacement: the bronze medal contest against Sweden. That day he got only 41 seconds of ice time.
At Colorado College, that trend began to shift. He broke out with a 20-goal season as a sophomore, helping the Tigers to their first winning record in 13 years and earning second-team All-America honors. The National Collegiate Hockey Conference also named him defensive forward of the year, a nod to his two-way abilities.
“No matter what level he’s been at, he knows how to earn a job and how to earn trust,” Colorado College coach Kris Mayotte said.
Laba said the Rangers “made a compelling case” that he should turn professional after his sophomore year, and he almost did. Ultimately, though, he decided to stay at Colorado College for another season.
“Hockey’s unpredictable,” he said. “Injuries happen, things happen, so being closer to my degree is awesome as well as getting another year of experience, building your game. I think it worked out tremendously.”
Laba battled an ankle injury his junior year, and Colorado College suffered a blowout loss to the University of Denver to end their season. With the game out of hand in the third period, Mayotte talked to the banged-up Laba on the bench and told him he could keep him out of the rest of the game. The coach knew Laba was going to sign with the Rangers afterward and didn’t want to risk further injury.
Laba refused. “You better play me,” his coach remembers him saying.
So while Laba’s college career — which Mayotte believes was a program-changer for Colorado College — did not end with a win, it reinforced the coach’s belief in his character.
Scouts spoke highly of Laba when he turned pro in March and spent an 11-game stint with AHL Hartford. He trained all summer with a goal of making the Rangers — “I wouldn’t go into camp thinking, ‘Hey, I’m here to get cut,’” he said — then proceeded to have an excellent preseason, appearing in all six exhibition games and leading the team with six points.
“He went from flying under the radar to flying over the radar,” his mom said.
A day before the season opener, coach Mike Sullivan told Laba he had made the team. The center said he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face as he went through practice that day.
Laba’s parents, four siblings, grandmother, girlfriend and two friends all made it to New York in time for his debut. His mom went to the Madison Square Garden team store the day of the game and was delighted to find she could customize a Rangers sweater with Laba’s name and No. 42 and receive it before puck drop. She walked to her seat that night as probably the first fan to own a Laba NHL jersey.
A young Noah Laba poses for a picture with Red Wings prospects, including Brian Lashoff and Luke Glendening, in 2012 at the Traverse City rookie tournament. (Courtesy of Leslie Laba)
Laba has earned more and more of Sullivan’s trust since the opener. The coach has experimented with him in the top six recently, and Laba has rewarded him with strong play on a line with Will Cuylle and Alexis Lafrenière. He’s up to two goals and four points in 14 games. He described his approach as “trying to earn trust through defensive play first, then expand my offensive horizon.” For a prospect pool in need of promising centers, he’s been a boon.
“I think he’s improving and developing and growing right in front of our eyes with every game that he plays,” Sullivan said.
“Maybe what we didn’t know is he has more skill than we thought to make an extra play or two,” Miller added. “He’s getting rewarded with more ice time and a bigger responsibility.”
At this point, Laba appears poised to remain in the NHL for the year. The Rangers have told him he can look into local housing options, meaning he’s able to move out of the hotel where the team houses players who might go back to AHL Hartford.
Around 30 of Laba’s loved ones will be at the Rangers-Red Wings game Friday in Detroit, about 30 miles from where the forward grew up in Northville, Mich. He considered Pavel Datsyuk his favorite player, went to games at the Joe Louis Arena and even met Red Wings players as a kid at the team’s rookie tournament in Traverse City.
“It’s going to feel very surreal for me … being in Detroit at a Red Wings game but your kid is playing in it,” Leslie said.
The stage is grander, but the path is one she’s watched her son take over and over: making the most of a chance, earning a roster spot and doing everything in his power not to give it up.
