When The Athletic published an article this week predicting the squads of teams in the 4-Nation Challenge in February, they included Rangers right winger Kaapo Kakko in the Finnish version.

That’s nice, Kakko said.

“I mean, this isn’t the head coach of Team Finland, so I don’t know,” he told Newsday on Wednesday. “There are still a lot of games before that (the tournament will be held February 12-20) and so I’m just trying to play as well as I can. “I don’t think about that… I always try to do my best when I go out on the field.”

But whether or not Kakko makes the Finland squad, the idea that he might do so is evidence that the 23-year-old has had a strong start to the season. Entering Thursday’s home game against the Buffalo Sabers, Kakko had one goal and six assists in 11 games. However, his game has become much stronger, more effective and more effective than last season.

“I think it’s a good start to the season for me,” he said. “There’s still only 11 games played. There’s a lot of games left. But it’s easily a better start than last year, so I’m happy about that.”

Through the first 10 games, his squad, featuring long-time center Filip Chytil and second-year left winger Will Cuylle, outscored opponents 9-0 in 101 minutes, 27 seconds, according to analytics site Natural Stat Trick. In Sunday’s 5-2 final game against the Islanders, Cuylle was removed from the line and replaced by Chris Kreider, and in that game the team of Kreider, Chytil and Kakko neither scored nor conceded and outplayed their opponents. opponents 6-5.

Still, Kakko insists that no matter how good he feels this season, he doesn’t believe he’s doing anything different than last season, when he started at the top with Kreider and Mika Zibanejad but eventually fell into third place. He was injured and recorded a disappointing 13 goals and 19 points in 61 games.

“When you don’t play well, your confidence is kind of not good, you know? “So I think that’s kind of the problem,” he said. “But we’re scoring goals now. Maybe I’m a little luckier.”

“I think sometimes you come into camp and maybe you’re a little more motivated,” coach Peter Laviolette said when asked about the difference between Kakko this year and last year. “You might not think of it that way, or you might not think it’s something different. But… we both said at the end of last year, (the challenge was) we were just trying to get him to understand that he could come in and take responsibility for this. And I think he did.

“He came into training camp and was trying to play more directly, faster and with more pucks on the net,” Laviolette said. “I think having Fil back healthy and being a complement to him will help the line. And then when you find positive changes, when you’re in the offensive zone and contributing offensively, I think that helps boost your confidence a little bit. So maybe a difference from last year.” There is.”

Kakko, whose plus-8 rating is the second-highest on the team behind defenseman Braden Schneider and the plus-10 ratings of Chytil and Cuylle, said keeping clean sheets has been a bigger focus for him lately.

But Chytil, who was Kakko’s center for most of his six years in the league, said he hopes Kakko doesn’t start to view himself as a forward-looking player but continues to press offensively.

“I think he should continue to do the things that got him here and get better at them,” Chytil said. “Even defensively, he plays very well. Otherwise, he continues to improve as a player.”

Notes and quotes: Igor Shesterkin made his fourth consecutive start in the net… Forward Jonny Brodzinski and rookie D Victor Mancini were the key players for the second consecutive game.

Colin Stephenson covers Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and nearly every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.