With little time before the roster freeze and the NHL season going on a three-week Winter Olympics hiatus, the Rangers got their first look at new defenseman Vincent Iorio at Monday’s skate, and head coach Mike Sullivan was pleased by what he saw from the 23-year-old.

“I thought he looked good today,” Sullivan said of Iorio, who was claimed off waivers from the San Jose Sharks last week.

“First time seeing him up close, but he looks like he has decent puck skills, he has good size,” the coach cotninued. "I thought for the first practice, it’s not an easy thing just jumping into a brand new team like that, but I thought he executed pretty well in some of the drills that we were doing.

“Maybe the biggest thing that jumped out at me was just his ability to move the puck, and I think that skillset will certainly help us.”

“First practice was good,” Iorio said, adding that it was made a bit easier by having some familiarity with some of his new teammates. “I’m just really excited, take things day-by-day.”

The Rangers will now have the chance of bringing Iorio along rather slowly, as they have just Thursday’s game to play before the season is paused for the games in Milan. And this will give him a bit of a mini-training camp.

“It will give him an opportunity to spend some time with coaches, going through some of the details on how we’re trying to play, the X’s and O’s, the team strategy, so to speak, that might be a little bit different than where he came from,” Sullivan said. “From that standpoint, [the break] will be a huge help, he’ll get some reps in practice, he’ll get an opportunity to know his teammates, and then he’ll have an opportunity to spend some time with [David Quinn] in particular coaching the defensemen.”

Iorio, who described his game as “solid, two-way defenseman” that wants to join the rush as much as he can, knows improving his play “in every area” is key for him to impress his new coaching staff.

“In particular, just staying firm defensively and breaking up pucks,” he said. “This team has such an amazing and skilled forward corps, and for me personally, just distributing pucks to them and letting them make plays.”

And development is also very much on the mind of the Rangers organization as they undertake a roster “re-tooling” that could see additional moves.

“I think development is important at any age, and obviously, he’s young and has a lot of his career ahead of him,” Sullivan said of the blueliner. “I think it’s exciting when you can add younger players like that to the mix. And we’ll see where it goes.

“He’s obviously a young guy that has been fairly sought after. I know that his name has come up in a few discussions throughout the course of this season with our hockey operations and we’re looking forward to getting to know him and watching him up close.”

Of course, Iorio’s development has not been on a linear trajectory. The former 55th overall selection in the 2021 draft by Washington has appeared in just 30 regular-season NHL games and has been put on waivers twice since the start of the season.

The vagabond Iorio has been focused on “staying in the present.”

“There’s a lot of ups and downs in hockey, and since I’ve been playing pro, I’ve gone through a lot of ups and downs,” he said. “For me, just to continue to have that positive mindset and just be the happy-go-lucky kid that I am. I pride myself on smiling, coming to the rink every day, and just being happy, and I’m going to continue to do the same thing here.”

Iorio added that he is “grateful” for the opportunity with New York.

“My parents growing up, they really preached the one percent better each day and being happy with where you're at in life,” the young defenseman said. “Playing this game is such a privilege, playing in this league is such a privilege, and especially a team like New York is such a privilege.”

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