Chytil’s availability for opener in question

Filip Chytil, who sustained an upper-body injury in practice a week ago, is still not skating with the Rangers as the Oct. 12 opening night in Buffalo steadily approaches.

The Czech center has been classified as day-to-day, but Chytil has been skating by himself, according to head coach Peter Laviolette.

“I hope not,” Laviolette said when asked if there’s concern Chytil won’t start the season on time. “He’s out here skating, in the mornings he’s here. I don’t see it being that way. I’m hoping he’s ready. Like I said at the time, I don’t think it’s a long thing.

“It’s just we want to be sure that he’s healthy going into the year. I can never be sure about that.”

The Rangers have two preseason games remaining Wednesday and Thursday against the Devils and Bruins, respectively.

Chytil has only played in one exhibition game — the 3-0 loss to the Bruins in Boston — due to the injury.

➤ The Rangers had a longer-than-usual practice Monday in Tarrytown.

After skating for an hour, during which they played a fast-paced four-on-four scrimmage in addition to other drills, the Blueshirts left the ice so it could be cleaned before returning for another half hour.

“Covered a lot of stuff out there,” Laviolette said. “Lot of different areas and different situational stuff. Special teams to overtime to four-on-four, breakouts.

There was a lot of stuff that got covered today.”

Laviolette continued to experiment with line combos.

Kaapo Kakko skated on the right wing of the top line alongside Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad, while Chris Kreider slotted onto the left wing of the second unit next to Vincent Trocheck and Brennan Othmann.

Alexis Lafreniere was dropped to the left wing of the third line after skating on the right side of the second line in the loss to the Islanders on Saturday night. He joined Barclay Goodrow and Blake Wheeler.

Jimmy Vesey, Nick Bonino and Tyler Pitlick made up the fourth line, while Jonny Brodzinski and Will Cuylle rotated in as the extra skaters.

The Rangers’ top four defensemen were back in their usual alignment, with Ryan Lindgren next to Adam Fox and K’Andre Miller next to Jacob Trouba.

Erik Gustafsson was inserted onto the left side with Braden Schneider. Zac Jones and Ben Harpur made up the fourth D pairing.

Jones, however, took a brief break from practice after he absorbed a shot at the end of the scrimmage. He ultimately returned for the second part of the session after getting stitches on the bottom of his chin.

➤ The Rangers’ practiced a first power-play unit that featured Fox, Panarin, Trocheck, Zibanejad and Kreider, which is the alignment the club used most of last season.

➤ Goalie Louis Domingue and defenseman Mac Hollowell cleared waivers and were assigned to AHL Hartford on Monday.