GREENBURGH, NY – Make no mistake, no matter who the Rangers have at forward this season, Henrik Lundqvist is now the face of the franchise with Jaromir Jagr playing in Russia.

And as camp opened, the netminder chimed in on what he expects from his team.

“I’m excited about this team,” said Lundqvist who is now in his fourth season in New York. “There was a lot of action this summer. It will be interesting on how it plays out the next few weeks. We lost a few key guys, but in return we got a few good players. So it’s going to be fun to see when these guys find their roles on the team over the next few weeks.

“Hopefully this is what we need to take the next step. We have been in the second round a few years in a row and we want to take the next step to win the Stanley Cup.”

By shedding themselves of Jagr, Sean Avery and possibly Brendan Shanahan, who is still looking for a contract, the Rangers are going for a more balanced team orientated approach with newcomers Markus Naslund, Wade Redden and Nicolai Zherdev blending in with Chris Drury and Scott Gomez. Over the next 10 days – before the Rangers embark on their European tour – coach Tom Renney will look for the right combinations so the team can blend quickly.

“The most important thing is find ways to win, even if we are not playing our best game,” Lundqvist said. “That’s the difference between a top team and a bottom team. You go into stretches where you don’t play your best and you find ways to win. That’s why right now we have a bunch of guys who know what it takes to win, experience guys and skill guys.

It all starts in the net, though. Already one of the top goalies in the league, the Rangers will need Lundqvist to be in his best form from the first game in Prague all the way through the end of the playoffs. Last year, was Lundqvist’s best in the NHL as he went 37-24-10 with a 2.23 goals against average. The Rangers need him to be as good or better if they want to move past the second round.

As for scoring the puck Renney will look for more of a team approach in scoring with Gomez, Naslund and Zherdev leading the way. There will also be contributions from the blue line since Redden is an accomplished scorer and Michal Rozsival has been the Rangers best offensive defenseman over the past three seasons.”

But the team needs to be smart and not give the puck up in their own zone, which plagued the Blueshirts early on last year.

“As a whole team we have to play a responsible game,” Lundqvist said. “If you look back to last year, we started playing well when we were a responsible team and played in our own zone. The rest took care of itself. We should play the same way this year. We have to start in the right end. That’s how you win in the playoffs. We definitely have a lot of skilled forwards.”

But to get to the playoffs and ultimately win the cup, the team needs to work on playing together. It will begin at 9 a.m. today as the first group of Blueshirts hits the ice.

“I think the guys who have been here, we have to help out as much as possible,” Lundqvist said. “As for the new guys, they are not rookies, so they know what to do. Hopefully they learn fast and we can find the right combinations really fast so we feel comfortable early on.”