#Rangers draft pick Will Cuylle has history of proving himself

When Chris Cuylle took his son, Will, to try out for the Greater Toronto Hockey League’s Triple-A Mississauga Rebels in 2011, he wanted to be frank with him.

Will, just 9 years old at the time, started playing hockey much later than the children he was competing against, and he already had been cut from a team the year before. The elder Cuylle (pronounced “coolie”) warned his son that there was a good chance he wasn’t going to make the team, but the experience should show him what would be required for him to get to the next level.

Having never played competitive hockey before, Chris was still trying to familiarize himself with the sport. Anyone with eyes, however, could have recognized the stir that Will caused when he took the ice that day.

“You could sort of see some guys on the bench, looking at him and pointing and some guy got on the phone,” Chris told The Post by phone Friday morning. “One of the guys running the practice came up to me afterwards, he goes, ‘We never do this, but there’s a spot for him if he wants it.’ ”

After telling Will the good news on the car ride home, Chris wanted to be sure his son knew what he was getting into. He reminded Will that he would be going up against players who were faster and had been playing for a lot longer.

“But he said, ‘Dad, I want to do it,’ ” Chris recalled. “He started out on the third line, but within a couple months, he was getting first-line minutes and moving up.”

That’s just how Will Cuylle has carried himself throughout his hockey career so far: He never has shied away from a challenge and always has taken them head on. After the Rangers traded former seventh-overall pick Lias Andersson to the Kings for the right to select him 60th overall during the 2020 draft early last month, Cuylle challenged himself to prove wrong everybody who had passed on him.

Cuylle’s competitive edge was something many scouts took note of while evaluating the 6-foot-3 winger. Cuyllle, now 18, said he believes his competitiveness originated at home — where his family had a wide-range of interests, from his father’s cycling to his sister Lauren’s swimming. He recalled how he often competed with his sister to see who was the superior student and athlete.

The Cuylles also used to take skiing trips every weekend, which is ultimately why Will came so late to the hockey scene. But aside from some healthy family competition, the Cuylles valued education above all else.

Cuylle was conflicted while trying to map out the next step in his hockey career after high school, debating whether he should go to college to play or go the junior league route. He had committed to Penn State and told the OHL’s Peterborough Petes not to draft him because he didn’t think he wanted to play junior hockey.

But the Petes nevertheless drafted him third-overall in the 2018 OHL draft, prompting Cuylle to hold out of training camp. It wasn’t until the Windsor Spitfires shelled out seven draft picks to the Petes to acquire Cuylle that the Toronto native was interested in playing in the OHL.

“I think just the situation in Windsor, they were a pretty young team at the time, just an up-and-coming team,” Cuylle said. “I think it was really appealing to kind of be the main part of a rebuild and stuff like that. I think just working into the future, two, three years down the road, and being one of the big contender teams in the league was pretty appealing to me.”

Well, Cuylle is walking into a very similar situation in New York.

Rangers general manager Jeff Gorton mentioned on draft night that the organization had identified certain players this year that had “some grit to their game, some size, but also some skill” to further their goal of being a tougher team to play against.

“I think I fit that mold perfectly,” Cuylle said.

Cuylle has never been to New York, but said he has heard iconic stories about Madison Square Garden for years. He’s most looking forward to working with gritty fourth-line winger Brendan Lemieux, whose style of play almost identically resembles his.

There was something about his conversations with the Rangers prior to the draft that left Cuylle optimistic about his chances of landing in New York. And when that “trade” banner popped up on the television screen to announce the Rangers had acquired the No. 60 pick, Cuylle had an inkling.

“I was sitting on the side of Will and he kind of nudged me,” his dad said of the moment.

“I had a good feeling,” Cuylle said.