Rangers walking a Filip Chytil lineup tightrope after his injury return

NHL

By Ethan Sears

Usually, a healthy scratch in Game 4 of the conference final would be reasonable cause for a player to be upset.

But in the case of Filip Chytil, it’s a little different and a little more complicated.

Chytil, who appeared to be back in the lineup for Game 5 against the Panthers when the Rangers skated Thursday morning, wants to play.

Of course he wants to play.

But he is understanding that his situation involves a bit of extra care, having sat for six months before returning from a suspected concussion that originally looked as though it would end his season.

Since returning in Game 3 of the second round against the Hurricanes, Chytil sat the rest of that series and played the first three games against the Panthers over a six-day period.

After the amount of time he’d gone without that kind of exertion, the situation required some managing.

“I didn’t decide about it, that’s not my job,” Chytil said before Game 5. “But of course, I didn’t play for too long. I wouldn’t help the team at all if I would jump in there and wouldn’t be ready at all, be without energy or something like that. Every game matters in the playoffs. We gotta win every game. There was a decision.”

This is a tightrope for the Rangers to walk around Chytil’s health and what’s best for the team.

Aside from the 20:09 he skated in Game 2, which ended 14:01 into overtime, the Czech has not played more than 14:10 in a match since returning.

He admits it hasn’t been easy.

“It’s more like muscle memory for me to do the stuff instinctively, and it’s not like playing every other day and you have confidence in everything you’re doing because you do it every day. I didn’t do it for so long,” Chytil said. “So it’s more like muscle memory and using my instincts, what I learned my whole life before [the injury] happened and it’s everything I can do right now. I’m just giving my all to every shift that I’m out there.”

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Adding to the pool of factors here is that Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad, the players Chytil has mostly shared a line with since returning, entered Thursday night without a point in the series between them.

And Blake Wheeler, who played Game 4 in his first game action since a mid-February leg injury, is in a similar situation to Chytil.

“I think there’s a lot that factors into the [lineup] decisions that we make,” coach Peter Laviolette said. “The player and the rehab they’ve had, the time that they’ve missed, just giving each player the chance for success each night.”

In Chytil’s case, Laviolette said the situation requires hard, honest conversations between Chytil and the coaching staff about how he’s feeling, how he’s playing and the impact the schedule is having.

The cliché when a player misses training camp and returns midseason is that it’s like jumping on a moving train.

In Chytil’s case, it’s like jumping on a fighter jet.

“I don’t know [that] we talked specifically about this stuff. But I didn’t play for a long time and that was a long way for me since I played before,” Chytil said. “The last three games, I was very intense, very hard. Between second and third game, we didn’t have much rest. It’s just when the coaches, or we together, communicated and decided it’s gonna be better for the last game to put somebody else there. And I will do my stuff and then wait until coach picks me for a game.”