Is it time to cut bait on Filip Chytil?

Every season, there is one New York Rangers player the fans love to hate.  The names are familiar and include Tanner Glass, Brett Howden, Brendan Smith, Jimmy Vesey and Lias Andersson.  This season, it appears that Filip Chytil has inherited that unwanted  role.

In the case of Glass, it was Alain Vigneault’s obsession with keeping him in the lineup at the expense of other players with more promise.  With Smith, it was a big contract that he never really earned.   Jimmy Vesey never lived up to the hype of the bidding war when he was a free agent fresh out of college.  Andersson never lived up to his seventh overall slot in the draft.  Howden was one of the key pieces in a huge trade who never lived  up to his promise.

For Chytil, it’s been the fact that despite a tantalizing skill set and bursts of brilliance, he has never been able to do it consistently enough.  Fans are getting tired of waiting and the question is whether the team feels the same and if so, what should they do about it.

It’s frustrating and quite a predicament. Just when patience is wearing thin with him, he scores a goal  that displays his skill as in this wicked backhand against Nashville.

He also has blazing speed and can use it.  Fans remember his breakaway goal in 2019 against the Bruins when he bowled over Tukka Rask.

Here he is using his defense and speed against the Capitals last season.

Unfortunately for the Rangers and Chytil, these goals are too rare.

It seemed to come to a head when he was benched for the first time this season, a healthy scratch in the Rangers’ game in Arizona.  It was short lived as Artemi Panarin’s injury forced him back into the lineup the next game.  Will he still be in the rotation when Panarin comes back?

Offensively, Chytil has regressed this season. He has scored only three goals and four assists this season, despite playing regularly as the center on the third line.  Despite special attention, his work on faceoffs has not improved. In nearly all statistical category, he’s headed for the worst season of his career.

At 22 years old, he is not the kid anymore. This is his fifth year of professional hockey in North America. He’s has 212 NHL games under his belt.  He’s played internationally at the World Championships. Here are the career numbers.

His shooting percentage this season is an abysmal 5.7%, better than only Julien Gauthier among Ranger forwards who have taken over 20 shots. It’s trending down from his career high of 12.3% two years ago.

It’s not like he doesn’t get shots. He has 74 unblocked shot attempts (iFF), fifth most on the team.  But eight forwards have scored more goals than Chytil.

He’s not piling up the assists either with only two primary assists among his four total assists. At even strength since 2018 he has 21 primary assists  in 177 games.

With numbers like those, maybe his future is not as a center.