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New York Rangers: A tale of two Chytils

By Steve Paulus

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 11: Frank Vatrano #77 and Filip Chytil #72 of the New York Rangers celebrate Chytil's third period goal against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game Five of the First Round of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Madison Square Garden on May 11, 2022 in New York City. The Rangers defeated the Penguins 5-3. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 11: Frank Vatrano #77 and Filip Chytil #72 of the New York Rangers celebrate Chytil's third period goal against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game Five of the First Round of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Madison Square Garden on May 11, 2022 in New York City. The Rangers defeated the Penguins 5-3. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /
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Filip Chytil #72 of the New York Rangers celebrates his third period goal against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game Five of the First Round of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
Filip Chytil #72 of the New York Rangers celebrates his third period goal against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game Five of the First Round of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

If there has been one surprise in the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs for the New York Rangers, it has been the transformation of Filip Chytil.  In the regular season, he was an enigma, a talented, big bodied forward who, according to many, couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. Not any more.

Chytil, along with Igor Shesterkin, was the star of Game Six with two goals including the game winner. It was his best game of the postseason, very likely the best game of his career.

A first round draft pick in 2017, the 21st overall pick has seen his stock rise and fall. Early success has led to later disappointment with his development.  It’s important to remember that the Czech native is still only 22 years old and was rushed to the NHL when he had barely turned 18.  He has already played parts of five seasons in the NHL, pretty remarkable for a 22 year old.

As a 20-year-old in 2019-20 he scored 14 goals and seemed poised to explode as the future second line center for the Rangers.  In the two subsequent seasons he scored only eight goals in each and showed an inability to win faceoffs topping out with a 43% winning rate.

With the Rangers facing a severe salary cap situation and Ryan Strome a pending unrestricted free agent,  Chytil’s play could solve a lot of issues for the Blueshirts going forward.

The playoffs

His work in the playoffs this year has been outstanding.  It started when Coach Gerard Gallant put together the “Kid Line” of Chytil, Alexis Lafrenière and Kaapo Kakko. Though the trio had played together before, it seemed like they gelled under the high stakes of the playoffs.

For Chytil, in the first game of the playoffs, he scored what could have been the winning goal, but it was disallowed due to an iffy call of goalie interference.

Since then, he has scored four goals in 12 games, adding one assist while averaging 13:31 minutes of ice time.

He is the only Ranger who is on the plus side of possession statistics with a Corsi rating of 52.45%.   When he is on the ice at 5v5, his expected goals (xGF) for is 7.1  while his expected goals against (xGA) is 7.19.  That makes his expected goals percentage 49.68%, the best on the team.

In a series when the Rangers have been outshot and outchanced by the Hurricanes, the Blueshirts have had 45.31% of the high danger chances when Chytil is on the ice, the best of any Ranger outside of Tyler Motte.  Compare that to Mika Zibanejad (31.33%) or Ryan Strome (36.28%).

Despite playing the eighth most minutes for a Ranger forward, he has been on the ice for 79 scoring chances, fifth most on the team and one behind Mika Zibanejad.

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