RALEIGH, N.C. — This is my take and not Peter Laviolette’s, but I am thinking the reason the Rangers head coach inserted Filip Chytil into the lineup for Thursday’s third game of the conference semis after a 188-day absence is that he believes that the club will need No. 72 in order to go the long haul, and what better time to bring him back than with a 2-0 series lead?
And now, with an ebullient and healthy Chytil back in place, the Blueshirts are just nine victories away from a parade up the Canyon of Heroes, nine victories away from lifting the Stanley Cup after recording their seventh straight victory of the tournament, this one 3-2 in overtime on Artemi Panarin’s exquisite deflection at 1:43 for No. 10’s fourth game-winner of the tournament.
Chytil came through his 12:02 of ice time without a care in the world. He kept up. He dangled twice in the third period. No one would have known that the 24-year-old hadn’t played since Nov. 2 in the regular season’s 10th game, when he sustained what is believed the fourth concussion of his career. It was as if Chytil jumped onto a speeding Acela in full flight.
And, man, does Laviolette deserve a lot of credit for this. The coach switched the lineup after six straight victories. He scratched Matt Rempe after the Rangers had won their last 15 games with him in the lineup.
Laviolette spit into the wind, and the Rangers soared.
The coach has their back, and the players have his.
“As you guys have seen, he’s been working really hard. He was off for a bit, he came back and the medical staff, the training staff, even the skills coach and assistants did an unbelievable job over the last month ramping him up for a possible reentry,” Laviolette said of Chytil, who rejoined the team for practice on April 12 after he’d been shut down following a setback in late January. “And he’s been attacking every day to get to the point where we came to an agreement that, that time was now, it was approaching.
“That last game, with only one day’s rest, ended late, we traveled down here, we didn’t have the [last] change anymore, we could pick and choose what we wanted to do. We really needed to maximize the bench as much as we could and this was the perfect opportunity to re-enter the lineup and kind of like our game, I thought he got better and better.”
The last game to which Laviolette referred was Tuesday’s Game 2, double-overtime victory in which Rempe did not get off the bench after the 17:27 mark of the second period. Laviolette on Wednesday said he would dress the lineup that was the best fit for this game.
Chytil was on left wing on the third line with Alexander Wennberg in the middle and Kaapo Kakko on the right, while Will Cuylle moved to the fourth line with Barclay Goodrow and Jimmy Vesey. The Blueshirts were able to get the fourth line on with fair regularity once the game became a five-on-five battle rather than a special teams showcase for the Rangers.
“I just love this team, I love these players, I love everybody in the organization,” said Chytil, the 20th overall selection of the 2017 draft who made his debut as an 18-year-old under Alain Vigneault. “In one moment, I thought I want to be back, and I did everything for that, and here we are today.”
Chytil had one shot on five attempts. He tied for third on the team with — wait for it — two hits. He took as good as he gave, and he gloried in it.
“Never felt better when somebody hit me or I hit somebody,” Chytil said through a wide grin. “I even got a stick to the face at one point and I was like, ‘Yeah, give me more.’ ”
The Rangers are going for more. They’re going for the sweep on Saturday. They’re going for the Stanley Cup. This is a team that believes in itself, this is a team that believes in its structure, this is a team that believes in the coaching staff.
Of course, three wins in a series does not equate to four. The Rangers are going to have to seize the moment in order to end it Saturday against a Carolina club that was swept by Florida in last year’s conference finals. This may be a kind of last dance for the Candy Canes. They surely will not roll over in Game 4.
There is more to do. They will do it with Chytil.
“This team is unbelievable, what they did without me the whole season,” said No. 72, who started the season as the second-line center between Panarin and Lafreniere. “But I know with me, we can be even better.”
Seven down.
Nine to go.
