Rangers coach Gerard Gallant indirectly handed Filip Chytil a lofty task when he called for the 22-year-old forward to play like 11-year veteran Mika Zibanejad.
After Chytil spent the last two games of February as a healthy scratch, however, Gallant was probably just looking to push the right buttons. Chytil delivered the game-winning goal in the Rangers’ 3-1 victory over the Devils on Friday night, but he refuted the notion that he should play like Zibanejad, who is one of the most dynamic centers in the NHL with 400 games more experience than he has.
“I would like to play like Mika, but I’m a different player,” Chytil said after the win, which improved the Rangers’ record to 35-15-5. “I just can look at what he’s doing out there and I can take from him what suits my game. I can’t play totally [the] same game as Mika because I’m different player. But I watch him every day, I’m practicing with him, when I’m on the bench during the game, I watch how he plays.
“He’s one of the best centers in the league and I’m happy I can learn from him. But I just try to take small details from him and use it to my game, but not everything because we’re different players.”
Chytil, who now has six goals in 43 games, wristed the puck past Devils goalie Nico Daws at 8:57 of the second period to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead. It was evident in the emphatic fist pump he gave the Garden crowd just how much he needed that goal following the three games he missed from Feb. 24-27, the first of which he was sidelined due to a non-COVID illness.
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It was Chytil’s first game-winning tally since Nov. 7, 2019, which he pointed out after the win Friday.
“When you’re not playing, why should I be happy?” he said. “Every game that I play, every shift, just the passion for hockey, for every shift on the ice, I give everything that’s inside of me. When I didn’t play, I just worked hard, I was in the gym every day, I was working on the ice, same as I do all the time. But in the time I didn’t play, I just worked harder.”
Forward Jonny Brodzinski skated in his sixth NHL game of the season, replacing Kevin Rooney in the middle of the fourth line, between Morgan Barron and Ryan Reaves. Greg McKegg was scratched for the first time in 26 games because he was sick, Gallant said after the game.
The Rangers wrapped up a three-game homestand with the win. There will be no practice on Saturday as the Rangers travel to Winnipeg for the start of their final four-city road trip of the season.
From Winnipeg, the Rangers will venture to Minneapolis, St. Louis and Dallas.
Gallant said Rooney and Kaapo Kakko, who are both on injured reserve, won’t make the trip. Rooney is technically eligible to be activated after the Rangers’ matchup with the Blues on Thursday, but the 28-year-old center will have to wait until the March 15 game against the Ducks.