The Rangers returned to full strength in Saturday’s 4-3 win over the Canadiens.
Filip Chytil was back in the lineup for the first time since colliding with K’Andre Miller in the win over the Sharks on Nov. 14.
The Czech center, who was cleared of a concussion by specialists in New York, missed seven straight games with an unidentified upper-body injury.
“It’s not easy when you’re feeling good out there and then you miss two weeks and you have to jump back,” the 25-year-old said after the game. “But I think every shift I was feeling better. Now, just need to keep going like that. I want to be healthy for the rest of the season.”
Declining to get into his feelings on evading another head injury, Chytil simply left it at the fact that it wasn’t an easy time and he’s happy to be back.
Chytil noted there was no set date for his return.
He and the Rangers took everything day by day, he said, until he felt 100 percent ready to go back into the lineup.
“I know my body, I know what’s going on — even with my head,” said Chytil, who missed 72 of 82 regular-season games last season with what is believed to be the fourth concussion of his eight-year NHL career. “I know what I went through last year. It’s been hard. [There’s] been hard moments. I say all the time, I’m staying positive in every situation. When there is an opportunity to be back and my whole body feels great, I jump back in. I’m happy, after two weeks, I could play today.”
Additionally, Chris Kreider played his first game since the Rangers’ four-game road trip, after dealing with back spasms.
With the returns of Chytil and Kreider, Reilly Smith and Jonny Brodzinski were bumped from the lineup.
Smith, who the Rangers gave up a 2025 fifth-round pick and a 2027 second-rounder to acquire this past summer, served as a healthy scratch for the first time in his New York tenure.
The personnel changes were presumably only part of the reasoning for head coach Peter Laviolette’s major lineup shake-up.
Laviolette crafted a new top line with Chytil centering Artemi Panarin and Will Cuylle, while Alexis Lafreniere skated on the right wing of Brett Berard and Vincent Trocheck.
The usual first-line duo of Kreider and Mika Zibanejad served as the third line unit alongside Kaapo Kakko.
As was the case for a nine-game stretch earlier this season, Adam Edstrom, Sam Carrick and Jimmy Vesey made up the fourth line.
The one change to the defense pairs separated Jacob Trouba and K’Andre Miller, putting the Rangers captain on the bottom pair with Zac Jones and lining Miller up next to Braden Schneider.
Stopping 25 of the 28 shots he faced, Jonathan Quick improved to 5-1-0 on the season and pulled within two victories of the 400 feat.