Filip Chytil entered his all important third season with relatively realistic expectations. Chytil was to take a big step forward in his on-ice impacts, with production increasing based on ice time. Both occurred, but it is fair to say that there were some with higher expectations for Chytil. However it is hard to call his season anything other than a big step forward.
In 42 games, Chytil put up a line of 8-14-22, which is an 82-game pace of 16-27-43, which would have been close to double his career high. It is also worth noting that Chytil’s absence when he was injured exposed a huge depth hole at center. Like him or not, he balanced out the bottom-six, and without him the Rangers looked lost.
On-ice impacts
Chytil’s heatmaps aren’t overly great, but they are net-positive on both offense and defense. He’s still a +8% impact across all three zones, so that isn’t too shabby. When you compare it to his impact last year, it’s a significant improvement as well.
What’s also worth noting is Chytil was one of the top-50 forwards in the NHL in even strength P/60 at 2.55. That was also good for third on the Rangers behind Pavel Buchnevich and Artemiy Panarin. That doesn’t mean Chytil was the third best forward on the team, but it does suggest that if Chytil were given more ice time, his counting stats should rocket up. Remember Chytil is still getting 3C minutes and PP2 time. That’s not a knock on Chytil, Ryan Strome, or David Quinn either. It’s a simple factual statement. What we infer from it is that with more ice time, Chytil’s point totals would increase.
His expanded GAR/xGAR chart shows the same thing – he is a net positive on both offense and defense. His powerplay contributions are a little light, however small sample size warning with just 40 mins TOI with the man advantage. He’s also a slight net-positive in penalty ratio.
Final Grade
Filip Chytil’s report card grade is probably one of the toughest. On one side of the coin, he has some solid underlying numbers that suggest with more ice time, we will see his point totals skyrocket. We see this in his on-ice impacts and his P/60 stats. On the other side, he hasn’t put up the numbers or production that one might expect. This is the conundrum with using the 2021 season as a critical year for him, which is was. Was there enough of a step forward to warrant a longer look as a potential 2C/Ryan Strome replacement? Contract asks and external factors will answer that for us.
Filip Chytil 2021 Report Card Grade: B, but I could certainly understand discussions for B-.
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