New York Rangers: Filip Chytil already involved as Rangers lose admirably in opener

The New York Rangers opened up their 2018-2019 season on Thursday night vs the Nashville Predators and despite losing, a swift pass by Filip Chytil and great effort should leave the Rangers with their heads held high.

The New York Rangers will likely not get many actual victories this season, but with prospects developing like Filip Chytil, the Rangers can hope for some moral victories.

A moral victory will have to do for the Rangers as they did lose their home and season opener to the Predators on Thursday night by the score of 3-2.

What doesn’t count in the standings as a win, should count as a win elsewhere because what we saw from the Rangers is encouraging.

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No team had more points in the regular season last year than the Predators. After an offseason where they seemingly made no major changes to a nearly flawless roster, they should have come into the Garden and barrel rolled over the Rangers.

That was not the case, however. Despite being the home team in this game, the Rangers had way more pressure on them to do well in this one.

The Preds are one of the best teams in the NHL and are good enough to overcome playing on the road. The Preds have essentially no rookies on their team and are just as fresh as the Rangers because this one opened their season too.

The Rangers are full of rookies and needed to avoid getting embarrassed in David Quinn’s NHL coaching debut as well.

So, the writing on the wall was not reading well for the Blue Shirts. However, they played well in this one and the game went down to the wire.

More importantly than anything else, however, was the fact that Filip Chytil already got involved and contributed to the scoring.

He had an assist for the Rangers’ first goal and one that ultimately tied the game.

Ultimately, the difference is that Pekka Rinne made over 30 saves and the Rangers committed a costly, self-committed, too many men penalty. They then lost the following face-off leading the Preds to the eventual game winning goal.

But, the best way to open for the Rangers, besides getting a win, was to see what a player like Chytil could do.

The Rangers need many young players to step up and show something this season. But, Chytil is the anchor of it all.

Him already making highlight reel passes and helping the Rangers’ offense is going to be the tone of the season for the Rangers.

It is only one game for the Rangers, but in what will be a lot of losing, knowing Chytil is ready for this level and knowing that Coach Quinn will keep them fighting until the very end, shows brighter days are ahead.