Rangers bounce back to beat Sharks, but Filip Chytil's latest injury is a cause for concern

With his team desperately needing a win before they head out on a four-game trip to the Seattle and Western Canada, Rangers coach Peter Laviolette changed up his lines for Thursday’s game against old friend Barclay Goodrow and the San Jose Sharks at the Garden. Laviolette reverted back to the lines that played together through the first 10 games of the season, with Jimmy Vesey on the fourth line being the only change.

The new/old lines worked well enough, and the Rangers got the win they needed, shrugging off an early goal by San Jose and then holding on for a 3-2 win. But they may have suffered a big loss in the process.

Filip Chytil, who missed the final 72 games of last season with a presumed concussion, did not finish the game after he inadvertently collided with teammate K’Andre Miller in the second period.

Chytil, who has had several concussions in his NHL career, stayed down for a while before leaving for the dressing room. He returned for a shift late in the period after the Rangers took a 3-1 lead on Vincent Trocheck’s goal, but then did not come back for the third period.

Without him, the Rangers (10-4-1) managed to win for the first time this season when they did not score the first goal. The Sharks (5-10-3) took a 1-0 lead just 2:51 into the game, on a fluke goal by defenseman Timothy Liljegren, whose shot from the left point hit the shaft of Vesey’s stick and floated over a crowd of bodies and over goalie Igor Shesterkin (25 saves) and in for Liljegren’s first goal of the season.

But the Rangers were able to compose themselves and slowly work their way back into the game. The reunited Artemi Panarin-Vincent Trocheck-Alexis Lafreniere line had some good offensive zone time and created some chances in the first period, as did the third line of Will Cuylle, Chytil and Kaapo Kakko.

But it was Mika Zibanejad, whose three turnovers in the last game had all led to goals against in a 6-3 loss to red-hot Winnipeg, who ended up tying the game for the Blueshirts. Zibanejad got lost just outside the left wing goal post and was in the right place at the right time to pop in the rebound of an Adam Fox shot to make it 1-1 at 11:41 of the second period. The look on Zibanejad’s face afterward appeared to be one of relief, more than joy, but the Rangers would end up surging after that.

After that shift, Chytil left the game. But shortly after, Vesey backhanded a shot from the slot over Sharks goalie Mackenzie Blackwood (32) for his second goal of the season and a 2-1 Rangers lead at 13:15. Fox appeared to score his first of the season at 14:32, but the Sharks challenged for goaltender interference. And on replay, the goal was overturned, after Trocheck was spotted knocking the stick out of Blackwood’s hand.

Trocheck made up for that when he finished off a pretty sequence, redirecting a Panarin feed for his fourth goal of the season, making it 3-1 at 16:21. The play started deep in the Rangers’ own end and all five skaters touched the puck. Jacob Trouba played the puck behind the net for his defense partner, Ryan Lindgren, who moved the puck up the boards to Lafreniere, who passed it cross ice to Panarin, who passed to Trocheck, driving the net.

The assist gave Panarin points in 14 of 15 games this season.

Chytil came back and played the next shift and looked fine. But he didn’t return in the third.

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.