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

With the Rangers desperately needing a win before they head out on a four-game trip to Seattle and Western Canada, coach Peter Laviolette changed up his lines for Thursday night’s game against old friend Barclay Goodrow and the San Jose Sharks at the Garden. Laviolette went 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 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 inadvertently colliding 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 did not come back for the third period.

“Especially with Fil missing a lot of last year, it sucks to see,’’ defenseman Adam Fox said. “I didn’t really get too good of a look at it at the time, and I saw he came back for a sec. But yeah, I mean, we’re just obviously hoping for the best.’’

“He’s day-to-day, getting evaluated right now,’’ Laviolette said.

Chytil said before the season that his only goal was to play in all 82 games. He was off to a fine start, centering the third line between wingers Will Cuylle and Kaapo Kakko and recording four goals and five assists in the first 14 games.

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 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 players, including goalie Igor Shesterkin (25 saves), and into the net for Liljegren’s first goal of the season.

But the Rangers, who have given up more than a few early goals this season, were able to shrug off the early deficit.

“The goal that they scored early is an unlucky bounce,’’ Trocheck said. “You’ve just got to make sure that when those things happen — which they’re gonna happen — you’ve got to stay with it.’’

The Rangers, who outshot the Sharks 16-6 in the second period, tied it at 1-1 when struggling center Mika Zibanejad scored on a rebound of a shot by Fox at 11:41 of the second period.

Zibanejad’s teammates were happy to see him score.

“He’s a very large part of our team, so any time we can see him succeed, it means good things for our club,’’ Trocheck said.

“I think it was a big goal for him just to get that going, and obviously for the team to kind of jump-start us as well,’’ Fox said.

Zibanejad, who had talked Wednesday about trying to keep a positive attitude after his three turnovers led to three goals by Winnipeg in Tuesday’s loss, tried not to make a big deal of his goal.

“It was good to help the team, good to score and good to get the two points,’’ he said.

Zibanejad’s goal broke the ice for the Rangers, who scored three goals in a span of 4 minutes, 40 seconds. Vesey’s goal made it 2-1 at 13:15 and Trocheck finished a pretty play, redirecting Artemi Panarin’s feed past Sharks goalie Mackenzie Blackwood at 16:21 to make it 3-1.

Chytil played the shift after Trocheck’s goal and looked fine. But Laviolette said something wasn’t quite right about him, and he didn’t return in the third.

When San Jose pulled Blackwood with 2:41 remaining, Shesterkin tried to score into the empty net, but a Sharks player was able to save the shot. Zibanejad then took a tripping penalty with a minute left, and Fabian Zetterlund scored on the power play with 26.0 seconds left to pull the Sharks within 3-2.

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.