Rangers Sign Filip Chytil To Four Year Contract

The New York Rangers have announced that they have signed Filip Chytil to a four-year contract. The 23-year-old has 22 goals and 20 assists in 66 games in his sixth season with the Rangers. The four-year deal will kick in next season with a reported average annual value of $4.4375MM.

Chytil has had a breakout this season as he has already set career highs in goals, assists and points, dwarfing his previous career highs. The 2017 first round pick was set to be a restricted free agent this summer and would have been arbitration eligible. With this signing, Rangers General Manager Chris Drury has nearly locked up his entire core for the foreseeable future. Chris Kreider, Adam Fox, Mika Zibanejad, Artemi Panarin and Igor Shesterkin are also locked into long term deals, meaning that the Rangers should be a perennial contender in the Eastern Conference for quite some time.

While Chytil is now seen as somewhat of a rising star in New York, this wasn’t always the case. In the five years before this season, he hadn’t been able to top 23 points, and last season his goal total had dropped to just eight. If Chytil can replicate this season’s production going forward his contract could become a huge bargain, however, should his production drop more in line with his first five NHL seasons his contract could be viewed as an overpayment. Given Chytil’s age, and recent production, it was likely an easy gamble for Drury and the Rangers to make, even if his production does tail off, the salary cap is likely to rise in the upcoming seasons.