Rangers win sixth straight but lose Adam Fox, Filip Chytil to injury

Just about everything had gone right for the Rangers in their first nine games. But in their return home to the Garden Thursday against division rival Carolina after their 5-0 road trip, they ran into their first real adversity of the young season.

Defenseman Adam Fox left late in the first period with a lower-body injury suffered in a knee-to-knee collision with Carolina Hurricanes forward Sebastian Aho. Then, second-line center Filip Chytil also left the game, late in the second period, with what the team called an upper-body injury.

Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said after the game that both players will be evaluated Friday. Their status for Saturday’s game in Minnesota is unknown.

Still, playing without them against the Hurricanes, the Rangers somehow found a way to win the game, getting a goal from rookie Will Cuylle at 10:21 of the third period to pull out a 2-1 victory that pushed their winning streak to six games.

“Tonight was a tough one, obviously,’’ defenseman Braden Schneider said. “When ‘Foxy’ went down, and we’re losing guys — the second period felt like they were at our throats the whole time, and we were able to hold them off, get out of the period, and then ‘Cools’ scored a big one for us.

“And I thought we did a good job at just keeping things to the outside and protecting our goal. And ‘Shesty’ made some huge saves, like always. I think it’s a huge team win.’’

Igor Shesterkin 26 saves, 12 of them in the third period, to earn the win. He made a few saves from point-blank range late in the third to preserve the lead.

“I thought it was a really, really good game back and forth,’’ Laviolette said. “I thought we took some swings in the first period; I thought they took theirs in the second, and I really liked how we came out in the third period. We got a lead, and then we had to bunker in and get it done at the end.

The Rangers, who improved to 8-2, had just come off a record-setting road trip in which they swept a five-game trip for the first time in franchise history. But facing Carolina (6-5), which had won the division title each of the last two years, was a different challenge.

Each team scored a power-play goal in the first, the Rangers’ goal coming from Chris Kreider at 2:41, and the Hurricanes’ coming from Seth Jarvis at 9:53. Neither team scored again until Cuylle crashed the net on a scramble and banged in a pass from Jacob Trouba for his second goal of the season.

“It’s a big game,’’ Cuylle said. “They’re pretty high up in the standings as well, I think, and we sent a message to the rest of the league that we’re here playing, and we’re a good force to be reckoned with.’’

Maybe, but the injuries did cast a pall over the win.

Fox, the Jericho native who was runner-up in the race for the Norris Trophy last season, is the Rangers’ No. 1 defenseman. And Chytil was centering the team’s most productive line, between the red-hot Artemi Panarin and Alexis Lafrenière. If either or both players are out for any length of time, that would be a huge blow.

Among the many things Fox does for the Rangers is quarterback their power play, which entered the game with the NHL’s second-best success rate, at 34.4%. If he is out, that would change the look of the extra- man unit dramatically.

Erik Gustafsson, who moved up to take Fox’s spot on the top power-play unit after he left the game, is new to the team this season and has not practiced with the first unit at all. He is a lefthanded shot, whereas Fox is righthanded, so that could change the way the puck moves around the offensive zone.

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.