Eleven minutes had been played in the Rangers’ first game in 14 days and it was as if the team’s legs and minds had been delayed on delivery. It was only Boston 1, New York 0 at the Garden on Tuesday but the Blueshirts hadn’t come close to putting a shot on net while barely traversing the Bruins’ blue line.

But then here came the Dryden Hunt-Filip Chytil-Julien Gauthier third line. I was going to call it the “makeshift third line,” but that would be redundant given that the team has presented 19 different game-opening third-line permutations in its 48 contests.

But anyway, the Chytil line put the puck in deep and gnawed at it, cycling, holding ground below the hash marks, putting some licks on their opponents, holding possession for 1:05 and generally announcing that the Rangers had begun their return to play. The unit did not generate a shot, but the fourth line that immediately followed put one on Jeremy Swayman, held the zone for another :34 and the ice stopped tilting.

This was what a prototypical grinding third line is meant to do. But Chytil — who scored his team’s only goal in Tuesday’s 2-1 shootout victory by going to the net to put home his own rebound in perhaps his most authoritative performance of the year — is not a prototypical grinding third-line center.

In his fifth pro season and his fourth full year in the NHL, it is not clear exactly how to define the 22-year-old Czech. He has not made a breakthrough as a talent or power center capable of top-six minutes. He is not a puck distributor. He might be better off on the wing playing with either Mika Zibanejad or Ryan Strome, but Gerard Gallant sure doesn’t seem to think so, the head coach giving No. 72 only four games at the wing in a top-six role and seven on the flank in total.

The Rangers surely want to give Chytil every opportunity to succeed. The $2.3 million cap hit he’s carrying under a contract that goes through next season not only fits perfectly, but would be a notable bargain if he could break out. The last thing the organization needs is to lose patience with the 21st-overall selection of the 2017 draft, send him elsewhere in a trade and have him blossom somewhere else.

After these four seasons of stops and starts on Broadway, Chytil’s totals amount to a fairly modest 39-44-83 in 225 games. At the same time, though, he has played the third-most games of the Class of ’17, trailing only first-overall Nico Hischier and third-overall Miro Heiskanen and scored the fourth-most goals, eclipsed by fifth-overall Elias Pettersson, Hischier and 12th-overall Martin Necas. He stands 10th in points and 11th in assists among his classmates.

The numbers are surely in line with his peer group, but Chytil has seemed stuck in neutral most of this season in which he has recorded five goals with seven assists while getting 12:41 of ice per game, 33 seconds less than a year ago, 2:09 under his complement two years ago, and the lowest of his brief career. He has one point — an assist — on the power play while getting 1:09 of ice per with the man advantage.

But then, Chytil has centered nine different sets of third-line wingers. The combination with Alexis Lafreniere and Gauthier is the only one to have gained any traction, intact for 16 games starting in mid-November, but even that trio produced a sum of only four goals. Now, it’s Hunt and Gauthier, players who have combined for 14 career goals in 214 NHL games.

Following Thursday’s match at the Garden against the Red Wings, the Rangers have 14 games remaining until the March 21 trade deadline that is the prism through which everything is being viewed. If the Rangers acquire a top-six right wing, that would allow Gallant to move Barclay Goodrow back to the middle of a more checking-oriented third line for the stretch run and the playoffs.

But that may not be the head coach’s vision. There is probably a reason that both Gallant and David Quinn, his predecessor behind the bench, have gone with Jesper Fast, Colin Blackwell and now Goodrow to fill out the Panarin-Strome connection despite having other options. If a checking wing is needed, then that spot could belong to Goodrow for the foreseeable future.

Which leaves Chytil in the middle of the third line. President-general manager Chris Drury does not want to trade him. But Chytil needs to give him reasons beyond his youth — and the fact that the organization is bereft of young centers — not to do so.

Tuesday was (another) start.