The Rangers won 12 out of 15 after their 10-day break to get themselves into a position where the playoffs could be a real possiblity. But with three straight losses (two to the Flyers and one to the Blues), the Rangers are still on the outside looking in at the postseason picture. Now they’re going to need another run close to .750 to finish the season to complete the improbable comeback and clinch a playoff berth.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers as usual.

1. The Rangers did a remarkable and impressive job winning 12 of 15 after their 10-day layoff to get within one win and two points of a playoff berth. After the last three games — all losses — it seems like that might be the closest they get. If it is, sure it was a tease, but it was also a glimpse into the future and that future is something to be excited about. Reminder: the Rangers have the youngest overall roster in the entire league and this is a rebuilding season. I realize no Rangers fan wants to hear about next season when the postseason is within reach, but this season was never supposed to be about the playoffs, and it’s OK if it doesn’t end up being about them either.

2. The three straight losses came against the hottest team in the league in Philadelphia and the defending champion Blues. As I have written the last few weeks in the Thursday Thoughts, the March schedule is a gauntlet, featuring nearly all games against either playoff teams or teams fighting for a playoff spot. The Rangers couldn’t afford more than a few off nights in the entire month, and now they have already used up nearly all of their off nights in three straight games. The Flyers have gone from barely holding down a playoff spot to now one point behind the Capitals for first in the Met and the Blues are still the best in the West. Losses for the Rangers against them shouldn’t be a surprise, and they weren’t, but it was more about how the Rangers lost those games.

3. The losses to the Flyers were essentially the result of a win-now team beating up on a young, rebuilding team. The Flyers have outscored the Rangers 15-5 in three games this season, and it hasn’t mattered which goalie is in net for any of three. Rangers fans were quick to turn on Henrik Lundqvist on Sunday as if the loss or the five goals were in any way his fault. Lundqvist was making just his seventh start in 69 days and first in 27 days and was being asked to somehow steal a win against the hottest team in the league and arguably the best team in the strongest division. Lundqvist endured the same fate Alexandar Georgiev did two days prior as both were tagged with five goals against. It didn’t matter who played in goal for the Rangers in either game, they weren’t winning. Igor Shesterkin wasn’t stealing a win for the Rangers this weekend. No goalie was.

4. Lundqvist and the Rangers might have stood a chance if not for Ryan Strome’s sloppy and undisciplined play, which has become a recurring theme this season. The overused, overvalued center has been fortunate to play with Artemi Panarin all season, while also being on the first power-play unit as well, and his numbers are nowhere near where they should be for someone who has been given those two golden opportunities. His addiction to taking minor penalties is bad enough, but the fact that he usually takes them on the power play or in the offensive zone makes it even worse. The Flyers’ first goal came after Strome missed the net badly coming down the right wing and his shot served as a breakout pass for the Flyers who turned the missed shot into an odd-man rush in which Ryan Lindgren took a penalty to stop a potential scoring chance. The Flyers scored on the ensuing power play. The second Flyers’ goal came on the power play as well on a Strome penalty. The Flyers also scored a shorthanded goal after Strome turned the puck over at the Philadelphia blue line and they scored a fourth goal on the power play thanks to another Strome penalty. The Flyers scored five goals, and four of them were directly Strome’s fault. Had he simply skipped Sunday’s game, the Rangers most likely would have won.

5. Finally, on Sunday, David Quinn benched Strome for the third period. It only took 80 percent of the season to be played and for Strome to single-handedly ruin several games this season for the loss of playing time to happen. The bad far outweighs the good when it comes to Strome and I have seen enough. He can’t be part of the 2020-21 Rangers. On Tuesday, he was at it again against St. Louis. The Blues tied the game at 1 with a power-play goal. Who was in the box? Strome, of course.

6. Against the Blues, the Rangers played their most complete game in weeks and deserved better than to suffer a home loss, but for all the games they were dominated and heavily outplayed and won because of their goaltending, Tuesday’s loss was the Hockey Gods’ way of evening things out. The Blues’ go-ahead and eventual game-winning goal was scored on a wraparound against Georgiev, who looked surprised to see the scoring chance appear out of nowhere and his reaction after the goal confirmed his shock. The goal cost the Rangers a chance at a much-needed point or possible win, but I didn’t see much about it on social media from Rangers fans. Had it been Lundqvist in the net, the word “buyout” would have been trending on social media.

7. The combination of Panarin and Mika Zibanejad have won the Rangers so many games this season, and when either one has been absent, the Rangers lose. Their early-season losing steak after Zibanejad went down is the reason they are on the outside looking in on the playoffs right now, and their only loss to the Islanders came in the one game Panarin missed this season, which was a huge four-point swing in both the Met and wild-card standings. The duo is as dangerous as any pair of players together on the power play and when they are placed on the same line, the Rangers’ even-strength offense is must-watch. The problem is they are rarely paired on the same line. I have written and said all season that the Rangers need to screw line balance and put the two on the same line the way teams like the Bruins and Avalanche stack their top players. But Quinn only uses the option when the Rangers are losing in the third period, and he did so with 10 minutes left against the Blues. Apparently, the first 50 minutes of the game when the Rangers generated close to zero even-strength offense against arguably the best defensive team in the league wasn’t enough for Quinn to realize the Rangers needed to adjust. A line with Panarin and Zibanejad shouldn’t be used only in emergencies. It should be used all the time.

8. I watch a lot of hockey thanks to NHL TV. A lot. No team in the league misses the net on shot attempts from the point more than the Rangers, and no one in the league misses more from the blue line than Jacob Trouba. It seems impossible to miss the net as much as Trouba does, and after watching him every game for now 66 games, he has been a disappointment. He can’t continue to be a disappointment though. Not at his salary and cap hit and not with the long list of top-end defensive prospects the Rangers have. The Rangers need Trouba to be much better than he has been all season, both offensively and defensively, and I think he would say the same.

9. The Rangers are four points out of a playoff spot with 16 games left to play. As of now, it’s going to take at least 97 points to get in and that would mean an 11-4-1 finish. I don’t know how the Rangers can manage to achieve that record with 13 of their remaining games against Washington (2), Dallas, Colorado, Arizona, Calgary, Pittsburgh (3), Columbus, Tampa Bay, Florida and Philadelphia. The number could certainly come down if the Blue Jackets, Islanders and Hurricanes stumble the way they have recently to keep the Rangers only four points out despite their three-game losing streak, but the Rangers are still going to have to win at least two-thirds of their games to have any chance.

10. It’s going to be disappointing if the Rangers did everything they did in February only to fall short of the playoffs in March. I mean disappointing in the sense of wanting to watch Rangers playoff hockey for the first time in three years and not being able to, but not in the sense of being disappointed in this team. This team has overachieved all season and with the future as bright as ever and next year expectations will be much different than they were this year, and I think the results and record will be too. I don’t expect the Rangers to play .750 hockey for the last 16 games given the opponents they will play, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do enough to stay in the race until the last week or two of the season, considering they have been surprising everyone all season. I will take one last surprise of them earning a wild-card berth.

The Rangers have won 10 of 13 since their 10-day layoff and now the postseason is a very real option for them. The Rangers needed to play .750 hockey after the break through the end of the season and so far they have done more than that to get within four points of a postseason berth. There’s 20 games left in the season and each one of them is essentially a playoff game, something this Rangers team hasn’t known in three years.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers as usual.

1. The Rangers decided not to conduct a third straight selloff and instead extended Chris Kreider for seven years and traded away Brady Skjei and his contract for a first-round pick. Out of all the possibilities the Rangers had to handle the trade deadline, I certainly didn’t see this result and combination coming. The Rangers had the No. 1 asset on the market in Kreider and many other coveted assets like Skjei and Jacob Trouba and Pavel Buchnevich and Jesper Fast and Tony DeAngelo and Ryan Strome and Alexandar Georgiev and anyone other than Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Kaapko Kakko, Filip Chytil, Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin (and Henrik Lundqvist because of his no-trade clause). That they chose to not sell and only move Skjei in order to free up cap space for their impending cap crunch this summer tells you this front office wants to keep as much of this group together and also wants to make the postseason this season. In a year that was never supposed to be about wins or losses or the playoffs, the Rangers have expedited a lengthy rebuild and in two years are a bubble team that has everyone in hockey talking about their future. So far the rebuild has gone better than anyone could have expected, and that’s mainly because of Panarin’s decision to take less money to be a Ranger and the future attached to landing the No. 2 pick in last year’s draft. A postseason berth in this season, which has been as fun to watch as any from 2011-2015, would be the cherry on top.

2. The Rangers are in a potential postseason position because of what they have done since their 10-day layoff, going 10-3. The point the Islanders were able to gain from them in the final seconds on Tuesday night hurt because it cut their deficit to the Islanders for one of the two wild-card spots by only one point rather than two. As it stands on Thursday morning, the Rangers are four points out of the second wild-card spot currently held by Columbus (though the Rangers have three games in hand), they’re five points out of the first wild-card spot currently held by the Islanders and seven points out of the third Met spot currently held by the Philadelphia. The Rangers needed to play .750 hockey coming out of their break to even be in this position with 20 games left in the schedule and they have done better than that, playing .769 hockey. The hard part is going to be to sustain this level of success for the next five-plus weeks and sustaining it against about as challenging of a schedule as you could have. The Rangers still have to play Philadelphia (3), St. Louis, Washington (2), Dallas, Colorado, Arizona, Calgary, Pittsburgh (3), Columbus, Tampa Bay and Florida. Their games against non-playoff teams aren’t exactly a walk in the park either against Montreal, New Jersey, Buffalo and Chicago. The Rangers are going to have to find a way to continue to win three of every four against some of the league’s best and the games against Philadelphia and Pittsburgh (because they’re 30 percent of their remaining schedule) will most likely decide their fate.

3. The Rangers even being in this position is a major accomplishment. Cap Friendly recently released a list of the league in order from youngest roster to oldest and the Rangers came in at No. 1 with the youngest roster. (Washington has the oldest roster.) The Rangers are filled with young, exciting talent and they’re getting exposure to playoff-like atmospheres and experience playing in a must-win setting each game. Even if this run to a playoff berth ends with the Rangers on the outside looking in for the third straight season, it will have a much different feel to it and it will go a long way in meaning something next season and the seasons to come. 

4. A huge reason the Rangers are in this spot is because of their play within the Met. They finished the season 4-0 against Carolina and 3-1 against the Islanders, and they’re 2-1 against Columbus, 2-1 against New Jersey, 1-1 against Washington and 1-0 against Pittsburgh. (They’re 0-1 against Philadelphia with three games left against them). The Rangers play in the hardest and deepest division in the league and they have gone 13-5 so far. That’s promising because many of these teams aren’t going anywhere as the Rangers grow and get closer to their own championship window, but it’s their play outside the Met that will need to improve beginning next season to avoid being in this type of situation a year from now.

5. The Rangers dominance over the Islanders this season was more than enjoyable. The Islanders have been battling the last few weeks to avoid enduring a monumental collapse from being a postseason sure-thing two months ago to being outside the postseason picture completely. The Rangers have had a lot to do with that after taking three of four from their rival. The Islanders are very much in a win-now window (even if it’s obvious their roster’s ceiling is the second round) and the Rangers handled them. The Islanders are nowhere near good enough to win the Cup with their current team as demonstrated by their inability to consistently score. Barry Trotz’s game plan has been to score three goals and play shutdown defense and those three goals will be good enough to win on most nights. The problem is the Islanders have trouble scoring one goal let alone two or three on most nights. The job the Rangers did in being able to beat that veteran defense and style of play three times is impressive and speaks to the offensive talent on this Rangers team. If the Rangers could add in just a little of Trotz’s defensive style they will be a force and one of the league’s elite teams very soon.

6. Each time the Rangers and Islanders play, I can’t help but think about what would have been had Panarin taken the most money and become an Islander. Panarin scored the Rangers’ first goal on Tuesday night and created the play that led to Mika Zibanejad’s game-winning goal in overtime (and what a fucking blast that was from Zibanejad). The only game Panarin has missed this season was the Rangers’ third game against the Islanders and the Rangers lost that game. In the other three — all Rangers wins — Panarin had three goals and five assists. Thankfully, those eight points came for the Rangers against the Islanders and not the other way around like it could have been.

7. After watching Jacob Trouba’s hit on Michael Dal Colle from both the Rangers’ broadcast and the Islanders’ broadcast, it’s amazing that the two could have such varying opinions on the play. If you listen to each without watching, you would think they were describing two completely different hits. The hit was clean and I don’t believe that because I’m a Rangers fan. I believe that because I’m a hockey fan. You can’t be giving buddy passes in the NHL, and you certainly can’t be receiving those passes in your feet and not cleanly. Jean-Gabriel Pageau — in his Islanders debut — can’t be making passes like that to a teammate to exit the defensive zone. If I was Dal Colle, I wouldn’t be mad at Trouba for stepping up and laying his his shoulder into my shoulder (which he did), I would be mad at Pageau for giving me that pass. Pageau then jumped Trouba for making a clean and successful hit and was rightfully given a 2, a 5 and a 10 for his actions. Players shouldn’t have to answer the bell for clean hits, but really players shouldn’t be giving other players passes which could get them severely injured.

8. How about Brendan Smith? After being moved back to D following the trade of Skjei, he looked like the player the Rangers gave a four-year deal to after coming over from Detroit three years ago. It was easily the best game Smith has played since that first year as a Ranger, and he added a goal on top of his outstanding defensive work. For the tumultuous ride it’s been for Smith between getting the four-year deal then getting sent to the AHL then having to become a fourth-line forward, to finally returning to where he belongs and playing like he belongs, I think every Rangers fan is happy to see him contributing with more than a fight or an unnecessary minor penalty. If he can maintain the level of play he displayed at the Coliseum on Tuesday, some team will take the final year of his contract this summer with so many top-end defensive prospects ready to be Rangers.

9. The news about Buchnevich and Shesterkin was both scary and unfortunate. Thankfully, both are generally OK and avoided serious injury. Buchnevich didn’t play against the Islanders, but he was practicing the next day, so I assume he’ll be back this week. As for Shesterkin, it’s a crushing blow to both he and the Rangers as he continued to play at a level Lundqvist used to play at each and every game and Shesterkin and the Rangers continued to rack up wins because of his play. I don’t know that Shesterkin will be back this season, but if he’s not, the Rangers clearly have the heir to Lundqvist, and no matter what happens in the offseason, Shesterkin is clearly the No. 1 now and moving forward.

10. Georgiev did a remarkable job to beat the Islanders for a third time this season and it was announced on Wednesday that he will start the Rangers’ next game on Thursday in Montreal. I would have to think that means Lundqvist will play on Friday against Philadelphia. If not, then I have no idea what the Rangers are doing or thinking. I thought Lundqvist should have been in net against the Islanders, but I’m sure Georgiev was because of his success against them this season. If Lundqvist plays on Friday, he will once again draw the hardest competition of the three, and if he doesn’t play well, every idiot will question why Georgiev wasn’t playing. The Flyers are a contender right now. The Rangers, despite their recent 13-game run, aren’t. That can’t be forgotten when the Rangers play the hottest team in the league other than them on Friday. Lundqvist will be starting for the first time in 25 days and his most recent starts will have come against Philadelphia, Dallas, Detroit, St. Louis, Calgary, Carolina and Philadelphia. It would be hard enough for Lundqvist to shut down the Flyers’ offense and for the Rangers to beat Flyers on the road if this were five years ago and he was playing nearly every game. Given what his situation is now and how this Rangers team stacks up against the Flyers, expectations should be tempered. But given the way the majority of Rangers fans have acted toward Lundqvist this season, I’m sure they won’t be.

The Rangers came dangerously close to doing nothing at the trade deadline when they were the team in the best position to cash in on this deadline. Thankfully, a last-second deal to move Brady Skjei and his contract saved the day.

It’s Monday, but I’m going to use the format from the weekly Rangers Thursday Thoughts to recap what just happened.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers as usual.

1. I was ready to go off on the Rangers’ front office. I had spent the last few hours watching every team other than the Rangers make a move, and it felt like the Rangers would let the deadline pass without doing anything other than putting the team into a cap crunch this summer where they would have no leverage to move money. I furiously typed my criticism of the Rangers’ approach to the deadline, which was all for nothing because at the last second, the Rangers were able to unload Brady Skjei’s contract on Carolina and get a first-round pick in return. The Rangers were able to give the team they need to overtake in the standings to reach the postseason their most inconsistent defenseman for a first-round pick.

2. Here is how I was going to open these thoughts:

The trade deadline came and went and the Rangers did nothing. Nothing. They had the No. 1 asset on the trade market in Chris Kreider and extended him for a ridiculous and ill-advised seven years rather than move him. They kept impending unrestricted free agent Jesper Fast and impending restricted free agents Tony DeAngelo, Ryan Strome and Brendan Lemieux. They held on to all of their defense despite having an abundance of young, cheap, high-end prospect defensemen on the brink of being ready to be Rangers. They kept Brady Skeji’s contract and Jacob Trouba’s. On Thursday, I wrote that that only Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Kaapo Kakko, Filip Chytil, Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin were untouchables at the deadline (and Henrik Lundqvist because of his no-trade clause), but it turned out to be that the whole roster was untouchable.

The Rangers are now in a position where they are going to have to use the offseason as their trade deadline. Their cap situation isn’t a situation for the remainder of this season, but it will be this summer when the front office will be busy trying to unload contracts to fit Kreider’s contract and will have no leverage to do so. The Rangers had a chance to move DeAngelo and/or Strome with both having career years when their value might never be this high again, but instead they kept both. The only thinking behind the Rangers’ decision to not do anything before Monday’s deadline is that they are going to for it this season in terms of reaching the postseason. And when you’re four points back of the second wild card and the second wild card is looking like it might be the only path to the playoffs, that’s a very dangerous decision. That’s a decision the pre-letter Rangers would have made. I thought we were past that type of decision.

3. The trade to move Skjei and his contract and acquire a first-round pick is remarkable. I would have been happy with the Rangers moving him and his contract for nothing and somehow they got a first-round pick for him. I have no idea what Carolina is thinking. I know their defense is in shambles, but that’s the best deal they could make today? The Rangers could have done more though, and I feel like their lack of doing anything more like moving others players aside from the Untouchables means they now have to make the playoffs. This was supposed to be the third straight and final selloff with the rebuild ready to completely take off for 2020-21, and the Rangers chose not to sell off anything other than Skjei when they could have moved most of their roster. The only good that can come from moving a single player is the Rangers reaching the postseason this season. In a season that was never supposed to be about wins and losses, or points, and was supposed to be about experience and development, the front office has forced the issue with the team having to make the playoffs in as season that was never supposed to be about the playoffs.

4. While the Rangers have increased their playoff odds from a single-digit percentage to roughly a 25 percent chance with a 9-3 run since their 10-day layoff, they’re going to need to complete the miraculous comeback now. They’re going to need to continue to play .750 hockey for the next six weeks and somehow either win every remaining game against the Islanders (1) and Flyers (3) or have the Hurricanes and Panthers/Maple Leafs (whichever team doesn’t get the third Atlantic berth) fall apart enough to pass them. This Rangers run has been remarkable and the fact they are still very much in the playoff race on deadline day is very much an achievement for this team in this season, but the front office has made it so they can’t fall short now. With remaining games against the Islanders, Philadelphia (3), Pittsburgh (3), St. Louis (1), Washington (2), Dallas, Colorado, Tampa Bay, Florida, Arizona and Calgary, I have no idea how they’re going to continue to play the .750 hockey needed to reach the postseason. Even their remaining “easy” games against Montreal, New Jersey, Buffalo and Chicago are anything but easy with those teams proving to be tough outs while pulling off enormous upset wins in recent weeks.

5. The Rangers have been able to lean on the historic play of Shesterkin the last few weeks, but they’re no longer going to be able to do that as John Davidson announced on Monday morning that Shesterkin and Pavel Buchnevich were involved in a car accident which left the Shesterkin with fractured ribs. Shesterkin is going to miss at least a few weeks and possibly the rest of the season and now the Rangers will need Lundqvist to turn back the clock and play the way he used to play every game, which is the way Shesterkin has been playing, and they’re going to need Alexandar Georgiev to do the same when he plays as well.

6. The Rangers’ rebuild currently has the perception that it’s ahead of schedule because of their play since the 10-day layoff. I want the 12 games since the layoff to be indicative of where the team is headed, but it’s a 12-game sample size. In those 12 games, they played two true contenders in Dallas and Boston and lost both games as a reminder as to how far the Rangers have to go before they can expect to play until June again. The rebuild is also perceived as ahead of schedule because the team is once again leaning heavily on its goaltending. It’s the formula they used to achieve success for the first 11 years of Lundqvist’s career before the roster was torn apart so much that no goaltender in the history could win behind it. If the rebuild goes the way the Rangers have planned for it to go, the team won’t have to lean on Shesterkin for the next decade, and the organization won’t waste Shesterkin’s prime putting a questionable surrounding cast in front of him the way they wasted Lundqvist’s.

7. As for Lundqvist, he said this on Monday about his current situation:

“With my situation, after the season you’ll obviously have things to talk about: your role and if you fit in this role, or something else. Right now, my focus is just to work hard and be ready.”

My desire remains for the Rangers to trade Georgiev in the offseason and have Lundqvist serve as the backup in 2020-21 and for as long as he wants behind Shesterkin. There are so many quality teams with serious goaltending issues (Colorado, Toronto and Carolina are the obvious ones) that the Rangers would be able to move Georgiev, who is also going to be a restricted free agent and will be making more than his current $792,500. Lundqvist deserves to go out as a Ranger when he wants to, and he would go out before he’s unable to play at a respectable level anymore, and not because he was forced into a trade or was bought out. Advanced stats still show Lundqvist is an above-average goalie even if he isn’t the all-time goalie he once was. The Rangers no longer need him to be the goalie who single-handedly carried Rangers teams to conference finals and a Cup Final and was the best goalie of the last decade and one of the best goalies in league history. They need him to be a veteran presence, a mentor to his heir and give them somewhere around 25 starts a season. I think Lundqvist will be back next season. I really want him to be.

8. I’m still shocked the Rangers came to terms on an extension with Kreider. The Rangers had the No. 1 asset on the trade market and instead of moving him, chose to give him the years he wanted, and now Kreider is set to be a Ranger through the 2027-28 season. We were made to believe the years on the deal were what was holding up an extension between the two, but the Rangers caved and gave Kreider the seven years, so it was the dollars all along. I’m guessing Kreider had been pushing for seven years and $7 million per year and came down on his demand to land at seven years at $6.5 million per year. It’s a move that helps the Rangers in the short term, but doesn’t necessarily help the Rangers for the long term, and possibly doesn’t help them when they are ready to contend again.

9. Right now, the Rangers are a playoff bubble team in a season in which they weren’t supposed to sniff the playoffs. So if we envision the rebuild having a natural progression and assume the Rangers aren’t going to suddenly go from being a middle-of-the-pack team to Stanley Cup champion then let’s say next season the Rangers are a playoff team as a wild-card berth. Then in 2021-22 they are one of the three Met seeds. I think 2022-23 is when the Rangers should be expected to be a top seed in the East and a true Cup contender and that’s an aggressive expectation. Obviously success isn’t linear and the Rangers could somehow find themselves in that spot next season … or they could find themselves out of the playoffs completely. No one wants to believe the latter is a possibility because of the Rangers’ recent 12-game performance, but success isn’t guaranteed from year to year and as part of the toughest of the four divisions in the league, there’s no way to know how the Rangers will compare.

10. If we follow the idea that the Rangers will gradually improve from season to season that means Kreider will be in his mid-30s when the Rangers will be in the championship window this rebuild is building toward. By then Kreider will have played more than 800 games games in the league with his bruising, physical style of play, and who knows how his body will hold up as this contract plays out or the type of player he will become once his speed and skills begin to erode. (Kreider is six months older than Panarin is now under contract for a year longer than him even though it’s Panarin’s game that will age.) Most Rangers fans wanted Kreider to be extended because of what they have seen this season, not because of what they will see in four seasons, when they will be complaining about Kreider causing a cap crunch and wanting him to be bought out. Normally with these lengthy contracts, you expect to overpay for the last few years of the contract for what you’re going to get over the first half or half-plus of the contract, but the Rangers will be overpaying Kreider on the wrong side of 30 at a time when the window is open. If the Rangers win the Cup within the next seven years and Kreider is on the roster during that time, the extension will be completely worth it. If they don’t win the Cup within the next seven years, well, let’s not think about that.

The Rangers have won eight of 11 since their 10-day layoff and have doubled their postseason odds over the last week. While the front office has yet to make any drastic changes to the roster through trades, the team continues to make it hard for the front office to do so with their recent play. If the way the Rangers have played for the last three weeks is the way the Rangers are going to play in 2020-21, the postseason drought will be over next year.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers as usual.

1. Another week of Thursday Thoughts and another week without the Rangers’ roster being really any different at the NHL level prior to the trade deadline. The only difference is the addition of forward Julien Gauthier from Carolina, who the Rangers acquired in exchange for defenseman Joey Keane. Keane was essentially blocked on the organizational depth chart, and barring injury or him turning out to be Nicklas Lidstrom, he was most likely never going to be a full-time defenseman for the Rangers. So the Rangers traded from their organizational strength and helped their organizational weakness, and Gauthier was immediately inserted into the lineup in Chicago. The Gauthier-Keane deal has been the only “real” move the Rangers have made so far, and that means between now and Monday at 3 p.m. ET, there’s going to be a lot of moving pieces on the Rangers’ roster. I have written about the players who could be moved and the endless options the Rangers have to approach this deadline over the last few weeks of Thursday Thoughts, and they all still hold true. The only Rangers who seem untouchable are Artemi Panarin, Kaapo Kakko, Filip Chytil, Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin. (Henrik Lundqvist is untouchable because of his no-trade clause.)

2. Lundqvist was the backup again in Chicago and it’s now been more than two weeks since he last started a game on Feb. 3. I wish I could go back in time three years to show Lundqvist what the 2017-18 Rangers season would become, how miserable the 2018-19 season would be and how he would be treated in the 2019-20 season. If I could go back in time and show him all of this, there’s no way he stands firm on his decision to not waive his no-trade clause. Advanced stats still show Lundqvist is an above-average NHL goalie and would be a better starting option for most teams in the league. Lundqvist’s lack of play has been because of Shesterkin’s emergence and because if the Rangers are going to play for the future on forward and defense then they need to also in net. Aside from Lundqvist’s shutout of Detroit, his last five other starts have all come against postseason teams, so he has drawn the toughest opponents of the three goalies. When Shesterkin doesn’t play, Lundqvist should be playing. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Lundqvist should waive his no-trade if it means going to Colorado. The West is awful, the Avalanche are stacked and are a goalie short of making a run to the Cup Final with only St. Louis a threat to them. Sitting on the bench for the final seven weeks of this season and then, at best, sitting on it again next season can’t be how Lundqvist wants his career to wind down, especially since he can still play. Go to Colorado (if it’s an option), and every Rangers fan will have a team to root for in the playoffs this season.

3. Chris Kreider has been the No. 1 trade target in the entire league and that was before Tyler Toffoli came off the board. Now for a team looking for a Top 6 forward rental, Kreider is the last true option. No matter how much Kreider helps the Rangers win now and no matter how many points he has accumulated in recent weeks (and he has been doing both since the 10-day layoff), the right move is still to move him. Yes, he helps the Rangers now and will in 2020-21 and 2021-22, but who knows really how long after that. Acquiring assets in a third straight selloff is the better long-term decision rather than extending him and being in a cap crunch or buyout situation a few years from now, which the Rangers will inevitably be in given how all of their other lengthy contracts and extensions have turned out in recent years.

4. There have been reports of many teams wanting Kreider, including Boston, Colorado, St. Louis and the Islanders, and while the last option would be the least appealing, the Rangers need to make the best move for their future, regardless of what team it is. The Rangers can’t operate like the Mets, who have turned down better offers from the Yankees in order to not see their player wear pinstripes and potentially win with their city rival. Would it suck for Kreider to be an Islander? Yes, it would, though for anyone who has watched the Islanders this season, they’re not going anywhere. Kreider might help the Islanders avoid the type of monumental collapse they seem to be in the middle of and will help them reach the playoffs, but there’s no fear of watching Kreider hold the Cup above his head with blue and orange on. The Islanders need a pure goal scorer. They have since before the season, which is why they were all in on Panarin before he took less money to be a Ranger. Their lack of scoring has never been more evident than it is now as they keep on losing, having scored two goals in their last 12 periods. The Islanders would be foolish to think Kreider puts them over the top and can get them past the type of second-round defeat they suffered last season as the second round seems to be this Islanders team’s ceiling again. For Kreider, it would be convenient to stay in the metro area, and for the Rangers, they would have a chance to ruin the Islanders’ future. If the Islanders offer the best deal, the Rangers have to take it.

5. In hindsight, the win in Chicago on Wednesday was rather easy. Yes, the game was tied at 1 entering the third, and yes, the Rangers played like they did for most of the first four months of the seasons in the first two periods, but the game never felt in doubt. Five third-period goals erased any doubt as did Shesterkin’s once-again remarkable play. The Rangers’ money line for the game was +110 and I gladly took it as I have been since they returned from their 10-day layoff. I will be taking it again in Carolina on Friday.

6. Not long ago, in back-to-back seasons we nearly had a Rangers-Blackhawks Stanley Cup Final. The first season, the Blackhawks lost Game 7 in their conference finals and the next year the Rangers lost Game 7 in their conference finals. Now with the state of the Blackhawks, it looks like it will be a long, long time until both teams are contenders in the same season. It’s hard to believe how far the Blackhawks have fallen in recent seasons with back-to-back first-round exits after their most recent Cup and now a third straight season missing the playoffs. They have lost pretty much every trade they have made in the last five seasons, fired the best coach in the sport and have handed out cap-ruining contracts along the way. The Blackhawks did take advantage of their championship window as well as any team ever has, but it feels like they could have won even more than they did when they had the chance.

7. Jack O’Callahan dropping the puck for the ceremonial puck drop was awesome for a Miracle on Ice junkie like me. The most interesting part of the moment wasn’t “OC” in his Number 17 jersey back in Chicago where he was a Blackhawk, it was the exchange between Panarin and his former Blackhawk linemate Patrick Kane. Panarin tapped Kane on the shin pads upon approaching him and Kane was distracted at the time. When Kane turned his head and saw Panarin, there was a brief pause as I’m sure all the glorious moments of the two seasons Kane had Panarin on his line and what could have been had the Blackhawks kept Panarin ran through Kane’s mind. It still doesn’t make sense why the Blackhawks moved Panarin when they didn’t have to and why they moved him for Brandon Saad(!). I’m happy they did because had the Blackhawks kept Panarin, he wouldn’t be a Ranger today. For all the bad moves Stan Bowman and the Blackhawks’ front office have made since 2015, the Panarin-Saad trade is the worst. 

8. The addition of Gauthier to the Rangers’ lineup created a fourth line of Gauthier, Brett Howden and Brendan Lemieux, giving the Rangers a fourth line that can actually play. The days of a fourth line featuring Greg McKegg, Micheal Haley and Brendan Smith are gone. It took basically three-quarters of the season for the Rangers to dress and play only NHL-caliber players. I think the days of the Rangers building a fourth line the way fourth lines used to be built are over. If they’re not, they need to be if this rebuild is ever going to turn into contention.

9. The Rangers returned from their 10-day layoff needing to win 75 percent of their remaining games to have a chance at the postseason. They have nearly done that so far, going 8-3 (727 winning percentage). If you divide up the Rangers’ remaining schedule into mini four-game schedules, they have to go 3-1 in each. They went 3-1 in each of the first two since the layoff and are 2-1 in their current four-game set. If they win in Carolina on Friday, they will be exactly on pace. The problem is the pace was always going to be hard to keep because playing .750 hockey for two months isn’t necessarily realistic for this Rangers roster. It’s more of something the current Tampa Bay or Boston or Washington or Colorado or St. Louis could do. It’s going to get even harder as the team if the team is dismantled as expected within the next four-plus days.

10. The Rangers are 31-24-4 with 66 points and are on pace for 92 points. The Islanders hold the second wild card and are on pace for 100 points. The Rangers have done a surprising job keeping themselves in the postseason for as long as they have, and if the team looks drastically different a week from now for the next Thursday Thoughts and returns to playing like a rebuilding team rather than a postseason team, I can say I have had a lot of fun this season watching them this season. Rangers fans can finally see the the light at the end of the tunnel which began two years ago this week with the letter from the front office.

The Rangers are doing a good job making it as hard as possible for the front office to conduct a third straight selloff. With five wins in the last seven games, Rangers fans aren’t going to accept a selloff the way they have the last two years if the team keeps winning the way they have been since their 10-day layoff.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers as usual.

1. Igor Shesterkin is the real deal. Everyone expected him to be good and the heir to Henrik Lundqvist’s throne, and when you have the expectations he’s created over the last few years, anything other than greatness will be criticized and questioned. Shesterkin has given the Rangers greatness so far becoming the first goalie in the team’s history to win six of his first seven starts and beating Colorado, Toronto and Winnipeg on the road in those games. I’m still the biggest Henrik Lundqvist supporter and defender there is and think he needs to play more than he has since Shesterkin was called up, but I won’t complain if Lundqvist is on the bench because Shesterkin is in the net. I will only complain if Lundqvist is on the bench because Alexandar Georgiev is in the net.

2. The biggest moment of Tuesday’s win in Winnipeg came when Shesterkin had to come out of the game for the final minutes of the first period. A cold Henrik Lundqvist, who hadn’t seen game action in eight days was forced into a 0-0 game with the Jets buzzing immediately after a power play. Shesterkin had actually hurt his ankle, but replay showed him getting hit directly in the head by a Tony DeAngelo-created collision and he was rightfully removed from the game to be evaluated. I was of the same thinking as the spotter who determined Shesterkin needed to be checked out for a head injury, and while he turned out to be fine, the replay was worrisome and him lying face down on the ice after should have been enough for him to be pulled out of the game then and not a few minutes later. But the biggest moment came when Lundqvist had to make a remarkable save with his left pad right away. If Lundqvist lets that shot by him or any other shot, it’s a much different game with possibly a different end result and an important win might have become a loss. I’m sure the idiotic fans who have been quick to forget what Lundqvist has done for this team for 15 years were also quick to forget that that save might have saved the game.

3. The longer the three-goalie carousel drags on, the better the chance it doensn’t get solved until the offseason and the better the chance Lundqvist is the odd man out and not Georgiev. I don’t think it makes it more likely that Lundqvist is out and Georgiev stays, I just think the odds move less in Lundqvist’s favor than where they are between now and Feb. 24. One more year of Lundqvist at $8.5 million isn’t the worst thing. Yes, a combination of Shesterkin and Georgiev is much cheaper than a combination of Shesterkin and Lundqvist, but Georgiev is due a raise as a restricted free agent at the end of this season, and I believe Lundqvist is still a better goalie at 37 than Georgiev. I don’t see why the option of Shesterkin as No. 1 and Lundqvist at a much less salary as the No. 2 for 2021-22 and beyond isn’t being talked about. One of the biggest reasons being mentioned for extending Chris Kreider even though his game will most likely age poorly is because of his veteran leadership and presence. Lundqvist is the longest tenured Ranger and the best and most important Ranger of the post-lockout era. He might not be what he was a decade ago, but what 37-year-old goalie is? He’s still very, very good and given his reluctance to waive his no-trade clause over the last few seasons when he was younger and had a better chance at chasing the Cup, I feel like he would be on board with being the 2 and not necessarily the 1B going forward if it meant staying in New York and being a Ranger. Is having Lundqvist, even at 38 or 39 or 40 years old playing 20-30 games per season really the worst thing? I think it’s the best solution.

4. The only game keeping Shesterkin from an undefeated start to his career is the third-period collapse against Columbus a few weeks when it looked like he might post his first career shutout, only to lose 2-1 in heartbreaking fashion. I felt sick after that loss to Columbus, writing a blog titled A Season-Crushing Loss for the Rangers. That four-point swing in the standings is still holding up as the Rangers trail the Blue Jackets by 10 points (with two games in hand). The deficit would be only six if not for the ugly turnovers, which cost the Rangers the game, especially the one in the final seconds that cost them at least one point. There will be another four-point swing available on Friday night in Columbus when the Rangers play the banged-up Blue Jackets.

5. The Rangers have 27 games left and are currently on pace for 89.45 points. Philadelphia holds the second wild card and the Flyers are on pace for 99.26 points. It’s games like the one Friday night in Columbus and the other game left against Columbus this season at the Garden as well as the three remaining against Philadelphia which will determine the wild-card situation in the Eastern Conference. The Blue Jackets’ injury situation coupled with the Flyers’ upcoming guantlet schedule (Florida, Tampa Bay, Columbus, Columbus, Winnipeg) before they play the Rangers could open the door for the Rangers to make the playoff picture in the East more cluttered than it already is.

6. The Rangers came out of their 10-day layoff needing to win 75 percent of their remaining games. So far, they have done so. Well, they will have done so if they can win on the road again in Minnesota on Thursday. They’re 5-2 right now since the break. If you divide up their remaining games into four-game schedules in which they need to win three of four, they went 3-1 in their first four against Detroit (twice), Dallas and Toronto, and they are currently 2-1 in their next four against Buffalo, Los Angeles and Winnipeg. A win on Thursday keeps them on pace. It’s still going to take a miracle for them to make the playoffs in a season in which they were never supposed to make the playoffs, but at least for now, they are keeping their slim postseason dreams alive.

7. The postseason dream has stayed alive because the Rangers have played a much more complete game of late. The team we saw put together lengthy losing streaks early in the season and the team we watched end 2019 and begin 2020 with three straight ugly losses in Western Canada looks nothing like the team we have seen go 9-5 (a 105-point pace over 82 games) since that miserable Edmonton-Calgary-Vancouver trip. Yes, there are the occasional letdown performancs like the third period against Columbus or last Friday’s loss to Buffalo, but there are always going to be letdown performances in an 82-game season. Boston leads the NHL in points and lost to 14-win Detroit on Sunday after having already lost to the Red Wings earlier in the season. Weird, bad losses happen. The Rangers have been able to minimize those losses over the last month after having too many of them in the first three months of the season.

8. If this Rangers team were to continue to play this way for the rest of the season and miss the playoffs, I would feel very confident about them ending their postseason drought next season. The problem is this Rangers team isn’t going to be the team we see next season, and probably won’t be the team we see play the Islanders on Feb. 25. The trade deadline is now 11 days away and while the names and suitors continue to change, the Rangers’ third straight selloff is still going to happen. Maybe Kreider unexpectedly gets extended, but that only means other players would then have to go to clear eventual cap space for him.

9. I have already accepted Kreider getting traded, but all these extension reports involving the Rangers and his agent have me confused and conflicted. The safe play is to move Kreider now. He’s the top available player on the trade market and he would acquire the most possible future assets for the Rangers in what is expected to be the last selloff. The money saved could go to some of the restricted free agents or be used to extend some of the young core of this team, and it will save us from complaining about a mid-30s Kreider in a few years screwing up the Rangers’ finances when he’s no longer the player he is now.

10. The more Kreider plays the way he has this season (with another two goals in Winnipeg and four goals in his last three games), the more it will hurt to see him go at a time when it looks like the Rangers might be ready to take the next step. I understand it’s been one consistent month of hockey, but that’s the most consistent hockey we have seen from the Rangers in which the results weren’t based solely on luck and elite goaltending in three years. I think this recent Rangers play is for real and removing Kreider from this roster will hurt next season when this team will have more than a single-digit perent chance of reaching the playoffs in mid-February. While the Rangers will lose yet another veteran and one of the last pieces remaining from their previous core, I still think they have to move Kreider. It will hurt in the short term, but it’s the right decision for the long term, and the reason the Rangers are in the middle of a rebuild and needing to trade Kreider is because they didn’t make decisions for the long term the last time they had to.