From behind the Stars’ net, Jason Dickinson picked up a loose puck and fired it around the boards. Waiting on the boards, there he was, in victory green, white and black, wearing his number 36 to stop and control the breakout pass from his new teammate. He turned around and made a quick move to avoid being checked by the Blackhawks’ Marcus Kruger and hit a streaking Radek Faksa in the middle of the ice. The pass created a breakaway for Faksa, which led a 1-0 Stars lead.

The play happened so quickly that if you didn’t know Mats Zuccarello had left New York at 5 a.m. on Sunday morning to play in this game 10 hours later, with players he had never before played with, you would have thought he and Faksa had been playing together for years. The idea Zuccarello knew where was Faksa was going to be, and when, and was able to time the pass to hit him in stride behind the defenseman with essentially a no-look pass was remarkable. It only took 11 minutes and 35 seconds of hockey for the Stars’ trade of Zuccarello to pay off.

One minute and 44 seconds into the second period, the Stars’ newest player would contribute again to the team’s eventual 4-3 win to maintain their first wild-card spot in the West. Tyler Seguin muscled through the defense of Gustav Forsling to find Zuccarello sitting alone in the left circle. Seguin managed to push the puck across the slot to Zuccarello, and he banged home a one-timer.

It was a little over eight years ago, on Christmas Eve, when the Rangers called up Zuccarello to make his NHL debut. A skilled, undrafted Norwegian forward, Zuccarello’s shootout success in the AHL had become a major selling point in New York, where the Rangers desperately needed help in obtaining the extra point. And it didn’t take long for him to get a chance to show his shootout abilities, as the Rangers found themselves in one against the Lightning in his first NHL game.

I can still see him standing at center ice waiting to begin his attempt with Sam Rosen setting the stage.

“In his first NHL game, here he comes, in against Dan Ellis, to keep it alive … slows down … fakes … SCORES!”

Zuccarello celebrated with a subtle fist pump while the MSG cameras panned to the bench where the rest of the team erupted. Zuccarello had done the impossible by getting a smile out of John Tortorella, who was in disbelief at the incredibly slow pace and maneuver used by the miniature rookie to find the back of the net. For a while, that same move became Zuccarello’s signature shootout move, and it seemed like it might never get stopped, despite every goalie in the league knowing it was coming.

Zuccarello became a fan favorite in New York as his jersey became the most popular non-Henrik Lundqvist wardrobe choice of Rangers fans. He was part of the Rangers for seven postseasons, three conference finals and one Stanley Cup Final, falling short of the team’s quest for a championship in their most recent window of opportunity.

Last season, Zuccarello watched as the core of the Rangers continued to be destroyed with Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller joining Ryan Callahan, Anton Stralman and Dan Girardi in Tampa Bay and Rick Nash being sent to Boston. Entering this season, Zuccarello’s impending free agency made him a coveted trade asset for the Rangers and the idea of him being separated from the Rangers and his best friend Lundqvist, literally started to ruin his life off the ice and diminish his play on it.

There was still hope the front office and Zuccarello could come to terms on an extension, but when the news broke on Saturday that he would be a healthy scratch for the Rangers’ afternoon game against the Devils, it became clear Zuccarello had played his last game as a Ranger. There is still the idea the Rangers could re-sign him in the offseason, but as a soon-to-be 32-year-old who likely wouldn’t be part of the next competitive Rangers team, coupled with the fact the Rangers let him go in the first place, it’s highly unlikely.

It took an incredible amount of poor personnel decisions, bad big-money contracts, horrible trades and nonsensical negotiating tactics to get to this point. This point being where the 2013-2016 Rangers have been stripped down to Lundqvist, Chris Kreider, Marc Staal and Jesper Fast with no real talent on the way, no timeline for the next competitive/playoff season and no idea when the next window to contend for the Stanley Cup might be.

It should have never come to this and had the Rangers been able to knock off the Devils in 2011-12 or been able to hold a two-goal lead or win an overtime game against the Kings in 2013-14 or hadn’t lost Game 7 at home to the Lightning in 2014-15 then none of this would matter now. The Rangers would have accomplished their goal, they wouldn’t have wasted Lundqvist’s prime and they would have won in the small timeframe they had to win. Instead, those three seasons are remembered as what could have been rather than what was.

Like Lundqvist and the other staples of this recent Rangers team, Zuccarello deserved better than to watch the best years of this core be wasted by jettisoning out the wrong players, and most egregiously, extending the wrong defensemen. Zuccarello deserved better than to spend the 2017-18 season on a team built as if it could still win and he deserved better than to play his last season for the Rangers on a team secretly hoping it would be bad enough to land the top pick in the 2019 draft.

When I turned on the Dallas-Chicago game on Sunday, it became real. It felt wrong to see Mats Zuccarello in others colors, for another team, but it made me smile to see him smile when he celebrated with Seguin, pointing at Seguin the way he would point at his Rangers teammates following a goal.

The camera zoomed in on Zuccarello and sticking out against the victory green, silver, black and white of his new jersey was a Rangers blue undershirt. Maybe, just maybe, he and the Rangers can come to terms on a new deal this summer. Otherwise, that blue Rangers undershirt is the closest Rangers fans will ever get to seeing him wear a Rangers jersey again.

When the Rangers put out the press release prior to last season’s trade deadline it was not only an omission that the front office was finally ready to stop chasing a Cup they couldn’t win, but it was an omission that they wouldn’t be ready to chase one in the next few seasons either.

The Rangers’ most recent window to contend ended in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Lightning three years ago. When the team was embarrassed in five games against the Penguins the following spring, it should have been obvious to the front office that the window was closed and that group of Rangers had missed their chance. But the front office took the loss as an anomaly, a postseason small sample size. And when the Rangers returned to the playoffs the following year and drew a bad Canadiens team, which they were easily able to dispatch, and then a mediocre Senators team, it looked like the decision to continue to go for it would pay off with another trip to the conference finals. But the Rangers couldn’t hold late leads against the Senators and the season ended with a disappointing six-game loss.

Yet again, the front office decided the window was still open, even if it was now painted shut. Completely in denial about the state of the team, the Rangers went for it again last season, and the result was that pre-deadline press release letting fans know they were about to sell off every tradeable asset from soon-to-be free agents to the captain of the team.

The last group of Rangers had their chances to win it all and had the front office not given long-term contracts to the wrong defensemen, they likely would have won it all. But they didn’t and now they are projected to be one of the worst teams in the league in 2018-19 with the idea of picking atop the 2019 draft and building a new core for a new window.

It will be sad to see Henrik Lundqvist give an all-out effort in all of his remaining starts with the franchise knowing that no matter how well he plays, these Rangers aren’t going anywhere and might not be until he’s no longer around. It’s depressing to know that the organization failed him throughout the prime of his career by surrounding him with mediocrity and when they had the chance to give him a solid defense to play behind, they signed the wrong two to big-money deals, which in turn led to this rebuild.

Aside from watching Lundqvist do nothing other than continue to climb up career leaderboards and cement his legacy as the best goalie in the post-lockout NHL, there is actual excitement to watch the beginning of this rebuild and what this young team could become. No one player excites me as much as the long overdue new coach.

David Quinn is a welcome sight behind the bench after Alain Vigneault wore out his welcome, failing to adapt to the modern league and refusing to give playing time to young players and the future of the team. Vigneault had to go as his agenda no longer matched that of the organization, and having a new presence with new ideas and no prior NHL experience for which to lean on are all positives. Quinn has the chance to implement his style and his system into an organization full of fresh faces trying to make names for themselves and trying to prove they belong in the NHL. As long as he isn’t sitting real pieces for fourth-line grinders, there’s really nothing he can do this season to be disliked.

I don’t expect the Rangers to do anything other than lose, and lose a lot. Unfortunately, it’s in their best interest to lose and increase their chances at landing Jack Hughes with the first overall pick in the draft. Any win, which will feel good at the time, will only be detrimental to the team’s future. Even if the Rangers wildly exceeded expectations and proved every projection wrong by reaching the postseason, it would be as a low seed, and an early playoff exit would do much more harm than it would good to the future of the team.

The Rangers are far from being a contender the way they were three and four seasons ago. It’s going to be a long road back to regaining that status, but it had to start sometime. The organization failed to start it two years ago, so it’s starting now. This time it needs be worth it.

The Rangers are going to win. That’s what I was thinking after Rick Nash came streaking down the left side short-handed to bury his first goal of the postseason on an absolute snipe. And it wasn’t just the game I was thinking about, it was the series.

The Rangers dominated the Penguins in Game 1, but lost 5-2 thanks to Marc Staal’s stick. The Rangers dominated once again in Game 2 with the return of Henrik Lundqvist and won 4-2, looking like the playoff team of 2013-14 and 2014-15. Now returning home, I figured they would play the way they had forever in Madison Square Garden in the playoffs, minus their last playoff game there. I was wrong. I was wrong to think one goal 39 seconds into the second period would stand up for the remaining 39:21 of the game and I was wrong to think the Rangers’ team that played so well in the first games of the series would defend the home-ice advantage they now held in the series.

The overturned power-play goal was devastating because of how close of a play it was, but the rule is the rule, no matter how odd having your skate on the blue line (which should extend to the roof) but not on the blue line is. It was a bad break, but apparently the right call, and had it gone the other way in this series, and maybe it will, Rangers fans won’t feel cheated. But even after the goal was waved off and time was put back on the clock, there was still 3:20 left on the power play. Three minutes and 20 seconds! But the Rangers couldn’t do anything then or for the entire game aside from one spectacular short-handed (!) goal from Nash. Seventeen shots against a backup goalie in Matt Murray, who hadn’t played in weeks, is troublesome, and the Rangers team that took so many nights off during the regular season the way they unfortunately did against the Lightning in last year’s Eastern Conference finals took another night off on Tuesday.

The Penguins are back in the driver’s seat now, having already accomplished their goal if New York: split Games 3 and 4. It was the goal the Rangers had accomplished on Saturday and then with 73 hours off, they laid an egg in front of their home crowd in a game that could have put all the pressure on a team that has succumbed to pressure in the playoffs every year for the last six years. Instead, it’s the Rangers who will be nearly playing for their season on Thursday at Madison Square Garden, needing to go back to Pittsburgh with the series tied at 2. Unless there’s some more magic left in his group of the last three years with another 3-1 series comeback in them. I don’t want to find out.

The feeling I had after Game 1 was erased by the performance in Game 2. And the feeling I had after Game 2 was elevated after Nash’s goal. But now I’m back to feeling the way I felt after Game 1 and unless the Rangers win Game 4, that feeling will only get worse.

The Rangers have to show up and win a big home playoff game on Thursday. That used to be what this group did.