Regarding the Rangers, whose logo could well be a question mark heading into Tuesday’s Game 4 of the season, at the Garden against the Blues:
1. It is a long way to the Feb. 26 trade deadline, 60 games through which the Blueshirts must navigate from here to there. But the inability of longshot 18-year-old Filip Chytil to materialize into a lighting-in-a-bottle find in the middle makes it very likely that general manager Jeff Gorton will be hunting for an upper-echelon veteran rental center as the season evolves.
And Joe Thornton fits the profile perfectly.
The Post has learned the Rangers and Thornton had several productive conversations during the 38-year-old center’s free-agency period last summer that extended into midday of July 1. They ended almost at the same time Kevin Shattenkirk unexpectedly made himself available on a short-term deal and Thornton, coming off a serious knee injury, decided to return for a 13th season in San Jose.
But there is no doubt both parties were comfortable and intrigued with the idea of Thornton coming to New York to team up with his pal and Team Canada teammate, Rick Nash, while bolstering the team’s middle.
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Look, a lot has to happen for this kind of a move — we’re talking about something that will be at least four months in the making — to come to fruition. The Sharks would have to acknowledge themselves less than a Cup contender. Thornton would have to be healthy. The Rangers would have to concoct the way to absorb the remaining portion of Jumbotron’s full-year $8 million cap hit. And the clubs would have to agree on the compensation going San Jose’s way.
But it does not appear likely, at least at this early date, that the Rangers can become any kind of a real threat without adding a substantial piece in the middle. General manager Jeff Gorton will be looking for one. And Thornton is a player who will be front and, well, center on the radar.
2. It is not that J.T. Miller can’t play or contribute at center. It is that by moving Miller into the middle, the Rangers are subtracting one of their biggest weapons on the wing and thus create a trickle-down loss of depth through the lineup.
It is that plugging one hole opens another.
3. Similarly, on defense. Because once Alain Vigneault deconstructs a theoretical Ryan McDonagh-Shattenkirk top pair, the coach’s decision has a cascading effect.
4. If it is Marc Staal with McDonagh, which entails the captain switching to his off-side at the age of 28 after having played the right for only 15 games before this season, then a second pairing of Brady Skjei with Shattenkirk means that Skjei becomes the stay-back guy even though he is at his best and most valuable as a puck-mover capable of joining/leading the rush.
It means the end of the Skjei-Brendan Smith tandem that played so well in the playoffs. And if Skjei-Shattenkirk is the second pair, then Smith becomes a third-pair guy on the first year of a four-year contract worth $4.35 million per? And with whom, Nick Holden on his left or Tony DeAngelo on his right? Or is DeAngelo already marked for the AHL under this type of alignment?
Shattenkirk has been as advertised on the power play, turning the first unit into an imposing weapon with his canny puck moving. Chris Kreider has been a regular net-front presence while Mika Zibanejad, Pavel Buchnevich and Mats Zuccarello have rotated high and low into open areas in making themselves available for one-timers.
The second unit, which hasn’t yet scored in about (only) five minutes of time, would be better served with Kevin Hayes on it rather than David Desharnais, who has struggled to find time and space both with the man-advantage and at even strength thus far.
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But Vigneault isn’t keen on using too many players on both specialty units, and Hayes is on the club’s top penalty-kill tandem.
5. An early and positive trend: the Rangers are focusing on becoming more of a straight-line team and in getting pucks to the net. They’re even shooting before seeing the whites of opposing goaltender’s eyes.
6. Don’t worry; one of these days, Nash will finish one of the multitude of chances he’s creating. I’m fairly sure of it.
7. If Henrik Lundqvist had allowed the same kind of short-side goal that Zibanejad scored against Carey Price on Sunday, that would have served as affirmation of the narrative that the King is just too slow at his age to be a top goaltender in the league, wouldn’t it?