At this point, a clinched postseason berth won’t come as a surprise for the Rangers.
It might even happen with two weeks remaining in the regular season — the dividends from their success paying off early.
There was a scenario where they got in Monday night, but even if that didn’t happen, the Blueshirts can secure the positioning themselves with a victory over Columbus on Tuesday.
That would present a new reality for the Rangers, a waiting game of sorts.
After a string of months filled with line changes, power-play tweaks, new additions and defensive shuffling, though, head coach Gerard Gallant doesn’t plan to necessarily make more during the games the Blueshirts have left.
“Might happen,” Gallant said Monday following practice, when asked about the possibility of experimenting after clinching.
“But honestly, I’m pretty happy with the last 10 games. … You don’t want to tinker with it and try to be too smart, because things can backfire, too.”
Last year, the Rangers clinched with nine games left in the regular season, and this year, they could also clinch with nine games remaining — if Buffalo lost to Montreal and Florida lost to Ottawa in regulation Monday night.
But even if that scenario didn’t unfold, the Rangers still control their own playoff outlook against the Blue Jackets at Madison Square Garden, with the chance to secure a top-three spot in the Metropolitan Division the next time one of the Blueshirts’ victories meshed with a regulation loss by the Islanders — or two victories meshed with a loss by the Penguins, or one victory combined with two Pittsburgh losses.
Even a loss to the Blue Jackets — the Eastern Conference’s worst team by 15 points entering play Monday — in the classic trap game Tuesday won’t prevent them from extending their season deeper into April, though it would hinder their push to climb the standings and earn a more favorable first-round matchup.
Earlier in the season, the Blueshirts weren’t exactly careful with these games.
They have lost to the Sharks, Blackhawks and Canadiens at the Garden.
There’s an additional challenge for the Rangers to deal with because of their placement in the standings.
Gallant knows — he used to be a player, with the Red Wings and Lightning — and admitted Monday that “it’s more mental than anything else right now,” trying to prepare for, and win, games as if their season teetered on the micro-results of each one.
But if Gallant wanted to rest any players, “there’s not a whole lot of flexibility right now.”
The primary exception could end up being defenseman Ryan Lindgren, who returned from a shoulder injury last week only to have it flare up again — forcing him to miss games Thursday and Saturday. Lindgren skated Monday and was a full participant in the Rangers’ practice, but Gallant said “we’re not gonna rush him back.”
“But when he’s ready to come back, he’ll come back,” Gallant said, “but we’re gonna make sure.”
Gallant also reverted to his lines from the start of Saturday’s game — after briefly shuffling them mid-game against the Panthers — by slotting Artemi Panarin with Mika Zibanejad and Vladimir Tarasenko and reuniting Chris Kreider with Vincent Trocheck and Patrick Kane. Kreider and Panarin had swapped locations.
The Blueshirts’ top-six production has meshed with the emergence of the Kid Line and has helped the Rangers to an 8-2 record in their past 10 games, keeping pace with the Devils and Hurricanes in the Metropolitan Division and preventing Carolina from securing another division title just yet.
But Gallant reiterated that he is not concerned — or at least to the level at which he would admit it — with the Rangers’ opponent in the postseason.
In the past, he said, people could pick the matchups between the No. 1 and No. 8 seeds and say, “Well, we know who’s gonna win that series.”
“That doesn’t happen anymore,” Gallant said.
A short bus drive to Prudential Center would be “interesting.”
A series against the Islanders would be “battles,” too. But any prelude to those postseason matchups would look the same as if a playoff berth was any less certain.
Gallant doesn’t think any players need rest now, and that, he said, is a good thing.
“I think things are starting to come together, just gotta keep building and try to peak at the right time,” defenseman Jacob Trouba said.
