Buckle up, Rangers fans: This year’s road to playoffs should be a fun ride

Let’s be real here: Given the choice between a cruise to the Presidents’ Trophy or a life-and-death battle into mid-April, most hockey fans would prefer the former.

But 2023-24 is history, so Rangers supporters will have to make the best of what they have, and what they have is a mighty interesting stretch run ahead.

Chris Drury’s ongoing chemistry experiment of a roster seems to be coalescing at the right time, the latest evidence of which came on Monday night.

The Rangers shut out the Islanders, 4-0, at Madison Square Garden the day after shutting out the Predators, 4-0, at the Garden and have won four of their last five.

The four victories have come by a combined score of 18-4, sandwiched around a respectable 3-2 loss to the Maple Leafs.

Net result: The Rangers are 31-26-4, good for 66 points and a tie with Detroit for the second and final Eastern Conference wild-card berth. (The Red Wings have played one fewer game.)

That is a milestone to celebrate, given where the Blueshirts were at the end of their infamous swoon in late November and all of December.

But all it has done is earn them the right to be relevant. There are 21 games left, about a quarter of the schedule.

In baseball terms, it is only mid-August, the time of year traditionally called the “dog days.” But the Rangers do not have the luxury of dogging it.

Every game counts, and they know it.

“Our playoffs started 20 games ago, when we started to battle for life,” Artemi Panarin said after scoring his team-high 25th goal with a shot into an empty net.

He said last season “kind of snowballed in a good way for us,” but this season has been a grind.

“I feel a little bit better with the confidence,” he said. “Twenty games ago, we [didn’t] feel like that. We’re trying not to think too much about that and keep working.”

Goaltender Igor Shesterkin said after his shutout, “Our confidence is going up every day. We know what we need to do, so we just keep focusing on our game and try to build something.”

The Rangers’ degree of difficulty has been increased by the roster-fiddling that Drury has done since the end of last season, and the trade deadline still is a few days away on Friday.

But Monday brought another reminder of what a winner one of those moves in particular was: Bringing J.T. Miller back to New York.

His 16th goal of the season put the Rangers ahead early in the third period and ended all realistic hope for the Islanders.

“It’s fun hockey to play the way we’re playing,” Braden Schneider said. “It’s fun to win. We have to keep this going and make sure that we’re all in.”

Mika Zibanejad said he believes the Rangers are “playing simple. I don’t feel like we’re panicking as much.”

He also said, “I don’t think we shoot ourselves in the foot in the same way we’ve maybe done it before.”

Up next is a visit from the conference’s top team in the Capitals on Wednesday, then a trip to Ottawa on Saturday to face the Senators, another of the teams in the wild-card mosh pit.

Monday was a big game. But they all are big games and have been for a while.

Again, this is not as relaxing as things were in late winter and early spring last year.

But they are plenty interesting. Coach Peter Laviolette said this might even pay dividends come late April and May.

“Teams can definitely gain an advantage, I think, from playing playoff hockey, fighting for their lives, scrapping for their lives,” he said. “That can be a benefit going into the playoffs.”

Laviolette immediately cautioned that there is a lot of work to do and many games left, and that he is not getting ahead of himself.

But at this point, there is no reason not to think positively.

“It makes for a good entry into the playoffs,” Laviolette said of having to fight to the finish. “You’re doing it to get there, but it becomes a little bit of prep.”

Hey, it’s a theory. But all that matters at this point is that this is something worth watching.