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Islanders’ MacDonald on block after rejecting $16M offer

The offer was there, it was rejected, and now Andrew MacDonald has to start contemplating life in the NHL with a team other than the Islanders.

About a month and a half ago, the top-four defenseman turned down a four-year contract worth $16 million, The Post has learned. So now, as the Olympic roster freeze approaches on Friday at 3 p.m., and the March 5 trade deadline nears, Islanders general manager Garth Snow is set to deal MacDonald to the highest bidder.

MacDonald and his agent had previously asked for a four- or five-year deal at around $5 million per, and even got the Islanders to come up from their original starting price of $3.5 million per. With the salary cap set to rise this summer from $64.3 million to $71.1 million, it’s possible MacDonald could get the money he wants on the open market.

Yet, by not coming to a compromise now, the pending unrestricted free agent has left himself as one of the league’s most coveted defenseman at trade time.

One league source said Snow already received at least one substantial offer for MacDonald that he turned down, assuming the market only will rise over the next 24 hours, as well as the period after the two-week break and before the trade deadline. It is believed Snow is looking for a first-round pick — if not more — in return for the 27-year-old MacDonald.

If no deal can be made by Friday, and if the Islanders still manage to hold out hope the playoffs are a possibility — they sat 10 points out with six teams to leapfrog before Thursday’s Coliseum match against the Flames — then there is a chance MacDonald would stay with the team through this season.

That would mean the Islanders’ sixth-round pick from 2006 would leave during the summer for nothing in return, an unlikely scenario when and if the Islanders find themselves with the stark reality of another playoff-less spring.

“You have to think about it,” MacDonald told The Post after Wednesday’s practice, concerning the possibility of being traded. “There are rumors going around. It’s part of the game, part of the business. For me, I try not to think too much about it or read too much.

“I’m here right now, I’m an Islander. It’s what I’ve always been, it’s what I want to be, but at the end of the day, Garth has a decision to make and it is what it is.”

It seems MacDonald also doesn’t figure into the Islanders’ future plans. Barring another setback, No. 1 defenseman Travis Hamonic was preparing to return to the lineup for Saturday’s home game against the Avalanche, with Thursday his 12th consecutive game missed since suffering a concussion on Jan. 12.

The organization also has a lot of faith in their young defensemen, which include Calvin de Haan and Matt Donovan, who already are at the NHL level, and most notably the 20-year-old Griffin Reinhart, the fourth-overall pick in the 2012 draft, who currently is in juniors.

Of course, no discussion about the Islanders’ roster management can be had without the inclusion of the idea of a low financial ceiling, which the team has remained steadfast in saying doesn’t exist. It was only two weeks ago when Snow had star forward Thomas Vanek turn down a seven-year, $50 million deal, not because of the contract terms, but because the 30-year-old is determined to reach free agency on July 1.

Vanek was obtained in a trade with the Sabres on Oct. 27 in exchange for free-agent-to-be Matt Moulson, a first-round pick and a second-rounder. It’s believed Snow has received many inquiries about Vanek, and assuredly will recoup at least the first-round pick he sent to Buffalo, and likely more.

As for MacDonald, what the Isles can get in return is still to be determined. What seems a certainty is that his time with the only NHL franchise he ever has known is coming to an unceremonious end.