NHL

RESEARCH CENTER

SCOTT Gomez made his living in New Jersey as one of the NHL’s best playmakers by using his speed and vision working with wingers who played an up-tempo, give-and-go game while driving hard to the net without the puck.

Now, if Marcel Hossa returns to the lineup in Pittsburgh tomorrow night after missing the previous two games with a hip-flexor and rejoins the line with Jaromir Jagr, Gomez will skate between two wingers who like to slow down the game while controlling the puck on the half-boards and in the corners.

Manhattan, we’ve got a problem.

Let’s face it. Gomez has looked lost skating with Jagr the last two games, but what’s even more troubling, Chris Drury also looked lost skating with Jagr the first five games of the season. Really, there hasn’t been a single shift on which either center has appeared to be speaking the same hockey language as No. 68.

Everyone understood the unique compatibility between Jagr and Michael Nylander. Everyone, too, understood 35-year-old Nylander wasn’t going to get a four-year deal to re-up over the summer with Jagr only under contract for one more guaranteed season. Everyone also understood Nylander would have been a fool to settle for far less to stay with the Rangers rather than accept $19.5M over four years from Washington.

But now the Rangers have two prime-time pivots who are no closer to finding the key to unlock Jagr’s game than they were the first day of camp. In Jagr, the Rangers have a 622-goal scorer who has talked himself into believing, a) he must have the puck on his stick at all times in the offensive zone; and, b) that he needs slow-down linemates in order to be most effective, when just the opposite is more likely to be true.

Tom Renney already has used seven different combinations of wingers with Drury and Gomez to start games -injuries to Hossa, Sean Avery and now Martin Straka have jiggered the numbers. Renney doesn’t want to keep juggling. That’s understandable. Stability is important. So too is it vital for the head coach not to chew up too much of the season attempting to pound round pegs into square holes.

As long as Jagr insists on playing the game his way – and obstinacy is a trait shared by every great player extant – then going with Gomez as his pivot is a dicey proposition. So too is reverting back to Drury. So what to do with the 2-4-1 Rangers who have scored two even-strength goals their last six games and pretty much will go as Jagr goes as long as he’s here?

Perhaps veteran Dave Scatchard, currently operating under a tryout with the AHL Wolf Pack, could provide at least a short-term solution. Maybe Jagr would be best served playing with a big-bodied, puck-control center who would allow No. 68 and Hossa to dictate the line’s tone.

In that case, Drury could shift to the wing on a line with Gomez and Brendan Shanahan while Brandon Dubinsky centers a young-energy line with wingers Petr Prucha and Ryan Callahan, the unit that was the team’s best in Saturday’s 1-0 shootout loss in Boston.

This isn’t about who is or isn’t the first-line center. Who cares? This is about what might best work for the Rangers when neither Gomez nor Drury seems able to work productively with Jagr.

larry.brooks@nypost.com