NHL

Rangers’ flaws showed in European debut

It doesn’t take a Bill James to recognize two games is absurdly small sample by which to evaluate a pro sports team, and it doesn’t take a Scotty Bowman to know it’s impossible to evaluate the Rangers off their opening two games in Stockholm that came at the end of a counter-productive preseason tour that featured stops in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland and Sweden.

While we’re at it, Glen Sather should be able to reach the conclusion that regardless of the fact that the Rangers won’t be able to get into the Garden until late October in each of the next two years (unless, that is, a protracted NBA lockout accelerates the arena’s transformation to the degree that the Rangers can have a normal opening to 2013-14), the team must never be burdened with this type of a schedule again, no matter how much cash the organization might rack up in exhibition game appearance fees.

There is, however, one observation that can be drawn about these Rangers in the wake of their overtime and shootout defeats to the Kings and Ducks, respectively, over the weekend, and that is that they appear tangibly different from last season’s club.

Last season’s team was four lines deep, fatally flawed at the top, no doubt, but strong and balanced among the bottom six forwards. Indeed, it was the bottom-six group — with Ryan Callahan and Brandon Dubinsky — that gave last season’s squad its Black-and-Blueshirt identity.

This season’s team doesn’t seem to be similarly constructed. The bottom two lines appear to feature somewhat mismatched parts that fall completely out of whack with a single injury, as evidenced by the jumble that opened Saturday’s game when Wojtek Wolski was scratched with what has become a recurring groin injury.

Brian Boyle was moved out of the middle, where he established himself as a weapon a year ago, to play left wing (quite badly, it turned out) beside Derek Stepan and Brandon Prust. Meanwhile, Erik Christensen moved in to play fourth-line center between Mike Rupp and Mats Zuccarello.

What?

But this is what happens when the general manager and coach decide not to keep an extra wing on the roster.

One injury — one! — in conjunction with the decision to feature Ruslan Fedotenko as a top-six winger, a job in which he only occasionally was employed last season, and the bottom six become a patchwork weakness rather than the grinding force of 2010-11.

This means the horses up top simply must be thoroughbreds that coach John Tortorella can ride. That was his plan going into the season and he will stick to it, as he most certainly should regardless of Saturday’s misadventure on bad ice in which Tortorella split up Brad Richards and Marian Gaborik.

The grand union will be restored. There is no reason to believe these two elite talents won’t be able to develop chemistry that will produce success after they have the opportunity to work with one another, to learn how to read one another.

There is, though, the hole on their left side. Brandon Dubinsky could fill it; he has the assets and temperament for it, but this isn’t the time to rob Peter and Paul to pay Mary. Maybe Tortorella will have to take a look at Stepan on the wing, imperfect as that option seems.

For with so much unsettled with the club confronting a challenging five-game trip to Long Island, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg beginning Saturday, the Rangers need to be able to bank on one staple: the Dubinsky-Artem Anisimov-Callahan combination that forms a seamless unit and creates a large measure of holdover stability. That is a good thing.

After two games in Europe, the one conclusion that can be drawn about the Rangers is they are different. That may not be such a good thing.

larry.brooks@nypost.com