NHL

Rangers angry over Panthers’ ‘sucker punch’

SUNRISE, Fla. — When Michael Del Zotto’s stick ended up getting into the face of Tomas Kopecky with 10 seconds left in last night’s 4-1 Rangers’ win, it looked like a hard hockey play. It was certainly a crosscheck, and a high one at that, but a hockey play.

When Kopecky then retaliated by blindsiding Del Zotto with a gloved punch to the face that dropped the Rangers’ 21-year-old blueliner, then it became another matter entirely.

“It was a sucker punch,” said a very irritated coach John Tortorella. “That’s what [ticks] me off about this game — sometimes there’s no honor. I just wish, again, I wish the players could police themselves instead of too many rules in that rulebook.

“That’s bad,” the coach added. “I know Michael high-sticked him, they were jostling and stuff there, but you don’t sucker punch a guy. So he got what he deserved.”

What Kopecky got was the wrath of Mike Rupp, who played a total 6:50 on the ice and accumulated 15 penalty minutes as a result of his bare-knuckled assault, including many punches landed. Rupp received a game misconduct and five minutes for fighting.

“Obviously he didn’t see it coming,” Ryan Callahan said of Del Zotto. “It’s a bit of a sucker punch.”

That was the overwhelming sentiment coming out of the Rangers locker room, while down the hall it was quite the opposite. Panthers coach Kevin Dineen said it was, “just part of hockey,” and Krystofer Barch, who picked up a 10-minute misconduct from the scrum, said, “we’ll take care of it next week,” referring to when the two teams meet again on Jan. 5 at The Garden.

It’s clear the NHL will review the play for possible fines and suspensions, but there were no decisions made as of last night.

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There was a bit of a role reversal for the success of the top two lines, as the top group of Marian Gaborik-Derek Stepan-Artem Anisimov was held off the scoresheet, while the second group of Carl Hagelin-Brad Richards-Ryan Callahan put up a combined five points.

“I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to contribute and I think we need to in order for our team to be successful,” Callahan said. “I think it’s just a matter of clicking, then start rolling, then playing back-to-back games where you feel good and you’re scoring goals.”

After the Rangers got out to a 3-0 lead, Dineen started doing everything he could to keep his top forwards out on the ice, eventually playing Tomas Fleischmann (20:06), Stephen Weiss (20:34) and Kris Versteeg (22:32) just about as much as you can a forward trio. That encouraged Tortorella to break up Richards’ line in favor a checking unit that was Brandon Dubinsky-Brian Boyle-Callahan.

“When we put [that line] together for the last half of the game against that top line of theirs, they did a really good job checking,” Tortorella said. “That’s good news.”

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It seems that Henrik Lundqvist is finally coming around the idea that it might be good for him to play fewer than 70 games.

After being blunt about his disappointment with his lightened schedule, The King cracked for the first time after last night’s win, acknowledging that the lesser workload might actually be good for him.

“I want to play. It’s tough to sit on the side and watch,” Lundqvist said after making 27 very good saves. “In the long run, it’s going to be good for me. It’s going to be good for the team, so like I said, I’m adjusting to it. I like the way I’m battling right now, part of it is I have a little bit more energy.”

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The struggling Rangers power play didn’t get much chance to right itself, as they only got to go on the man-advantage once when they registered one shot on goal in the second period. The unit sent out there to start was Del Zotto and Richards up top, with Stepan, Anisimov and Callahan up front.

The power play is now in a 1-for-17 dry spell.

bcyrgalis@nypost.com