NHL

Rangers in playoff fight — just like last year

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Who wouldn’t take this year’s Rangers over last year’s? Who doesn’t think that this year’s team has worked harder, played better hockey and has been more consistent than last year’s squad.

And yet, with 13 games to go beginning with tonight’s match against the formidable Sharks, the Blueshirts are in only a slightly better spot than they were last year, when the club was in ninth place, one point out of a playoff position before losing three straight to drop seven points back with 10 games to go prior to mounting their 7-1-1 charge into the final game in Philadelphia.

The Rangers awakened this morning in eighth place, two points up on the Hurricanes following Carolina’s 2-1 defeat in Washington last night. The Hurricanes hold one game in hand on the Blueshirts.

Then again, that three-point difference could be all the difference in the world.

“I wouldn’t say that it’s frustrating,” Brandon Dubinsky said about the team’s plight. “Frustrating is when you have 25 scoring chances and get one goal or when you’re all around the net and the puck won’t go in.

“We can’t be frustrated because that emotion generally works against you and brings you down,” he said. “We can’t have any negative energy seep into our mindset; that would be counter-productive.

“I wouldn’t say ‘frustrated’ is the word. I’d say ‘urgent’ is the better word to describe what we’re feeling.”

Coach John Tortorella, who pronounced himself “confident” in his team, held a video session before yesterday’s practice that highlighted the club’s numerous breakdowns in Wednesday’s 5-2 debacle of a defeat in Anaheim. He said he was “100-percent confident” that the team understood what he and the staff were attempting to teach in the session.

“It was coverages we missed, stuff we’ve been doing properly all year that we got away from,” Marc Staal said. “Our zone coverages, rush coverages, puck-watching, not stopping, drifting in our own end; all the details we always do well.

“I don’t have an answer for why we played like that, but I think we all understand our mistakes and I know we’ll be ready to play for this one.”

Staal admitted to off-night scoreboard watching on Thursday when the Sabres took over seventh place from the Rangers by percentages with their overtime victory in Boston, but said his and the team’s focus is clearly on getting the job done themselves.

“I don’t study the standings but with 13 games to go, of course I’m aware of what the teams around us are doing and I’m pulling for them to lose, but we can only control what we do,” Staal said. “It’s kind of frustrating to be in a similar position to last year because I think we’ve been a better team, but that’s the reality of it and we just have to play our best hockey now.

“We’re confident,” the defenseman said. “We have 13 games to go and every one of them is winnable. I know that the guys who were here last year remember how it felt [not making it].

“We are not going to allow that to happen again.”

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Tortorella would not divulge the lineup, but Sean Avery participated in just a handful of line rushes and appears destined to be scratched in favor of Erik Christensen. . . . The Blueshirts are on a 2-2, 2-4, 4-4, 4-6, 6-6 treadmill but are just 6-11-1 in their last 18 and 13-16-2 in 31 since Jan. 1.

larry.brooks@nypost.com