NHL

Rangers’ playoff run hinges on tightening D

The Rangers, three points back of eighth-place Boston with eight games to go to the Bruins’ nine, have repeatedly proven in a 33-32-9 season they are only as good as their next game.

And now they are a loose team. Loose is their mood since being given up for dead. Loose is their defense. And until that’s tightened up, the Rangers’ chances of getting into the postseason should still be taken loosely.

Tonight in Toronto they play a club coming off a road win over an Atlanta team still up a point on the Rangers, then Tuesday visit the Islanders, who bounced back from an utter mortification at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night with a win over Calgary on Thursday.

But Toronto and the Islanders certainly represent winnable games. And should the Rangers take them both and Boston fail to come away with at least two points in a four-point opportunity against Calgary today and Buffalo Monday (and Atlanta similarly flops in a home-and-home with Carolina) the schedule would be back in New York’s favor.

Both Atlanta and Boston have two games each with runaway conference leader Washington. And the Rangers play just two more teams currently in playoff position, Buffalo and Philadelphia, the latter of which might be opportunely hanging on for eighth when the Flyers play a home-and-home with the Rangers to finish the season.

Stranger things have happened, most of them before teams could get a point for losing in overtime. The three-point difference flatters the Rangers, whose task is complicated by having two teams to climb over. So all the while they are playing them one at a time, they also will be sneaking one glance at the out-of-town scoreboard at a time.

They only have a chance by performing as purposefully as they did in overcoming the loss of one of their most purposeful players, Ryan Callahan, in Newark on Thursday.

Callahan, who injured a leg Sunday when he went into the boards with Boston’s Zdeno Chara, played less than seven minutes. This can’t be good.

The Rangers, who did not make themselves available to the media yesterday in Toronto, recalled P.A. Parenteau, who has had nine points in six games since returning from injury to the Hartford lineup and also veteran defenseman Anders Eriksson. But this team does not have that many good players that it can afford to lose one while having to almost win out.

The Rangers only hope that some of them who haven’t been always been so good, like Erik Christensen, whose brilliant backhand pass fed Chris Drury with 17 seconds remaining to force overtime and then scored the only goal of the shootout, continue to step up.

Not only the absence of booing but visual evidence confirms that Michal Rozsival quietly has had a more solid second half, too.

“For a person that people kicked the snot out of, and I have, too, his compete level has been raised this year,” coach John Tortorella said, “Most important, it’s been more consistent, and that’s why he’s getting the minutes.”

Meanwhile, Sean Avery appears willing to risk strangulation at the hands of opponents for eighth place, always a good example to set, and Brandon Dubinsky seems recharged, too.

“To their credit, everybody’s given up on them, and they fought and they fought,” Tortorella said.

That’s high praise for just back-to-back wins. Another set of those and then the Rangers’ chances at a last laugh can be taken more seriously.