NHL

Zuccarello a key cog for new-look Rangers

This isn’t the time of year when most NHL teams start talking about establishing an identity — but then again, it’s not often that at this time of year, a team loses its captain.

So the Rangers sit at a juncture of this campaign. They have 18 games remaining, starting with Sunday afternoon’s Garden matinee against the Red Wings, and they begin the search anew. They no longer have their defining player, having traded captain Ryan Callahan to the Lightning on Wednesday for Tampa Bay’s captain, Martin St. Louis. In the two games St. Louis has played as a Blueshirt, he already has elevated the team’s offensive capabilities, one of the biggest detriments not just to start this season, but in seasons past.

“Cally was the heart of our team, he was our captain,” Derick Brassard said after Saturday’s optional practice, the Rangers having charged back for a 4-2 victory at Carolina the night before. “The work ethic of this team is because of him bringing it every day. But Cally left, we got Marty and he’s an elite player for many years, he’s always up there [contending for ] the scoring title. I wouldn’t say we’re more skilled — we lost a really good player and we gained another really good player.”

The Rangers got another offensive boost on Friday when Mats Zuccarello rejoined the lineup after missing the first four games out of the Olympic break, having broken his hand playing for his native Norway.

The diminutive winger already has established a career high with 44 points, and is just one point behind Brad Richards for the team lead — with Zuccarello having played five fewer games.

“Zuke is becoming an elite player in the league,” said Brassard, who has found undeniable chemistry on a reunited line with Zuccarello and Benoit Pouliot. “He’s hard to replace. … Me and Benny, we really enjoy playing with him. For whatever reason, we had some good chemistry.”

The comparisons between Zuccarello and St. Louis are impossible to avoid, as there aren’t too many playmakers in the NHL less than 6 feet tall on skates. There is no question the 38-year-old St. Louis has the pedigree, which includes a league MVP, two scoring titles and a Stanley Cup. The day after the trade, coach Alain Vigneault made sure to say Zuccarello “has a long way to go” before he can be mentioned in the same breath.

Yet, the two are now linked, even spending some fleeting moments on the ice together on Friday, when Vigneault temporarily shuffled the lines. Linked, as well, because the emergence of Zuccarello has helped shape the new look of the Rangers.

“This is the first season that I’ve played a lot of games,” Zuccarello said. “From the beginning I’ve said that if you play a lot of games, you play the important minutes, your confidence goes up.”

With the departure of Callahan, that also means Rick Nash is getting more minutes on the penalty kill. With the addition of St. Louis, that means Chris Kreider is off special teams.

General manager Glen Sather also added defensive depth when he obtained Raphael Diaz at the trade deadline, and even though Vigneault said the lineup would stay the same as it was on Friday — with Diaz out and Henrik Lundqvist in nets — this is now quite a different team than it was when the season started.

And they’re hoping it’s a better one, with the playoffs still far from a sure thing.

“I think we’re still a hard-working team, play our good defense and lead to good offense,” Zuccarello said. “So it’s the same. The bottom [line is], we’re just a hard-working team.”