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The Rangers saw one of their Eastern Conference competitors — and their opponents on Tuesday — make a big splash Friday night when Carolina traded for Colorado RW Mikko Rantanen, as well as Chicago’s Taylor Hall.
They aren’t letting the Hurricanes’ potential improvement affect them.
“I saw it,’’ Chris Kreider said Saturday after the Rangers practiced in Tarrytown. We’re worried about us. We’ve got a game [Sunday].”
That attitude has served the Rangers well of late, as they’ve been perhaps the best team in the league since the beginning of January, a stretch that has pushed them back into playoff contention in the Eastern Conference after being left for dead less than a month ago.
And there’s a chance the roster could change before the March 7 trade deadline.
When asked about possible additions on Saturday, though, head coach Peter Laviolette said, “That thought has never come into my mind.”
Instead, his focus remains on his current team, one that is looking for its first three-game winning streak since mid-November and has a 10-game point streak (7-0-3).
“This group of guys is playing really hard right now, doing their best to work our way up the standings,’’ Laviolette said of the team’s march from near the bottom of the East to the cusp of a wild-card spot — with plenty of time to rise even higher.
“We’ve made a little bit of headway,” Laviolette said. “We’ve got a ton of work to do. We’ll focus on that.”
That continues Sunday, when the Rangers face Colorado, Rantanen’s former team, at Madison Square Garden.
The season turnaround has been predicated on playing better defense overall, which has helped the Blueshirts put their 4-15 stretch far behind them.
“I think we quieted down our game,’’ Kreider said of the improved overall play for the last three-plus weeks. “We’re giving up less high-danger chances in bunches [and] protecting the front of our net better. It’s put us in position to win hockey games.”
And no one has done that better than the Rangers of late, which has made them a team that could still reach its high expectations that appeared to be out of reach prior to this recent run.
“Before the season, I think every team has the same goal, which is to make the playoffs, give ourselves a chance, punch your ticket, work on your process and get better every day,’’ Kreider said. “That’s where we are right now and we’ll continue to build on the good and learn from our mistakes.’’
The impact of those mistakes from their desultory end to 2024 is still being felt.
“I think it emphasized the need to shore up some things on the defensive side of the puck,” Kreider said. “We’re showing when we do that, we’re a pretty good hockey team.”
There’s around six weeks for the Rangers to alter their roster — with J.T. Miller still in Vancouver — after the team made significant changes in December with the trades of Jacob Trouba, their captain, and Kaapo Kakko.
In the meantime, the Rangers are firmly in the mix for the playoffs and perhaps they’ll get themselves into position for another lengthy postseason run.
