Rangers don’t have same time to fix problems as last year’s team

Thirteen games in, at the same time last season, the Rangers were in bit of a state of disarray. They were 7-3-3, all right, but the record was sand castle-type stuff, built almost entirely on Igor Shesterkin’s otherworldly work in nets.

Indeed, the Blueshirts were coming off a Nov. 8, 4-3 victory over the Panthers at the Garden in Game 13 in which so many of the early season warts had been revealed. Shesterkin was under siege, his team outshot 45-18 overall and 17-3 in the third period. In addition, the Puddy Tats bumped and crashed into the netminder with impunity and without any meaningful response.

“It isn’t like we didn’t face any adversity last year,” Mika Zibanejad told The Post on Monday. “I think we were worse at this time.”

Serendipitously, though, the Blueshirts had a three-day break following the Florida game that allowed Gallant to put his players through remedial work in an abbreviated training camp II. When they emerged from the lab, they were a harder, more disciplined team, had switched up their defensive-zone system, and went on a 10-1 run to essentially lock up a playoff spot by the first week of December.

It was a reset. A necessary reset.

This year, following Sunday’s disturbing 3-2 overtime defeat to the Red Wings that left the Rangers 6-4-3 but 3-3-3 in the last nine and their leaders on the wrong end of a stunning (for him) public rebuke from Gallant, there is no such propitious break in the action.

Instead, the Rangers got the ravenous Islanders at the Garden on Tuesday and then will go on the road to visit Nashville and Detroit, Thursday and Saturday. The Rangers will have to create an identity on the fly.

“We’re still trying to figure out who we are,” K’Andre Miller told The Post. “We’ve lost some personnel from last year’s team. It’s going to take time. “We have new guys and guys who are in different positions of responsibility. We need to clean up our game. I certainly don’t detect any panic. We’re looking to get to our game.”

It has been said many times that this year’s team would play under expectations created by the team’s run to the conference finals last year. But that charge featured top-sixers Ryan Strome, Frank Vatrano and Andrew Copp and third-pair defenseman Justin Braun. They’re all gone.

Not that you should cry for them, but this group of players is being measured against that one. That shouldn’t have snuck up on anyone. But it kind of hangs over the Rangers, who entered the season as the hunted rather than the hunters. And without a Stanley Cup to warrant being a target.

“It’s definitely a different situation,” Zibanejad said. “There were not a whole lot of expectations last year. Maybe teams overlooked us. But this year, every team in the league looks at us a little differently.

“There’s pressure but that shouldn’t be a negative. I’m confident we can handle this. It’s not like we don’t play well — the first period against Detroit was great — but we have to do it on a more consistent basis. We kept building last year. That’s where we are now. That’s what we have to do, I think everyone is expecting a little more of themselves.”

Copp, Vatrano and Braun arrived around the trade deadline last season when general manager Chris Drury had an abundant amount of cap space. At this juncture, the Rangers— still carrying the max 23-man roster — project to have approximately $765,500 with which to work at the deadline, according to CapFriendly.

 In other words, there is no point anticipating reinforcements. The cavalry is already here.

That, of course, prominently features Zibanejad, who leads the team with seven goals and is on a pace that equates to a sweet 43-goal season. Six of the tallies have come on the power play, including the sweet-spot one-timer he wired home on Sunday. One has come while skating shorthanded.

That would mean none at five-on-five in 173:39 of ice time.

Zibanejad almost burst out in laughter when, a few minutes into our conversation on Tuesday, I asked him whether this weighs on him. “It’s not funny but I knew you were going to ask that,” he said. “I have been waiting for that question.

“Obviously I want to score. I think I’ve been in position and have had enough good chances that I should have one by now. But it would be much worse if I had no goals, at all.

“You go through stretches, but one of the things I learned during the playoffs is that you can’t get hung up on things. I’m working hard, I’m looking to create more offense but it’s not only about five-on-five. When they’re setting me up on the power play, I’m going to keep shooting.”

That’s a formula that has worked. The Rangers — this year’s Rangers — must find a formula that works for them.