Does Rangers elite defenseman Adam Fox have a future with the team?

GREENBURGH — Through one prism, Adam Fox’s words could be viewed as an innocuous acknowledgement of the plainly obvious.

Through another, though, they could be construed as potentially an ominous precursor to a divorce between the Jericho native and the only team fo which he has played an NHL game.

“That’s a conversation when we’re done playing games,” Fox said shortly after the Rangers’ 3-2 overtime loss to the Flyers on Thursday night at the Garden, in response to whether the 28-year-old wanted to remain with the reconstructing Blueshirts. “We’re trying to win games —didn’t do that tonight —  and I think that’s where my focus is right now.”

For Fox and the Rangers, the 2025-26 season has been one to forget.

Individually, Fox has a slash line of four goals and 24 assists for 28 points, but has played in only 31 of the Rangers’ 58 games due to injuries.

He missed 14 games after suffering an upper-body injury in a 4-1 loss to the Lightning on Nov. 29 before returning for the 6-3 New Year’s Eve loss to the Capitals. Fox then suffered a lower-body injury in the Rangers’ 3-2 overtime loss to Utah on Jan. 5. Thursday night’s nationally televised match was his first contest back, and he logged a game-high 24 minutes, 57 seconds.

“Trying to shake off some rust,” Fox said. “Trying to get all that timing and everything down.”

As a collective, the Rangers (22-29-7; 51 points) are last in the Eastern Conference and, leaguewide, only Vancouver (43) has earned fewer points. As a result, president of hockey operations and general manager Chris Drury announced through the team’s social media channels on Jan. 16 that organizational decision-makers were going to engage in a “retool” in order to stockpile draft picks and prospects.

Defenseman Carson Soucy was traded to the Islanders for a third-round draft pick 10 days later, and Artemi Panarin was dealt to Los Angeles on Feb. 4 for prospect Liam Greentree and conditional draft picks. It is believed that Drury is likely to trade veteran center Vincent Trocheck by the March 6 trade deadline, and speculation persists that Sam Carrick, Alexis Lafreniere and Braden Schneider could also be moved.

“It’s been really hard,” coach Mike Sullivan said after a 45-minute, special teams-intensive practice at the MSG Training Center on Friday. “We’ve had some conversations around it. The trade deadline is never an easy time for players. That’s just in my experience both as a player [and] coaching other teams over the years. This week . . .There’s a level of uncertainty that players have to deal with.”

Fox, who practiced but was not in the dressing room while it was open to reporters, signed a seven-year, $66.5 million contract on Nov. 1, 2021, which has no-movement clauses for this season and next, followed by 16-team no-trade clauses for the 2027-28 and 2028-29 seasons.

If he is open to a trade, Drury’s asking price should be high considering Fox has won the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman after the 2020-21 season and has appeared in two All-Star Games. For his career, Fox has recorded 397 points in 462 regular-season games, and has another 39 points in 46 playoff games.

Notes & quotes: The Rangers announced after practice that forward Tye Kartye had been claimed off waivers. The 24-year-old played in 40 games with Seattle this season and had three goals and five assists.