Rangers' quick postseason exit a valuable experience, though David Quinn struggles to find positives

In the moments after the Rangers were swept out of the postseason Tuesday night, losing the final game of their best-of-five qualifying series with the Carolina Hurricanes, 4-1, coach David Quinn didn’t want to hear about how this defeat ultimately was some kind of positive experience for his young team.

“As I sit here right now … I don't view this as a good experience in any way, shape or form,’’ Quinn said in his postgame Zoom news conference. “Maybe when the dust settles, and [we put] the emotions aside, you look back at this season, and over the last two, three weeks that we've been together, and think, ‘OK, we continue to move forward as an organization.’ But that's certainly not how I feel today.’’

There is a bigger picture, though. And in the context of the Rangers’ two-year-old rebuild — announced with that letter to the fans back in February 2018 — just getting into the postseason (according to the NHL, this qualifying series was considered postseason, but not playoffs) was an important step in the master plan.

And, as painful as it may have been, getting smoked in a best-of-five series by a veteran team that reached the Eastern Conference finals last year and knew exactly what postseason hockey is all about, will teach the young Rangers some valuable lessons.

“Process is process,’’ Rangers president John Davidson said when the team opened its Phase 3 training camp on July 13. “For our team, you can't go and pay for what we're going to [get], going through this. You do have to go through it as a player, and particularly the younger ones, to see the pressure [of the playoffs], what it's about.

“That's going to make us a lot better,’’ he said. “Down the road, that's just how it works.’’

Eleven Rangers made their postseason debuts in the series, including 10 of the 20 who dressed for Game 3. That includes building block players like goaltender Igor Shesterkin, defensemen Adam Fox, Ryan Lindgren and Tony DeAngelo, and forwards Kaapo Kakko and Filip Chytil. Even in a neutral, empty arena, without the normal, crazy playoff atmosphere, the young Rangers got to experience just how much faster the game is in the playoffs, and how each tiny mistake is magnified and potentially series-deciding.

Assuming they get to the playoffs next season, they’ll be better prepared for what to expect.

Now that the season is over, management will have some decisions to make. Goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, the face of the franchise for 15 years, has one year left on his contract, at a salary cap hit of $8.5 million. He’s been surpassed by Shesterkin, who was unable to play in the first two games of the series for an undisclosed reason, but played well in Game 3. Do the Rangers bring Lundqvist back as Shesterkin’s backup? Would Lundqvist even want to take that role?

Is forward Jesper Fast, an unrestricted free agent and the five-time winner of the team’s Player’s Player award, as voted by his teammates, coming back? What about DeAngelo, a restricted free agent with arbitration rights, who had a career year in 2019-20 and is in line for a huge raise? Or forward Ryan Strome, another RFA with arbitration rights, who had such beautiful chemistry with Artemi Panarin?

And here’s one final question for GM Jeff Gorton: Does that lucky charm he brought with him to the draft lottery last year have any luck left in it? It helped him win the No. 2 pick overall last year, and the right to draft Kakko. This year, one of the eight qualifying-round losers will win the No. 1 pick overall in the draft, and the right to take Rimouski forward Alexis Lafreniere. That would be the best consolation prize ever.

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.