If only Rangers had the real Patrick Kane

There was no hip-hip-hooray for the Rangers or for Patrick Kane, who reported to New York with the specific lower-body issues that have plagued him for the last two years and were just too much to overcome.

Eyes wide open, the Rangers traded for him, anyway. Eyes wide open, No. 88 accepted and embraced the opportunity, anyway.

But in the end, No. 88 was the cherry on top that fell off the sundae before it could be savored.

“We’re going to have to find a way to get me back to as close to 100 percent as possible because I look back at that series and I know if I felt a little better I can help us win it,” Kane said on Wednesday’s breakup day at the training facility. “So it’s almost disappointing and depressing in a way but that’s kind of how I feel about it.”

Kane recorded six points (1-5) in the seven-game defeat to the Devils, third on the club. He scored his goal in the third period of Game 2 through which he appeared as explosive as ever. He was perhaps the best Ranger other than Igor Shesterkin over the final 40 minutes of Game 7, desperately trying to make it happen.

But it did not. And it did not for most of the series in which Kane did not at all resemble the dynamic game-changing forward who rates at the tippy top of the list of the greatest American-born players in NHL history.

“I commend the training staff and [head athletic trainer] Jim Ramsay for getting me where I felt as good as I possibly could so when the game started I could just think about hockey and playing,” Kane said. “But before, it’s just a lot of maintenance and thinking about how you’re going to get yourself to feel the best as possible to play.

“I mean, you just look at certain situations and you’re like, if we’re down a goal here or there, you could take over in and help the team get out of a little rut. That’s where I think I could have helped a little bit more but it was a seven-game series.”

A year ago the Blueshirts filled their open top-six slots on right wing with deadline acquisitions Frank Vatrano and Andrew Copp. This time it was Kane after Vlad Tarasenko. Bigger names, greater portfolios but it was the same idea. Last year it worked, this year it did not.

Was it the right move to add Kane instead of, say, a fourth-line grinder? Of course it was the right move. Sometimes, as head coach Gerard Gallant said, adjustments do not work. If you have the chance to get Patrick Kane at an affordable price to fortify the roster in advance of a projected challenge for the Cup, you get Patrick Kane.

Even if this was not truly Patrick Kane. The “We never knew ’ye” lament is perfectly applicable here.

The Rangers collectively bemoaned their premature end to the season. Adam Fox, who had eight assists but was stymied through much of the series and surely in Game 7, gave credit to the Devils but said, “I don’t think they saw our best for the whole series,” and acknowledged that the club might have thought it “could take our feet off the gas,” after taking Games 1 and 2 in New Jersey.

Most players bemoaned a lost opportunity. Vincent Trocheck said, “For me, 10 years in the league, it wears on you. You only have so many chances with teams capable of winning.”

For Barclay Goodrow, who won a pair of Cups with Tampa Bay and very well may become a cap casualty this summer, it was, “When you lose you realize you have to treat every year like it’s your last. You just don’t know.”

And then there was this part of the assessment of captain Jacob Trouba, who by the way shared moments of mutual respect in the handshake line with Timo Meier, whom he had blasted to smithereens in open ice during the third period of Game 7: “It’s never a straight line to success … sometimes it gets bumpy.”

Kane, a pending unrestricted free agent, said he hopes to make decisions regarding surgery and his offseason program within a week or so. If there were any realistic way for the winger to do an encore on Broadway, he would jump at it.

Maybe following surgery, Kane would go on LTI and not play until the middle of the season and then maybe … and then maybe the Rangers would play with 16 players for a month and then maybe …

I know, I know. From the cherry on top to pie in the sky.

“Of course I would love to be back, with this team and this opportunity. I would love that chance,” said No. 88. “I know they have young guys to sign and probably other priorities but like I said, I don’t have a bad thing to say about the organization and the situation.

“I thought it was an amazing experience for me. I’m turning 35 next year but it’s not like I feel old. I still feel pretty young. I feel like the passion is still there and I know I can be a top player if my focus is solely on hockey instead of how I feel.”

If only the Rangers had had the Real Patrick Kane.