Rangers must find a way to turn season around after nosedive

With their Christmas break over, the Rangers go back to work Friday, practicing and then flying to Tampa for a two-game trip to the Sunshine State. They will face the Lightning on Saturday and the defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers on Monday.

When last we saw them, the Rangers were an utter mess. They were blown out by the Devils on Monday after losing to Carolina the day before. On Christmas Day, they were tied for last place in the Metropolitan Division with the Islanders, having lost 13 of their last 17 games.

Chris Kreider, the longest-tenured Ranger and the third-leading goal-scorer in franchise history, was a healthy scratch against the Devils, with coach Peter Laviolette saying “we need more’’ from him.

After the Devils game, Artemi Panarin was asked what he thinks the problem has been.

“It could be many things,’’ he said. “I feel like, everywhere, we . . . have extra weight on us. Like everyone is trying too hard. Maybe we’re, I don’t know, not relaxed enough or something. Because I can promise, everyone on the team wants to win. Everyone works hard. But sometimes if you don’t have confidence, if you’re not in the right place mentally, you just feel like everything is harder.’’

So as the 16-17-1 Blueshirts embark on the rest of their season, the question for them is whether what has gone wrong is fixable.

With 48 games left in the season, the Rangers have time to turn things around, but how do they do that, exactly?

The problems that have caused this nosedive don’t show any signs of correcting themselves, and it’s hard to see what the coach, management or ownership can do to reverse the team’s fortunes.

This season, they brought back essentially the same team — minus fourth-line center Barclay Goodrow — that won the Presidents’ Trophy last season. So did last season’s team overachieve or has this season’s team massively underachieved?

Mika Zibanejad was supposed to be the team’s No. 1 center, but he has struggled and been demoted to the third line in some games. His six goals and 15 assists through 34 games project to 14 goals and 36 assists for an 82-game season. Those are not first-line center numbers.

Zibanejad, who always has been a strong two-way player, is a team-worst minus-19, tied for fourth-worst in the NHL. Plus/minus isn’t a statistic valued by the analytics community, but that’s a bad number.

So is he a good player having a bad year, or is he a 31-year-old player entering the back nine of his career?

Not that it’s all his fault. The defense has been poor and other players also haven’t produced as expected.

Vincent Trocheck, who with Panarin and Alexis Lafreniere made up one of the best lines in the NHL last season, is on pace for 48 points. He had 77 last season.

Lafreniere, whose breakout year last season and fast start this season earned him a seven-year, $52.15 million contract extension, has one assist in his last eight games.

Might general manager Chris Drury, who already has made two trades this month — sending captain Jacob Trouba to Anaheim and forward Kaapo Kakko to Seattle — fire Laviolette to try to change things up? It’s probably not something Drury wants to do, but if the losing continues, might he be forced to?

Sometimes it’s just not your year. And if Drury reaches that conclusion, it might make sense for the Rangers to become sellers at the trade deadline.

Maybe they can re-stock the prospect pipeline by getting back draft picks for players such as forward Reilly Smith and free-agent-to-be defensemen Ryan Lindgren and Will Borgen. Then they can sign Boston College forward Gabe Perreault after his college season is over, put him in the lineup at the end of the season and just start getting ready for next year.

Is it early to start thinking that way? Maybe a little. But as Yogi Berra once said, “It gets late early around here.’’

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.