#Rangers playoff fallout includes Jacob Trouba-induced dilemma

Regarding the Rangers, who under the NHL’s best-case scenario will reconvene for training camp on Nov. 17.

1. That date is closer to the end of the qualifying round than the beginning of the qualifying round was to the date the season ended. Maybe that is a primary reason the Rangers “did not pick up where they left off.”

2. The kids, the kids, the kids. But kid you not, while Kaapo Kakko did take a substantial step from there to here, perhaps the most encouraging work of the Carolina series came from Jacob Trouba.

The defenseman, who seemed in prime physical condition upon reporting following the pause, was tough in his own end, a presence in the offensive zone and just what the Rangers envisioned when they acquired Trouba from Winnipeg last year and signed him to a seven-year, $56 million contract extension.

Indeed, with Tony DeAngelo suffering through a hamstring issue that limited his effectiveness, David Quinn might have moved Trouba up onto the first power-play unit that was utterly impotent from start to finish, the Blueshirts going 0-for-13 while five-on-four.

Ideally, Trouba will reclaim the first-pair matchup role for which he was signed to fill. That would free Adam Fox from the heaviest lifting on the defensive right side of things. It is, however, unlikely that Brendan Smith, the partner with whom Trouba has played his best hockey, can handle first-pair matchup minutes.

So again, the Rangers are in need of — and perhaps on the lookout for — a first-pair defenseman. Perhaps K’Andre Miller, so impressive throughout summer camp, will develop into that, but it is wildly unrealistic to believe the 20-year-old, after two years of college hockey at Wisconsin, could fill the description next season. Making the team at all right out of the gate is probably a stretch.

Trouba was paired with Libor Hajek for 18 of the first 20 games last season. The must-have ingredient in the deal for Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller isn’t quite at the show-me phase of his career at the age of 22 after having played two seasons of pro hockey (in which he’s been injured both years), but the Rangers would surely like to see an elevation in his game when they skate next.

Trouba was uncertain and attempting to adjust to his new life as a Ranger when paired last season with Hajek. Clearly in a greater comfort zone, perhaps Trouba would be of more help to Hajek if he gets another shot on No. 8’s left.

3. Brett Howden played with authority throughout against the Hurricanes. He stood out not only for his assertiveness and ability to create some offense, but also because he was one of a handful of players who were more impressive in August than from October through March.

Howden had been moved out of the middle entirely by Christmas by Quinn. The 22-year-old, a former first-rounder also acquired from Tampa Bay in the McDonagh-Miller deal at the 2018 deadline, played the remainder of the year at wing on the third and fourth lines.

But for the elimination Game 3, Quinn moved Howden, who’d been centering the fourth line for the first two games, up to the middle of the third line. In making that move, the coach also shifted Filip Chytil from center to right wing.

So with questions abounding about the second center position in light of Ryan Strome’s looming restricted free agency (followed in a year by unrestricted free-agent eligibility) and unaccountably poor performance in the tournament, does Howden report next year as a center or a winger? Morgan Barron is expected to compete for a spot at LW.

And what about Chytil, moved out of the middle for the most important game of the year?

4. Artemi Panarin worked hard with a personal trainer prior to summer camp and took this tournament seriously. That’s why it was so confounding to watch the Hart Trophy finalist in what surely were his poorest three consecutive games in a Rangers uniform. Maybe his game is so reliant on touch, there was too much time off for No. 10 to find it. But other touch players have been able to thrive despite the 4 1/2-month layoff.

Of course, too, James Reimer came up with perhaps the series’ most defining saves when he twice used his glove to rob the Russian Rockette from close range in the final five minutes of the first period of what was then a scoreless Game 3.

Two glove saves there plus a pair of glove saves from Petr Mrazek on Howden and Mika Zibanejad in the first period of Game 2 were the most critical stops of the series in which the ’Canes completely reversed the Rangers’ perceived edge in nets.

5. It is not that Fox was all that bad. It is that it was just a shock to see Fox not be all that good.