It’s been an up-and-down season for the Rangers, who have repeatedly morphed from Cup contender to poorly constructed pretender and back. During the season’s first two months, their style echoed that of the Devils at their absolute stingiest, with netminder Henrik Lundqvist anchoring a stifling defense. But their play slipped dramatically in December and January, prompting rumors that these presumed Cup contenders would instead be holding a surprise fire sale at the trade deadline, with Jaromir Jagr the biggest-ticket item potentially on the move.

That, of course, didn’t happen, and the Blueshirts ran off a sloppy but effective 10–0–3 run from mid-February to mid-March that solidified their spot in the postseason, if not winning them any style points. But with the standings so densely packed and the line between playoff team and lottery team so thin, it took just two ugly losses (to the lowly Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning) for the Blueshirts’ status again to be diminished. So which is it? Do the Rangers have what it takes to compete for the Stanley Cup? Or will their summer shopping spree have been for naught? The answer, of course, lies somewhere in between.

The sixth-place Blueshirts have 10 games remaining, all against division rivals, and that’s not exactly a good thing. They play three games a piece against the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Devils, two of the finest teams in the Eastern Conference. They play the eighth-place Philadelphia Flyers twice, who are battling for their playoff lives. And their two remaining games against the Islanders will be no walk in the park either, the 13th-place Isles hardwired with the desire to spoil the Rangers’ playoff plans.

Without question, the biggest key for the Rangers is Lundqvist. Inked to a six-year, $41.25 million deal just more than a month ago, Lundqvist’s play has been strong in the 13 games that followed the contract signing. He’s surrendered just more than two goals a game, while stopping well over 92% of the shots he’s faced, and his nine shutouts have him tied for the league lead with the Columbus Blue Jackets’ Pascal Leclaire. If Lundqvist can continue to play at an elite level, it’s a near certainty that the Blueshirts will reach the postseason and a good possibility that they’ll go deep into the playoffs.

Of course, to pin the team’s hopes solely on the goalie would not only be unfair, but also inaccurate. The second-biggest key for the Rangers will be to find an answer to a season-long question: Can anyone capably play the power play point on a consistent basis? Unfortunately, it’s possible that the answer won’t come from within this year’s squad.

Over the past two seasons, rearguard Michal Rozsival was the Rangers’ unsung hero, surprisingly productive in New York after an underwhelming run with the Penguins. But this season, with Jaromir Jagr rapidly descending toward mediocrity, Rozsival is no longer as effective. As his limitations have been exposed in concert with Jagr’s decline, Rozsival has become a weak link — where he was once a perfectly serviceable solution — despite the lack of obvious decline in his personal play.

It took 60-plus games of tinkering, but the Rangers coach, Tom Renney, finally came upon a combination of forwards that worked, with the Rangers’ depth of scoring making up for the lack of a dominant top line à la the Senators’ trio of Jason Spezza, Dany Heatley, and Daniel Alfredsson. Now he has to come up with a similar solution for the defense, and in particular for the point on the power play.

With Paul Mara expected to return this week, the Rangers’ blue line is crowded — eight men for six spots — and Renney has precious little time to find a working solution that will propel the team into the postseason and give them a fighting chance to go deep into the playoffs. Mara has nice upside, his hard shot from the point perhaps the most consistent weapon available to Renney, and his career minus-95 rating has dropped precipitously in lockstep with his improved defensive play (plus-9 in 74 games as a Ranger).

Marek Malik will not emerge as a solution here, not unless he suddenly finds a way to channel his fading shoot-out celebrity into consistent offensive creativity. Trade deadline acquisition Christian Backman (one assist in eight games as a Ranger) hasn’t shown any signs that he’s ready or able to take on that role. Each of the trio of youngsters (Marc Staal, Fedor Tyutin, and Daniel Girardi) has shown signs that they could be better options than Rozsival. Of the three, Staal has the most potential; but because he’s only been on the ice for only 27:30 of power play time through 70 games (or 23 seconds a game), it would be unreasonable to expect him to rise to the occasion.

Unfortunately, it would appear that the Rangers’ best options for the power play point are in their past and future. Forward Matt Cullen, who was never given the opportunity to run the point while in New York, has rebounded by scoring 49 points in 57 games running the point for the Carolina

Hurricanes, and there might be no better puck-moving blue line prospect in the entire hockey world than 20-year-old Bobby Sanguinetti. He’s tallied 70 points in 61 games for the OHL’s Brampton Battalion (including 29 goals), but his arrival on Broadway probably won’t come until October, not unless Renney transforms into a riverboat gambler and immediately inserts Sanguinetti on the Rangers’ top power play unit when the Battalion’s season ends. So over the next few weeks, Renney will mix and match, trying to find a solution to a season-long problem. The best available short-term option would be to let Mara loose, in the hopes that channeling his high-scoring past won’t result in a consequential lapse in his play away from the puck. It would certainly be a shame if this talented Rangers team turned out to be only one piece away (Campbell or Cullen) from a deep playoff run. But the good news in all of this is that Sanguinetti is on the way, and with him joining Lundqvist and Staal as part of the defensive core and stepping in as the first legitimate successor to Brian Leetch, the Blueshirts’ future is looking bright.

Mr. Greenstein is the editor in chief of InsideHockey.com.