Chris Kreider is the only holdover on the Rangers roster from the last time the club played the Penguins in the playoffs six years ago.

That was a different era for the Blueshirts, who were competing in their sixth consecutive postseason and had fallen short of winning the Stanley Cup just two seasons prior. Kreider was 25 and in his fourth NHL season. He scored two goals in five games against Pittsburgh in what turned out to be the Rangers’ earliest exit from the playoffs in five years.

“I probably did take it for granted,” Kreider said just over three weeks ago, after the Rangers clinched a playoff berth with nine games left in the regular season.

The Rangers hosted Game 1 of their first-round series against the Penguins Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, and in a way it marked a new era — one that Kreider is still very much a part of. He’s transformed from a young Boston College product who was just trying to fit in on an established Rangers team to a veteran competitor who has been at the core of ushering in a new generation.

And after signing a seven-year, $45.5 million extension with the Rangers in February 2020, Kreider is projected to play a significant role in this next chapter in franchise history.

Aside from the three qualifying-round games during the 2020 bubble playoffs, the last postseason contest Kreider played in was on May 9, 2017, in the second round against Ottawa. He scored three goals and dished one assist in 12 games against the Canadiens and Senators.

Less than a year later, in February 2018, the infamous rebuild letter was sent out.

Kreider watched as his teammates were shipped off one by one during that 2017-18 campaign. Ryan McDonagh. Rick Nash. J.T. Miller. Nick Holden. Michael Grabner. Ryan Graves. The next season was much of the same, with the Rangers trading away Mats Zuccarello, Kevin Hayes, Neal Pionk and Ryan Spooner in exchange for an abundance of draft picks and the likes of Adam Fox, Ryan Strome and Jacob Trouba.

Both of those seasons ended in early April without playoff berths as the Rangers reworked their roster and stocked their prospect cupboards.

“It’s a lot of fun, it’s exciting,” Kreider said when asked about his personal emotions ahead of Round 1. “That’s what you play 82 for, is to get an opportunity to play in playoffs, play in these rounds, play in these games. We played a specific way and tried to play a specific way over the last 82 games and that shouldn’t change for us now.”

There will be plenty of familiar faces at the other end of the ice for Kreider, with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang at the top of the list. However, the Penguins are a different team, and so are the Rangers.

Kreider is someone else now, too: the third-highest goal-scorer in the NHL this season.

“That’s what happens when you make the playoffs,” Kreider said with a grin. “You tend to see the same teams from your division [who are] making it year after year. Obviously, they’ve been in it pretty much every single year since I’ve been a pro and been in New York. Every team looks a little bit different every single year, but I think there are still some things that they like to do that are similar to things that they did successfully in years past.”