So the Rangers head into Thanksgiving with a pleasantly surprising 12-9-2 record following Wednesday’s 3-2 victory over the Hurricanes at the Garden, and only a turkey would remind you that the Blueshirts went into the holiday a year ago at 12-8-2.

That team proceeded to go 2-5-3, which extended to 5-11-5 wrong-way runs that doomed the season and set the stage for a second consecutive trade deadline cleansing.

The question therefore is whether this group, so very young, but older and seeming at least a teeny bit wiser through much of the last six weeks, can sustain it?

“That’s our biggest challenge,” said Henrik Lundqvist, simply outstanding in making 41 saves in the 1,000th appearance of his combined regular-season and postseason career. “But that’s the biggest challenge for every team that’s not at the top of the league.

“If you’re in the middle of the pack, consistency is the most important element. But the way we are playing now, we have that capability.”

Mika Zibanejad’s return following a 13-game absence due to an unidentified upper-body issue allowed the Blueshirts to present a two-pronged top-six approach that featured No. 93 skating between Chris Kreider and Pavel Buchnevich on one unit, with Filip Chytil flanked by Artemi Panarin and Ryan Strome on another.

That alignment represents a pick-your-poison matching option for opposing coaches, who will have to choose whether to sic their top defensive pair against the line with the club’s best and most dangerous center (Zibanejad) or the one with the club’s best and most dangerous player (Panarin).

Last year’s team didn’t have that. Last year’s team didn’t have Panarin.

“We have a more talented team than last year, right?” Kreider asked rhetorically. “I believe we’re a better team and I believe we can sustain this, but it’s a matter of making our minds up to play the right way.

“This game was a microcosm of the season. We start out great, fill the net, and then we get away from that, start cheating for offense and in the offensive zone and we find ourselves in our own end for way too long.

“If we play the right way consistently, we have the skill and we have the system to keep this going. It’s going to be up to us. And I think we can.”

The Blueshirts dominated the ’Canes throughout the first period, grabbing a 3-0 lead on goals from Zibanejad on the power play and from Adam Fox and Brendan Smith at even-strength. But the Rangers’ game slipped in the second, with Carolina controlling much of the period and narrowing the margin to 3-2. And then, nearly all of the third period was played in the Rangers’ zone, much too much of it below the hash marks.

“Yes, but I liked our coverage and I liked the way we handled that,” said Lundqvist, who made a handful of bold stops to preserve the lead. “It was kind of one-and-done, not wide-open spaces where they were passing the puck and had a bunch of chances.”

On Nov. 19, Lundqvist told The Post, “I need to do better.” In starting four of the five games since that self-evaluation, The King has done better, going 3-1 with a .936 save percentage and 2.25 goals-against average. If either Alexandar Georgiev or Igor Shesterkin wants his job, they are going to have to take it from him, because Lundqvist sure isn’t about to hand it over.

“I have felt good all year, I’m just as fast as I was [in the past], I’m not slower,” Lundqvist said. “I think I have played better, but there is a big difference in facing 20 scoring chances a game against 14 or 15. You feel sharper in those games because you have fewer big decisions to make.

“It comes down to focus. I’ve been focusing on a few things in practice to bring into the games. The last couple of games, I’ve felt better and better. But we have been better, too.”

It was not all roses in this one. Strome, shifted to the wing for the first time this season, had his weakest game since the first week. Brendan Lemieux, who lost his spot on the second power-play unit as a consequence of the trickle-down effect of Zibanejad’s return, was not only no factor but was responsible for a nonsensical too-many-men penalty that was the club’s third in the last four games and fourth in the last seven. The Ryan Lindgren-Fox pair scrambled throughout.

But the Blueshirts persevered. They’re 4-1 in the past five and 9-4-1 in the past 14. This year.

“It’s inspiring and fun to see how high we can go,” Lundqvist said. “If we can get that consistency, we’re going to be in the race. It’s up to us.”