There’s been much made of the Rangers overwhelmingly positive goal differential, which stands at a division-leading plus-27. Yes, division-leading. No team has had that much of a positive goal differential and missed the playoffs since the 1969-70 Canadiens missed with a plus-43.

But games like this one on Thursday, a 3-2 Garden defeat to the Flyers that, coupled with Boston’s victory over Buffalo, reduced the Blueshirts’ tragic elimination number to 11 points, illustrates how utterly meaningless a stat that is in the grand scheme of things.

Because when games are on the line, the Rangers just haven’t been able to cut it. Their record in one-goal games (including overtime and shootouts) is an astonishingly bad 4-15. They have yielded third-period leads in six games they have lost. The positive goal differential has been created through four victories by a margin of four goals, three by a margin of five goals and one by a margin of nine.

They’re a great front-running team, all right, but when it is tight, not so much. Or at least not yet.

“From night to night, there are different reasons we lose these tight games,” said head coach David Quinn, who was perplexed over his team’s insufficient effort and execution. “Whether it be too many penalties or maybe the young guys being a little bit off or maybe the older guys being a little bit off or maybe the D-crew.

“I think it’s been a variety of reasons from night to night.”

Thursday, it was pretty much all of the above. The Rangers dressed five defensemen age 23 or younger, including 20-year-old Zac Jones making his NHL debut fewer than two weeks removed from winning the NCAA title at UMass. So that was going to be a challenge, and it was, with the team pinned for shifts at a time at different junctures of the match by a hungry Flyers club that sensed its prey was wounded.

But there was a lack of discipline that manifested itself with a plethora of penalties that put the Flyers on the power play six times, the final time for a 4:00 man advantage following a high stick by K’Andre Miller that drew blood at 8:14 of the third period.

Philadelphia took advantage of that one, with James VanRiemsdyk scoring on a deflection at 10:29 to break a 1-1 draw after he had also scored the first goal on a power play, when a Travis Konecny drive smacked in off his face at 15:56 to both tie the score and send the winger to the room for repairs.

“Definitely, I think we took a few too many penalties,” said Adam Fox, who played 27:10 while dividing his five-on-five time with either Ryan Lindgren or Jones on his left. “It’s tough to get in a flow when you’re in the box and not playing five-on-five, so it definitely hurt us.

“We definitely wasted an opportunity to get a win there. We’ve just got to be a little bit smarter.”

The Rangers did not appear to play with the zest required of the moment. Maybe the continued interruptions — only 44:21 of five-on-five play — played a part, but the Blueshirts appeared willing to go along with the role. There were spurts, but the game took on the feel of either a preseason game or a post-elimination match.

While one of the great cliches in sports concerns not feeling sorry for yourself, it seems as if the Rangers did feel sorry for themselves in the wake of the 6-1 humbling they had suffered at the Coliseum on Tuesday. Resilience took a backseat in this one.

“I think the last 15 or 20 games, our team has been in a dogfight every night, and I’ve thought we’ve done a pretty good job of coming to the rink, having a good mindset and playing as hard as we can,” said Ryan Strome, who turned in one of his most pedestrian performances. “I don’t think tonight was our best effort, I think obviously the Islander game was disappointing.”

Strome then talked about how the team hadn’t quit despite having a lot of opportunities to do so. Maybe that’s true, but this season consists of 56 games, not 46. This was Game 47. There was no excuse.

Quinn flipped Alexis Lafreniere and Chris Kreider, moving the first-overall pick up to the unit with Mika Zibanejad and Pavel Buchnevich while No. 20 skated with Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko. Lafreniere thrived and created off plays while getting into open ice. Buchnevich was decent, Zibanejad less than that. Kreider and Chytil had some early moments, but nothing notable in this Ball of Blah.

And with so much time spent killing penalties, Vitali Kravtsov was underused, Quinn continuing to stick with Colin Blackwell on the Panarin-Strome unit even though No. 43 was as ineffective as most of his mates. Still, that decision didn’t turn the game.

It was a tight game and the Rangers were not good enough. Rinse, wash, repeat.