In the past two seasons, the Rangers had often been in the same situation they were in heading into Saturday. Losers of two in a row, trying to stop it from being three in a row, needing to prevent a slide before it began in earnest.

It’s different now, in that the Rangers aren’t fighting for a playoff position. No matter how guarded they want to be, that is as safe as can be at this point of the season. But for all the attention paid to the changes made during the offseason, particularly near the bottom of the lineup and behind the bench, this is largely the same group of players that came up short in 2021 and was swept out of the qualifying round in 2020.

No longer do the Rangers let things spiral. Perhaps that is in part to the changes that have been made. Those who have been with the team for the duration are seeing a different mentality, a different confidence in this year’s group.

“We can control how hard we work,” Adam Fox said. “I think that’s one of those things, maybe when you’re not feeling it with the puck, trying to do something else to be effective. Once you get that confidence back with the puck or be able to make plays, I think that’s when you can let it show.”

The Rangers put forth two of their worst performances of the season last week, dropping consecutive games in Minnesota and St. Louis. A different team might have folded after falling down 2-0 in Dallas on Saturday. Not this one.

“Sometimes you have to lose and you have to say a little bit, look at what you did wrong,” Filip Chytil said.

The Rangers had their moments the past two seasons, Chytil said. But they struggled to find consistency, and both times, ultimately failed to keep the train on the tracks.

“Nobody likes losing, but it’s nice to say, you have to put in the work to get winning,” Chytil said. “Winning is not what you get, just like that. You have to put in work, you have to grind to that. That’s what we’re doing this year.”

Whether that was meant in contrast to the Rangers of years past, Chytil was mum. It is, on its face, though, stark.

“This year, how I said, we are more consistent,” Chytil said. “We’re just putting in more work on the ice. That’s why we’re winning.”

Gerard Gallant has no point of comparison to where the Rangers were a year ago, the Rangers coach can only talk about what he sees now. But the Blueshirts have gone all year without a three-game losing streak. It’s hard not to like his team’s mental fortitude.

“I think they were really disappointed in the performance we put forward in the two games prior to [Saturday],” Gallant said. “[It was a] must-win meaning that type of must-win. Not in the standings or nothing like that, but must-win because we didn’t play real good hockey in those games and we didn’t play the way we have to do to keep moving forward.”

His assessment now?

“I’ll take last game just the way it was. If our players play that way and compete that way, we’ll win a lot of hockey games.”