SUNRISE, Fla. — So apparently the key to restoring the Rangers’ swagger on the power play was for the team to be credited with a power-play goal on one that came off an accidental shot while the team did not even own a manpower advantage. 

Are you as confused as the Blueshirts had been while going through stretches of 0-for-9 and 1-for-18 with the man-advantage? Let’s discuss. 

Vincent Trocheck had picked up a weak roughing penalty at 12:36 of a scoreless first period here on Sunday against the Panthers. One minute and four seconds later, Sam Bennett’s goaltender-interference infraction negated Florida’s man-advantage and created a four-on-four manpower situation for the next 56 seconds. 

Time was winding down in the four-on-four when Adam Fox’s feed sent Artemi Panarin through the neutral zone before No. 10’s relay sprung Mika Zibanejad in alone on Sergei Bobrovsky while operating in the wide open-spaces four-on-four allows. 

Zibanejad, who’d scored the Blueshirts’ lone goal in Thursday’s 2-1 shootout defeat in Tampa, split two defensemen at the line before losing control on a deke. The puck slid off No. 93’s stick and nevertheless slipped through Bobrovsky’s five hole at 14:36 of the period for a 1-0 lead. 

“It’s a good move but I can’t tell you the secret to it,” No. 93 said with a smile. “It was nice to see it go in.” 

Trocheck saw it go in from his seat in the penalty box. He hadn’t even stood up to get back onto the ice. The door hadn’t opened. But the hometown scoreboard fortuitously had 5:24 remaining in the period. 

Which, technically, meant that the “power-play goal” negated the 1:05 that would have remained on Bennett’s penalty had the scoreboard been operated in a timely manner. 

No worries though, for the Rangers were inspired enough by that PPG that they actually added another legit one when Trocheck scored on Chris Kreider’s backdoor feed off the rush at 1:38 of the third period for a 4-2 lead after No. 16 had broken up a Florida play deep in the New York defensive zone. 

Woo Hoo! 

“Having great looks and great opportunities is not enough for the power play, we need to score,” Trocheck said following this 5-3 victory that gave the team three points in two games on this swing through Florida in the aftermath of Tuesday’s Garden debacle against the Caps. “A lot of the message after the Washington game was to put it behind us, that we’d won seven straight and had been playing good hockey before that. 

“We wanted to cut that one out.” 

The Rangers got goals from their marquee guys, Zibanejad getting a pair while Kreider, Trocheck and Panarin chipped in with one apiece. Jaroslav Halak was impressive in his first action since Dec. 17, the netminder turning aside 32 shots, many from in close, as the Panthers had the better of a majority of the final 40 minutes. 

Indeed, the Rangers were outshot 27-12 over the final two periods while crashing the crease with abandon. NaturalStatTrick credited Florida with a 22-13 edge in scoring chances. Three times the Blueshirts took two-goal leads bridging the second and third periods. Three times the Panthers cut the leads in half within 3:27, 3:18 and 1:15, respectively, to make the game a little bit more difficult to nail down than it probably should have been. 

Kaapo Kakko was a force down low again, the Finn earning assists on Kreider’s goal in front and Zibanejad’s second goal from just inside the right dot in the second period. He was impossible to knock off the puck while slipping into his role as a possession machine on the top line just as he was when the unit was intact for the first 13 games of the year. 

“He was outstanding,” head coach Gerard Gallant said of No. 24, who led club forwards with 15:56 of even strength ice time. “He had a gritty game in Tampa, too. I really liked the way he played here.” 

The newly minted Alexis Lafreniere-Filip Chytil-Jimmy Vesey unit made no impression at all in 6:03 of five-on-five that represented the smallest complement of equal-strength ice time for any of the club’s four lines. But that allotment was merited given the unit was on for one attempt and shot — from Lafreniere in the first period — while sporting ugly ratings of 12.50 Corsi and 25.07 xGF. 

We’d say better luck next time but with Gallant’s itchy fingers, there might not be a next time.