The Rangers, after withholding their core players Wednesday, lost a third game in a row in regulation for the first time this season. That loss to the Canadiens, however, seemed like an afterthought.

There are more important things on the Rangers’ minds, such as staying healthy and preparing to face either the Penguins or the Capitals in a best-of-seven first-round playoff series that will begin either Monday or Tuesday.

“We can’t move anywhere,” head coach Gerard Gallant said with a smile after the 4-3 loss to lowly Montreal, referring to the fact that the Rangers are locked in to second place in the Metropolitan Division.

The Rangers have one more regular-season game to get through before they can turn their full attention to their first playoff appearance since 2017, but that game may have more meaning that a typical season finale, for several reasons.

The Capitals will venture to the Garden on Friday night for a full-circle game with the Rangers that could have playoff-matchup implications. The teams squared off on opening night, met again near the halfway point of the season and will now wrap up the regular season together.

After the Capitals ran the Rangers out of Washington with a 5-1 victory on Oct. 13, the Blueshirts gave it right back to them in a 4-1 victory on Feb. 24. But it isn’t so much what has gone on between the teams this season that makes the game Friday a spectacle.

Without rehashing the details too much (because if a Rangers-Capitals playoff series does fall into place, you’ll hear way too much about it) a certain Capitals instigator (OK, Tom Wilson) is still public enemy No. 1 among the Rangers and their fans after he beat on former Blueshirt Pavel Buchnevich and star winger Artemi Panarin in the fourth-to-last game of last season.

Wilson probably won’t have a chance to go after any of the Rangers’ top players, considering they’ll be safely out of reach in the press box, so Friday will just be about getting through the game unscathed.

“I think everything that happened in the regular season is behind you,” Gallant said. “You kind of start over again. No matter if you dominated one team or the other team dominated you, I think it’s a new season. That’s the way I look at it, too. You got to get ready for it and play well.”

Forward Kevin Rooney noted this season went quickly despite the fact it was the first 82-game slate since 2018-19. That is a testament, he said, to the way the Rangers piled up wins.

But once the final buzzer sounds Friday night, the Rangers will know what their first-round matchup will be and a new season will begin.

“That’s the way I’m going to look at it,” Rooney said. “New season starts next week. I know we have one more game to continue to build and feel good about ourselves, but definitely next week is going to be a new season. It’s a different animal. We’re really looking forward to that challenge.”