MAYBE the next time the Rangers acquire the greatest player in hockey history they will have some idea of what to do with him.

Because it has been clear to me all along that from the moment they signed Wayne Gretzky toa free-agent contract on July 21, 1996, the Rangers had no clue what they really had.

Right to the end. Right to the premature end they have now created for themselves, for hockey, for sports in North America.

For three seasons, the Rangers treated Gretzky as more an ornament than a player, more a showpiece than a champion. They brought the greatest player in the history of the world to New York and never made the effort to maximize his ability by going out and getting the team either a complementary, scoring winger or a nuclear deterrent to protect him.

Never once recognized that by making Gretzky better, they would be making themselves better. And wasn’t that the whole point of bringing No. 99 to Broadway in the first place? Wasn’t challenging for the Cup the reason the Rangers wanted Gretzky here?

No, it wasn’t.

Gretzky was a name to the Rangers, the most famous name in the sport, among the handful of most famous sports names ever. Gretzky was the way the Rangers were going to remain an attraction even when they weren’t going to be especially competitive. And, in retrospect, signing Gretzky was the way the Rangers were going to rid themselves of Mark Messier.

It’s almost beyond belief that in less than two years, this Ranger and Garden management structure finessed the premature departures of the two best and most compelling hockey players of the generation.

The Messier Saga has been played and replayed in this space, probably far too often. Messier was one with enough public bitterness to fill the Garden, which, come to think of it, is something you won’t be seeing much at all next season: a filled Garden.

From the minute the Rangers signed Gretzky, they had the marquee name to replace Messier. Without having 99 to sell its team as a marquee team, the Garden never would have dared take the route they did with the captain. Sadly, the fact is that by bringing Gretzky to Broadway and then evicting Messier from that address 12 months later, the Rangers created an atmosphere of friction between the two great friends that has not yet been repaired.

They have never talked about it, and indeed honor one another publicly whenever given the opportunity. Essentially, though, the rift began because Messier believed Gretzky should have used his influence to campaign publicly or privately to keep Messier in New York. Gretzky, meanwhile, believed that Messier should have waited out the team, believing that public pressure would have inevitably compelled the Rangers to come up with a contract offer he could accept.

Gretzky thought he was coming to Broadway to finish his career with Messier. Gretzky thought he was coming to Broadway to win another Stanley Cup.

Gretzky was left on his own.

Gretzky’s official retirement announcement will contain no bitterness. It’s not his style. There certainly will be no public defamation of character coming from the Garden, either. It’s not going to be a public mess.

But rest assured that in his heart, Gretzky believes that Ranger management was not anxious for him to return next season. Why would he think differently? Not once to this day has Neil Smith talked to Gretzky to assure him that the Rangers not only would pick up the option on his contract for next season, but that the team needed him. Not one time did Smith even ask Gretzky what he was thinking about next season. Not once did Smith tell Gretzky that he was wanted, that he was vital to the reconstruction effort that has only just begun.

I don’t think Gretzky ever had even contemplated retirement until he missed the month from Feb. 22 to March 22 with the disc protrusion in his neck. While injured, Gretzky heard and read from too many different sources that the Rangers were better without him in the lineup, that he in fact was holding the team back. Never once did management make the honest effort to assure him that the front office did not subscribe to this theory. Never once did the Rangers ask him to come back.

The last time Smith was asked in a group whether the Rangers intended to pick up the $5 million option on Gretzky’s contract came in Fort Lauderdale just hours after the trade deadline. The GM, extremely tired and somewhat cranky, answered this way on March 23, a day after Gretzky had rushed to rejoin the team without even a single full practice:

“I’ve said countless times that we are; I don’t see why we wouldn’t do it.”

Read the words. Where are the ones that say “We want him, we need him?”

Gretzky can read, too.

Gretzky can hear, too. And he has heard silence from Ranger management while hearing all of the signals from a body that has been battered this year while receiving no protection from his teammates.

It’s amazed me from the first time it happened three years ago. Gretzky would get clobbered, and no one would react. It happened so routinely that after the eighth time or 12th time, I stopped writing about it.

Last Monday night in Philadelphia when Luke Richardson nailed Gretzky to the wall in the final minutes of a meaningless game that had already been decided, re-injuring Gretzky to the point where he cannot turn his neck, the Ranger players did not seem to notice. They did not retaliate in any way for one of the most disrespectful – yes, it was legal – acts I’ve ever seen on the ice.

Next season would have been a difficult enough one for Gretzky under the best of circumstances. He is, after all, 38 years old, playing on a below-average team that has no immediate future. Still, he was going to play. He was going to attempt to finish his career in a manner more fitting than this season has provided. He was going to do whatever he could for the Rangers; whatever they asked.

Now, with the evidence mounting every day that his team does not especially want him to return, he is indeed doing what the Rangers asked without actually saying the words. He is retiring.

Wayne Gretzky is retiring from hockey. It is a catastrophe for the Rangers, even if they do not know it now. It is a horrible, horrible blow to the NHL, which does know it.

For three years the Rangers had the greatest player in the history of hockey and did not really know what they had.

It is a pity.