You knew the Rangers were prepared for a physical one against the Flames at the Garden on Monday not when Jacob Trouba lowered the boom on the unfortunate Dillon Dube 13:57 into the first period, but when the captain’s blue-line partner looked to come to his aid in an unremarkable yet telling tableau minutes earlier.

When Nazem Kadri took out Trouba with a hard hit just 6:17 into the match, K’Andre Miller — who is not known for physicality — attempted to confront the Calgary center twice before play moved on to the other end of the ice.

This might have become an immediately forgotten tidbit in this wild and crazy affair packed with memorable moments that came to an end when Alexis Lafreniere scored in overtime to give the Blueshirts a 5-4 victory. But it sent an early signal that the team had strapped on its hard hats and was ready to go to work. It was illustrative of a team-tough mentality that persisted through 61:37 of hockey.

As my dear colleague, Mollie Walker, wrote in Tuesday’s editions of The Post, this was a playoff-style night on Broadway. She was correct. The match featured dazzling plays and thunderous hits from Trouba that sparked a couple of melees. A clapback hit on Milan Lucic from Sammy Blais fomented another fracas.