A CURIOUS opening day of the unrestricted market turned to night without the Rangers having extended a single bona fide offer to even one of the elite free agents who had become available one second after midnight on Monday.

But then, their inaction hadn’t cost them any of their targets, either.

Even as the Blueshirts delivered impressive recruiting messages via personal phone messages and pre-packaged videos to Bobby Holik, Billy Guerin, Tony Amonte, Darius Kasparaitis and Chris Chelios; even as the Rangers remained so obviously desperate to use this class of free agents to correct massive deficiencies, Glen Sather appeared to be marching lockstep with his fellow general managers in a strategy orchestrated by Gary Bettman to dampen league-wide spending.

Though presumably not guilty of the legal definition of collusion, the commissioner clearly had counseled clubs against coming out of the gate with contract offers in the expected – and unprecedented – $8-10 million range. Indeed, the league-wide strategy was aimed to force the players and their agents to set the market themselves by making requests of those teams that had expressed interest in negotiating. While successful in producing a postponement of spending – a year ago, a far more mundane group of athletes had essentially been signed, sealed and delivered within 18 hours of the sounding of the opening bell – the tactic was doomed to ultimate failure.

Because as clubs weighed the common good against their own needs, as the sand continued to pass through the hour-glass, self-interest became paramount. Which is why the Rangers were working at sunset to structure contract offers to at least Holik and Kasparaitis.

Holik, whom the Blueshirts had been targeting since the moment he filed for arbitration 12 months ago, received a late-afternoon offer of between $8-8.25M per from the Maple Leafs, one the Devils apparently hemmed and hawed about matching despite organizational vows to do everything their power to keep their franchise center. Having this information in hand, Sather was preparing a proposal for Holik, whose defection across the Hudson would upset the region’s balance of hockey power.

While dealing with Holik’s agent, Mike Gillis, Sather was also in a dialog with Kasparaitis’ representative, Mark Gandler. Though the Rangers had been seriously interested in Chelios, they were unwilling to meet the defenseman’s request for a two-year, $14M deal. Hence, with Chelios prepared to re-up in Detroit, Sather turned to Kasparaitis, 10 years Chelios’ junior. While the Islanders unaccountably refused to tender Kasparaitis an offer, the Rangers were working on structuring a five-year offer believed in the neighborhood of $22.5M.

Though they checked in with Gillis yesterday regarding Mike Richter, the Rangers had not submitted a proposal to bring the goaltender back to the Garden. At the same time, they had not contacted Don Meehan regarding Curtis Joseph, who was known to be the Red Wings’ first choice to replace Dominik Hasek in nets. Joseph had a meeting scheduled for last night with Meehan, at which time he was expected to cut the cord with the Maple Leafs.

Meanwhile, Sather as of nightfall had not yet declared his intentions regarding Amonte, who had received nibbles from San Jose; or regarding Guerin, a priority signing for both Dallas and Detroit, though each had exhibited a peculiar way of showing it through the sunlight hours of the first day of the open market.