The quality that strikes you about Niko Mikkola is the exuberance he displays whenever he has the chance to either initiate or participate in a physical encounter.

A fracas breaks out, and there racing toward the scene is Big 77, like a child responding to the chimes from a nearby ice-cream truck.

If Dylan McIlrath had been a mobile 6-foot-5 Finn, that’s what he would have looked like. Or have you forgotten the zeal with which the 2010 first-rounder intervened when Derek Stepan suffered broken ribs on a late hit from Boston’s (and later, Hartford’s) Matt Beleskey on Black Friday of 2015? Or when he took on Wayne Simmonds after the-then Philadelphia enforcer concussed Ryan McDonagh with a sucker-punch three months later?

Of these Rangers’ in-season additions, Vlad Tarasenko has been a good fit, Tyler Motte has added an important ingredient to the fourth line and Patrick Kane is still trying to find his footing after an underwhelming first 16 games wearing the Blueshirt.