Mike Celizic

NEW YORK - The common wisdom in the NHL is that it doesn’t matter where or how you finish the regular season, as long as you’re in the playoffs. Unlike in the NBA, where seeding is a pretty accurate reflection of actual ability, hockey teams have won the sport’s holy grail, the Stanley Cup, from the bottom of the draw, the top of the draw and the middle of the draw.

If you could have a goaltender in basketball, it could be the same in that sport. It wouldn’t hurt if you could take a guy driving the baseline into the boards, either. That’s what makes hockey’s postseason such a crap shoot — you’ve got a goalie and you can hit people.

And if ever the NHL hoped that common wisdom is as prescient as advertised, it’s this season. Because there’s nothing the resurrected league would like in this, its first postseason in two years, as much as seeing the New York Rangers carry the NHL banner — and television ratings along with it — into the Stanley Cup finals in June.

I’m a hockey fan, so I don’t particularly care which teams make the finals. In truth, I’m somewhat partial to the New Jersey Devils, who, along with Detroit, have carried the sport’s banner of excellence for more than a decade.

In Canada, fans also don’t care that much. Up there, fans would just as soon see the Ottawa Senators finally pay off on their enormous talent, get to the finals, and bring the first Cup of hockey’s new era back to the country that gave birth to it. Or, for a real nostalgic thrill show, they’d flock to a final starring the Montreal Canadiens against anybody.

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But this is about catching the attention of people who don’t know a cross check from a cashier’s check. You don’t do that with New Jersey against Calgary. Or, perish the thought, Carolina, which happens to be a terrific team with a real shot at the Cup, against Nashville.

Commissioner Gary Bettman won’t say as much, but you know there’s nothing he wants more than for the Rangers to be in the finals, preferably against the Red Wings, but, as long as one team is New York, anyone else from the West would do in a pinch.

It would be the perfect ending to a perfect comeback season. It would be New York’s mighty media machine and the Rangers, which isn’t just the most recognizable ice hockey team in the United Sates, but also a true Cinderella.

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Less than two weeks ago, that scenario looked as likely as any other. That was when the Rangers, the one recognizable U.S. brand name in the game, was sailing along on top of the Atlantic Division, a veritable juggernaut of a hockey team with the league’s leading scorer and perhaps most spectacular player, Jaromir Jagr, leading the way.

In the Western Conference, the Red Wings, the league’s other big stateside draw, were doing their part, leading the entire NHL in points and looking more like a Stanley Cup finalist with each game.