Rangers’ stars keep shining in quest to erase last year’s flop

Some can argue that the Rangers’ top-heavy lineup is a flaw, but when the star players who occupy those spots are consistently operating at the elite level they’re capable of, the results speak for themselves. 

And that they have for the Blueshirts, loudly and fervently, in the form of a franchise record-setting regular season that has poured into a 5-0 tear through their first games of the playoffs. 

The bigger the spotlight, the brighter the stars — and, boy, have the Rangers’ top players shined since the stakes have risen. 

“You look at Bread [Artemi Panarin], Mika [Zibanejad], [Vincent Trocheck], [Chris Kreider] and all these guys, they’re out early before practice,” trade-deadline acquisition Jack Roslovic told The Post on Monday at MSG Training Center. “They’re going the extra mile. It sounds cliché, but you don’t see that in every superstar. It’s great to see. It’s easy to follow. It’s easy to be around.” 

This postseason stretch, of course, is in stark contrast to where the Rangers were just a year ago. Exactly 365 days prior to the creation of this column, Gerard Gallant was ousted as head coach following a team implosion of epic proportions in a seven-game first-round defeat at the hands of the Devils. 

The loss fell directly on the shoulders of the team’s star players, who largely faded to the background after going up two games to none.