Ryan Lindgren’s long-term Rangers extension is tough to predict but needs to happen

It is universally recognized that the intangibles Ryan Lindgren brings into the room and onto the ice cannot be quantified. The issue, though, is that the Rangers and the defenseman are going to be obligated to do just that with No. 55 coming up on restricted free agency with arbitration rights this summer.

More to the point is that Lindgren is only a year away from unrestricted free agency so a one-year agreement will not do. The Blueshirts are going to need to strike an agreement for a multiyear extension.

There was no fuss and no muss the last time when Lindgren re-upped for three years at $9 million at an annual $3M cap hit within a day of the close of the 2020-21 season. That indeed represented Chris Drury’s first order of business after replacing Jeff Gorton as GM. The Blueshirts can only hope the process goes as smoothly this time.

The Rangers have eight games remaining in which to nail down the Presidents’ Trophy for the fourth time since 1992 (1992, 1994, 2015) beginning with Monday’s first visit of the season by the Penguins. Securing home-ice advantage for the prospective four rounds of the playoffs is the first order of business for this group that is on yet another heater — five straight — and is 21-4-1 since Jan. 27.

But there is no harm in taking a look ahead at what the Rangers will confront this offseason even if individual fates will be determined over the next 11 or 12 weeks. Surely there will be a Column A if the Rangers go deep and a Column B if calamity strikes. Futures will hang in the balance.

Lindgren, though, should be under both columns regardless of how this all shakes out. There is no more known quantity on the Rangers than this lefty defenseman, who is only 26 years old and is one of the prizes of the deadline purges of 2018 and 2019.