For division champs: A 5-on-2 power play

WITH all due respect to Carey Price, you can see it from a mile (or approximately four months) away whereby the crossover wild-card spot into the Atlantic presents a less challenging path to the conference final than second or third place in the Metro.

So just one year after the Rangers’ pride got in the way of common sense before the Islanders finally, if belatedly and clumsily, plotted their way into facing the Panthers rather than the Penguins in the first round, a Metro power or two will confront the same choice of either playing it straight to earn a spot in the divisional meat-grinder or playing it loose to thus get entrance into a seemingly weaker draw on the other side.

One team or another will face this choice on a year-to-year basis for as long as the current playoff format remains in place.

But there is a way to fix this, put a stop to the conundrum that inevitably leads to shenanigans that compromise the league’s concept of competitive integrity, and at the same time add more meaning to the regular season.

And that is by awarding division champions a potential five home games in the opening round best- of-seven against wild-card opponents, who would thus get just two at home under what would be a 12-4 format. That would pretty much put an end to the practice of dumping into a lower seed to get a more advantageous path to the Cup, wouldn’t it? For ownership, that would also lose a potential home gate as consequence of intentionally sliding to a wild card.

Folks in the hockey industry who are in favor of adopting a one-game tournament play-in between the conference’s eighth and ninth seeds generally reference MLB’s success with its dramatic suddendeath matchups.

But, setting aside for the moment that baseball’s wild-card game features teams with the fourth- and fifth-best records in their respective 15-team leagues (actually, the teams with the second- and thirdbest records played in the 2015 NL game), avoiding the one-and-done has restored meaning to MLB’s divisional pennant races that had become afterthoughts during the single-team wild-card era.

The NHL has in some measure addressed the dumping issue associated with the entry draft by expanding the lottery. It should now address the playoff-seed issue while simultaneously enhancing the meaning of divisional races and the rewards of winning them.

Five first-round home games for division champions. Two for wildcard entrants.

The 5-2 Solution.

When Gary Bettman disputes NHL revenue is “stagnating,” as the commissioner did last week, that represents a prime example of why the league’s players don’t trust him on issues such as the Olympicsfor-a CBA extension.

Bye the way: We’re told the origi- nal proposal from the union, and one the players still prefer for next season’s schedule if there is no Olympic break, is for one conference to have a bye-week leading into the All-Star Game with the other conference having it coming out of the break.

That pledge of IIHF money to cover the cost of NHL participation in the Olympics does not include chartering aircraft for the players’ journey to Pyeongchang. In other words, it could be middle seats in coach and layovers for the athletes on their way to South Korea.

Exhibit A in the case of why teams should draft the best talent on the board rather than for apparent need: The Devils selecting center Pavel Zacha sixth overall in 2015 despite the fact defensemen Ivan Provorov (seventh to Philadelphia) and Zach Werenski (eighth to Columbus) were there for the taking.

Now, New Jersey would give its kingdom for a horse on the blue line.

After the Devils’ John Hynes held up last Sunday’s game at the Garden pondering a coach’s challenge on a Rangers goal as if he were a baseball manager on the top step of the dugout studying a play at the plate, it is clear the NHL must adopt a reasonable time limit for such on-bench pre-review, reviews. Reasonable, as in 15 seconds. Speed bump on the way to the Hall of Fame, and a reminder young players’ development is so rarely linear: Anthony Duclair, with one goal in 27 games for the Coyotes.

Finally, I get this is an entirely new ice age.

So I guess I get why the Rangers failed to retaliate in some form for the Cody Eakin high hit that blasted Henrik Lundqvist to the ice and temporarily out of the game Thursday in Dallas. But the truth is, I don’t get it at all. Because though there is a time and place for whistle-to-whistle, this was neither.

If you are not going to protect your (franchise) goalie, then who? And if not in the first period of a scoreless inter-conference game in December, then when? Maybe it’s just the times. But maybe it’s just the Rangers.