Gorton would be wise to emulate the Yanks

T HESE are dicey days for general manager Jeff Gorton, who is stuck in a situation not entirely of his own making as the Rangers operate in a time warp of suspended animation between last Thursday’s planting of the For Sale sign outside the team room and the Feb. 26 trade deadline.

While the team — which features one handful of players caught in limbo and another handful of neophytes — runs into the kind of stark reality provided at Barclays Center on Thursday in a 3-0 shutout defeat to an Islanders team that entered the match saddled with the worst goals-against average in the NHL.

In a perfect world, Gorton would be able to create an artificial deadline and market of his own making to prompt immediate auctions for headline trade prospects Rick Nash, Ryan McDonagh, Mats Zuccarello and Michael Grabner instead of waiting for the market to develop and come to him over the next 11 days.

The Yankees, you will recall, jumped the market in dealing Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs six days before the 2016 MLB deadline. But the fact is GM Brian Cashman had a willing partner in Theo Epstein, the Chicago GM who was prepared to part with ace prospect Gleyber Torres among a group of four without stringing things along until the last minute.

Epstein knew who he wanted, knew who the Yankees demanded in return and jumped, unwilling to take the risk of being outbid for the lefty closer. Three months later, the Cubs were rewarded for their aggressiveness by winning the World Series for the first time since 1908.

The Yankees were not only re- warded with the prize in the package, they avoided a week of discomfort in which then-manager Joe Girardi would have had to face decisions about exposing Chapman. That scenario did play out with Andrew Miller, whom Girardi did not use in his final three games in pinstripes before he was shipped to Cleveland.

Now, hockey players are not relief pitchers. If they’re in, they’re in. And so, as Gorton weighs interest in Nash, he is in the lineup, susceptible to injury. As the GM fields offers for Grabner, he is in the lineup, vulnerable to mishap. The same ap-