Kakko gets top minutes

How’s that for giving the kid a chance?

Kaapo Kakko got season-high 19:33 of ice time (by one second), playing most of the second period and all of the third on the top line with Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad during the Rangers’ 4-2 loss to the Islanders on Tuesday night at the Garden.

Yet the 18-year-old Kakko, taken No. 2-overall in June’s draft, couldn’t register a point, going into the 10-day break for the All-Star Game and the bye week riding an eight-game pointless streak. In his first 44 NHL games, he has seven goals and 16 points, going without a point in 15 of his previous 16 games.

“I thought he did have extra tonight,” said coach David Quinn, who moved him off his kid line with 20-year-old Filip Chytil and 21-year-old Brett Howden. “I’ve kind of liked his game for a while here. It was something that I contemplated doing earlier. But I’ve liked that young line together, and I just didn’t love them tonight as a group. But I did like his game, so I put him up there.”

The move sent Brendan Lemieux down from that top line, where he started his second game back from almost a monthlong absence due to a broken hand, to play with Chytil and Greg McKegg. Brett Howden got only two shifts in the third period and played only 8:24.

➤ There has been a thaw in the relationship between Rangers and Lias Andersson, The Post has learned. Andersson and team president John Da

vidson have been communicating directly for about the last 10 days.

Andersson, 21, has begun to skate/practice with Division II Kungälvs IK, with the Rangers’ approval.

➤ Goalie Igor Shesterkin was sent back to AHL Hartford for the break, with the Wolf Pack playing Friday and Saturday at home. Shesterkin, who played in three NHL games since his recall on Jan. 6, will not participate in the AHL AllStar Game, set to take place in Ontario, Calif., on Monday.

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