The Rangers have three games left - beginning Tuesday at the Garden against Nashville - before breaking up for two weeks, and for the five Blueshirts who will head to Vancouver following Sunday’s home game against Tampa Bay, it will be impossible to put the Olympics out of mind.

The Rangers had been a frustrated team - a consistently losing team - until they received a visit from a Stanley Cup contender and a very familiar rival on Saturday night. Then they became something of a different team.

Henrik Lundqvist made 41 saves and Ryan Callahan triggered a three-goal outburst in the second period as the Rangers beat the Devils 3-1 on Saturday night.

It’s not as though losing streaks are anything new to the Rangers, nor is the Devils coming into the Garden carrying a better record. But the Blueshirts are less familiar with being upstaged on Broadway by their rivals from Jersey.

After playing for the Flames in a 3-0 loss to the Flyers to end his short Calgary stint on Monday, Olli Jokinen sped to L.A. Tuesday to begin a Ranger tenure that in all likelihood will be even shorter.

The Rangers late Monday night closed a trade that sent forgotten winger Ales Kotalik, along with Christopher Higgins, to Calgary for center Olli Jokinen and winger Brandon Prust. The deal ends Kotalik’s short-lived tenure on Broadway.

The Rangers sent Ales Kotalik back to New York Sunday, telling him he would be traded and assuring that his forgettable tenure on Broadway was through. TSN.ca was reporting Sunday Kotalik was on the verge of being sent to Calgary.

Marian Gaborik staged a sublime performance and Chad Johnson one he will never forget, a 3-1 victory over the Colorado Avalanche that snapped the Rangers’ five-game skid and gave the rookie goaltender his first NHL victory.

The Rangers were blitzed for three goals in the first 14:13 and went down to their fifth straight defeat, 3-2, to the Phoenix Coyotes that kicked off their three-games-in-four-nights trip out West that continues tonight in Denver.

Marian Gaborik, who along with Henrik Lundqvist had propped up the Rangers for the better part of the season’s first three months, has scored just once in the last 11 games; seven of those games have seen the Rangers score one goal or less.