For the first time in 52 years and the first time ever, that is the history the Devils can prevent from happening by locking down a place in the playoffs.

Because if the team on the other side of the Hudson is unable to reverse the recent downward slides of 4-6 and 8-10 following Saturday’s impressive 3-2 shootout victory in Nashville that threaten to spoil this unexpectedly pleasing season, it will mark the first time since 1966 without a New York/New Jersey presence in the Stanley Cup tournament and the first time ever without a N.Y./N.J. team in the playoffs in a year we had at least two teams in the league.

The Rangers failed to qualify in the 1965-66 penultimate season of the Original Six. They were the only show in town — such as it was — that season, the Blueshirts sinking to last place behind other Original Six doormat Boston, still a year away from unveiling Bobby Orr.

So the Cup went on without New York, as it did for 18 of the 25 seasons (1942-67) of the romanticized Original Six era in which Montreal (10), Toronto (9) and Detroit (5) captured 24 Cups, somehow leaving one for the 1960-61 Bobby Hull-Stan Mikita-Pierre Pilote-Glenn Hall Black Hawks.

That was the era in which the Canadiens had first dibs on every player in Quebec, the Maple Leafs first call on just about all of the kids from Ontario and the Red Wings first crack at the guys from southwest Ontario and Alberta, so a reminder that whatever stacking of teams is or is not taking place in the KHL, the NHL was there first, a long time ago.

But back to our history lesson. After missing the playoffs in 1966, the Rangers didn’t miss again until 1976. By that time, the Islanders, hatched in 1972-73 to prevent the WHA from putting a team into Nassau Coliseum had become a pre-dynastic force. And when the Rangers and Islanders both missed for the first time in 1997-98, as they would for each of the next three years, the Era of Excellence in New Jersey, which joined the party in 1982-83, had begun.

Of course, New York had both the Rangers and the Americans from 1926-27 through 1941-42, and never in those 16 seasons did both teams miss at the same time. Indeed, the Blueshirts only missed once, in 1935-36, when the Amerks went to the Cup semis.

But now, history can be made in 2017-18. It would be the kind of lousy history appropriate to this lousy Hockey New York season. Only New Jersey can save us.

Speaking of which, it is time for Michael Grabner to step up, isn’t it, now that a team in contention is actually relying on No. 40 to sprinkle in a goal or two here and there.

Wearing the Blueshirt, Grabner was essentially always dangerous and disruptive even when he wasn’t scoring. That has not been the case in New Jersey, where the Austrian Express has cobbled just 11 shots in going scoreless through his first eight matches.

So we — the hockey community — are told a primary reason Erik Karlsson wasn’t dealt at the deadline was because he (through his agents at Newport) refused to discuss a contract extension with interested parties.

But according to the CBA, Karlsson, working on a multi-year deal that runs through next season, is prohibited from negotiating an extension until July 1, just the way all players on multi-year deals are forbidden from talking numbers on an extension until July 1 of the year preceding free agency.

Unless, of course, the league had granted Ottawa/Karlsson a singular exemption to yet another asinine clause in the labor agreement that is meant to hamstring teams, and if so, the Rangers would probably have liked to get one too while engaging suitors for pending 2019 free agent Ryan McDonagh.

If this had either not been an Olympic year or had it been an NHL Olympic year and winger Eeli Tolvanen had not had the opportunity to shine under the spotlight on the big stage, perhaps the Predators would have been willing to loosen their grip on the 18-year-old object of the Rangers’ affection and send him to New York in exchange for Rick Nash.

But instead, following a nine-point (three goals, six assists) performance for Finland at the Games, the 30th-overall selection at last year’s draft is in line to sign a contract commensurate with a first-overall selection when he’s free to join the Predators once his Jokerit club is knocked out of the KHL playoffs.

Just have to say, brilliant work indeed by the Calgary front office over which Brian Burke presides not to lottery-protect (or top 10-protect) that first-rounder sent to the Islanders last June as part of the Travis Hamonic deal, wasn’t it?

Thinking more about Brad Park, the man without a country to retire his number, and could not come up with another all-time player whose prime was so evenly divided between two franchises, as was No. 2/22, who played 501 games with the Bruins, with two Norris runner-ups and two first All-Star seasons, and 465 games with the Rangers, with four Norris runner-ups and three first All-Star seasons.

Thought of Red Kelly, but No. 4 played 846 games for the Red Wings, with whom he won four Cups playing on defense with one Norris, six first All-Star seasons and four, top-four Hart finished before playing 470 games with the Maple Leafs as a center while also winning four Cups without a top-seven Hart season.

Somehow, Kelly’s No. 4 is retired in Toronto but not Detroit.

And again, if Park’s number of games played on Broadway mitigates against the honor, well, retired numbers are for fans, nothing less than that, and if there’s a groundswell to put No. 2 up beside contemporaries No.’s 1, 7, 11 and 19, well, then, by all means.

Somewhat strange that Nash and J.T. Miller departed New York with playoff records that left much to be desired, yet the wingers and center Derick Brassard combined for the greatest game by any Rangers’ line in the cap era.

That was Game 6 at Tampa Bay of the 2015 conference finals in which Brassard (3 G, 2 A), Nash (1 G, 3 A) and Miller (1 G, 3 A) combined for five goals and 13 points in the 7-3 victory that staved off elimination. That was the game prior to which, according to Big Game Brass, he and fellow 1A/1B Derek Stepan were called in by coach Alain Vigneault for a “pee-pee spanking.”

Language good enough for a dossier, language good enough for Slap Shots.