If the Rangers are seeking a coach who can teach while re-establishing a no-nonsense culture and hard-edged identity on Broadway, then management should simply look across the river to where Scott Stevens lives.

The Devils logo that the Greatest 100 defenseman wore on his chest while winning those three Stanley Cups from 1995-2003 should not disqualify Stevens from consideration for the job. That stuff became inconsequential once quintessential Montreal defenseman Jacques Laperriere showed up behind the bench in Boston as an assistant in the late 1990s.

Bringing it closer to home, the reason Bryan Trottier failed in his short run on Broadway had nothing to do with his Islanders heritage and everything to do with his ill fit for the job. That would have been so in Colorado, Pittsburgh or on Long Island.

The future of the Rangers rests largely on the organization’s ability to identify and develop young defensemen. General manager Jeff Gorton and his personnel department are responsible for the first part of the equation. If Libor Hajek, Ryan Lindgren, Yegor Rykov, Neal Pionk and John Gilmour are the wrong guys, then the road back to contention will be a long and winding one. And that is the road merely to playoff contention.

If management has correctly identified these defensemen as prospects, then the responsibility falls on the coaching staff to teach and develop them, individually and within a team structure designed to suppress shots and chances. That applies to Brady Skjei and Tony DeAngelo as much as the previously cited blueliners.

Stevens, with experience as an assistant with the Devils and the Wild, is the ultimate teacher. Remember, he was taught himself by the best: Larry Robinson. But Stevens is also a student of the game. He is a stickler for detail. No one understands more about the importance of preparation and of work ethic. The man is the embodiment of winning hockey culture, an individual who commands the respect of any room he walks into, from the moment he walks into it.

There is no slam-dunk hire here for the Rangers. The absence of an obvious alternative was a primary reason management did not move out Alain Vigneault in October. It is not 1978, when Fred Shero was there to be taken (at the cost of a first-rounder, by the way) or 1993, when Mike Keenan was an automatic.

Gorton is being open-minded here, willing to consider hiring a coach out of college — Denver’s Jim Montgomery is believed the most advanced candidate out of that subsection — even if there only have been four men ever to go from the NCAA to the NHL, with the Flyers’ Dave Hakstol the first to make the jump since Badger Bob Johnson went from Wisconsin to Calgary in 1982.

Stevens, who is brilliant breaking down the game in his role on the NHL Network, left the Wild last summer after one (very successful) season on Bruce Boudreau’s staff because he missed his family, which had remained in New Jersey. Maybe Stevens isn’t up for such an all-consuming job.

But Gorton should find out. The Rangers are looking for a leader. They are looking for a teacher. If they look across the Hudson, they will find both of them in one.

A year after going low on Alex Ovechkin in round one of the playoffs, the Maple Leafs’ Nazem Kadri went low on Rick Nash, right at No. 61’s knee, and somehow escaped without a penalty for the malicious deed in Game 1 in Boston on Thursday.

The Leafs center did not escape without punishment for his reckless run at Tommy Wingels later in the match, earning every minute of the three-game suspension he received for his leaping headshot. Not a good start for Toronto or for Kadri, but a very good start for George Parros and the NHL disciplinary committee.

We will stipulate that Mike Babcock knows his team a little bit better than Slap Shots does, but the Toronto coach honestly thinks he has a better chance with Tomas Plekanec as fourth-line center rather than Dominic Moore?

It’s only one game in, of course, but here is a reminder that the Capitals, in the Alex Ovechkin Era, have lost seven series while holding home-ice advantage over the past 10 years. That includes three in the first round and four in the second round.

I overlooked it because it happened toward the end of what had been a miserable and traumatic season, but the Rangers, having just 17 able-bodied players on site and ready to go in New Jersey for Game 80 following a pregame mishap, symbolized the lack of attention and slippage in detail that marked too much of the year, and that must be corrected.

At this point, the Rangers need Ilya Kovalchuk more than Kovalchuk needs the Rangers. And certainly neither side can commit to the other until the Blueshirts have a coach in place.

Not that Kovalchuk, who comes off the voluntary retired list and thus becomes an unrestricted free agent as of his 35th birthday on Sunday, can’t afford to wait.

Michael Grabner’s largely unproductive stint with the Devils — two goals on 36 shots for a 5.6 shooting percentage in 21 games following his 52 goals on 293 shots for 17.7 in 135 games as a Ranger — probably will thin the field attempting to sign the Austrian Express as a free agent and thus make a Broadway encore a more feasible proposition.

Though it is safe to figure on Grabner doubling his current $1.65 million salary, the question is whether the Blueshirts would be willing to go three of four years for the winger, who will turn 31 during training camp.