Henrik Lundqvist had a busy night on Thursday, facing 47 shots from the Jets in the opening 6-4 victory that represented the 450th of his NHL career.

But that is not the reason the King will take a back (up) seat to Alex Georgiev at Ottawa on Saturday.

“It was the plan, regardless,” coach David Quinn said in naming the 23-year-old sophomore as his starter. “Just big picture.

“We only play three games in 17 days, I don’t want Georgie sitting a long time. You know, again, this is an 82-game season and there was a lot of work for Hank, but this is the way we’d been looking at it for a while.”

The Rangers last split opening assignments through their first two games in 2014-15, when Cam Talbot got the nod in Game 2 after Lundqvist played the opener. Georgiev received his first start last year in Game 3.

Quinn vowed to get Lias Andersson more ice time than the 8:33 the fourth-line center got in the opener, in which he sat for the final 13:11.

Andersson’s night began badly when he tripped over a camera cable during the pregame introductions and never got all that much better, with the Swede deficient on Mark Scheifele’s goal from the slot that tied it 1-1 in the first and on Kyle Connor’s power play goal in the third that lifted Winnipeg to a 4-3 lead.

“I have a theory, but I want to keep the conversation between Lias and I [private] about what happened last night,” the coach said. “He’ll play more.”

Ryan Strome went 9-4 at the dots in the opener, the best mark by far among the Rangers, with Mika Zibanejad 11-12, Brett Howden 4-10 (but with the win that created his own game-winner at 15:51 of the third), and Andersson 1-3.

Following Saturday’s game, the Blueshirts are off until next Saturday afternoon, when the Oilers come to the Garden. Then there is a break until the next Thursday, Oct. 17, when the Rangers play host to the Devils before playing at Washington the following night.