If this doesn’t represent a wake-up call for Michael Del Zotto, 24 and unemployed, then nothing will.

For this isn’t Del Zotto being sent to the AHL midway through his second NHL (and pro) season by the Rangers and John Tortorella, or Del Zotto being scratched nine times by Alain Vigneault, or Del Zotto being kept out of the lineup in Nashville by Barry Trotz, or even David Poile passing on the Predators’ $2.9 million qualifier.

This is, rather, Del Zotto still searching for someone willing to buy low on him during an early summer in which the market for defensemen — serviceable and otherwise — has resembled the Dow Jones and even people like Deryk Engelland and Nikita Nikitin were treated as blue-chip stocks.

Remember last summer when it appeared Del Zotto, Chris Kreider and Mats Zuccarello would be the biggest beneficiaries of the Rangers’ coaching change from Tortorella to Vigneault? Well, two out of three isn’t bad.

Del Zotto, given all sorts of freedom on the ice, couldn’t take advantage of the clean slate; never was able to play to his perceived offensive strengths; never quite clicked with upbeat, positive-thinking assistant coach Ulf Samuelsson any more than he had previously with the dour and sour Mike Sullivan.

My goodness, by December Del Zotto had somehow fallen behind Justin (Hell No, I Won’t Go … to Hartford… for Conditioning!) Falk on the depth chart.

A new start with Vigneault ended with a trade for Kevin Klein. A fresh start in Nashville under Trotz ended without an invite to return for newly hired Peter Laviolette. At some point, it is not on the coaches.

Some point is at this point.

Other than Martin Brodeur, who is a unique case, Del Zotto is the most intriguing free agent remaining on the market. He simply is too young with too much ability to already have landed in the overstock bin.

But that’s where he is after a spell in which every team with needs on the back end — which, by definition, pretty much means every team in the NHL — has done their homework on due diligence on Del Zotto and has passed, and many even before checking the sticker price.

This doesn’t mean time has passed Del Zotto by, or his best days — when, in October 2009, he was, as a 19-year-old, NHL rookie of the month? — are in the past. It means, though, the burden of proof is on the player. It means Del Zotto can’t — or shouldn’t — sell himself for a premium.

For right now, five years down a road filled with speed bumps and now a dead end, Del Zotto is perceived as difficult to coach. This is surely a primary reason why Del Zotto remains without a job in a league of third, fourth and fifth chances … and not only when he is defending in his own end. But seriously, folks.

This can’t be about the dotted line for Del Zotto — not now. For the bottom line is that at the age of 24, Del Zotto is a reclamation project. It is impossible to believe there aren’t needy teams out there that wouldn’t take a flier on him, but at their price, not his; their terms, not his.

This is a summer in which Del Zotto should spend his time surrounded by, and looking at, mirrors. The alarm has sounded.

It is largely pro-forma, and it is actually good news for the Rangers that their three salary arbitration-eligible restricted free agents, Zuccarello, Kreider and Derick Brassard, all filed by Saturday’s deadline.

The objective on both sides of the aisle is to reach a long-term agreement for all three players — Brassard and Zuccarello could become eligible for unrestricted free agency next summer absent multi-year deals — but filing means all three will be under contract for the start of training camp.

Nikolay Zherdev is the last Ranger to go through a salary arbitration case. When the winger was awarded $3.9 million in the summer of 2009, the Blueshirts ran — not walked — away.

John Moore is the club’s lone Group II without arbitration rights. The cap squeeze means the defenseman will be playing on a bridge deal for not all that much more than his $850,500 qualifier. Say, two years at $1.1 million per?

Brodeur, meanwhile, might be the victim of both the cap and of his own formidable shadow he would cast on a club’s No. 1, even as the most willing and conscientious of backups.

But what about Columbus, where Sergei Bobrovsky surely has established himself as an unassailable No. 1 over the past two seasons, and where Curtis McElhinney is the backup for a young, growing team with championship aspirations in a conference with a wide-open window?

And though the dynamics in Pittsburgh are difficult to read, it is impossible to believe the Penguins wouldn’t be better served with Brodeur rather than Thomas Greiss as the alternative to Marc-Andre Fleury.

Bizarre. Torey Krug is a restricted free agent in limbo (also known as “Boston”), eligible for neither salary arbitration nor a Group II offer sheet.

So Josh Gorges, who had Toronto on his no-trade list, rejected a trade to Toronto, and he’s the bad guy and subject to ridicule? Nonsense.

I know what you — like me, and everyone else — were thinking when the Sharks lost four straight to the Kings after taking a 3-0 lead in the first round of the playoffs: This wouldn’t have happened if John Scott had been in the San Jose lineup.