Jeff Gorton has a mandate to overhaul the Rangers in his first full offseason as the club’s general manager, but the road of reconstruction is littered with obstacles, including rules for an expected 2017 expansion draft that will have significant impact on decisions regarding next year’s roster.

To wit: If teams are required to expose contracts amounting to between 20 and 25 percent of their total cap payroll, how could the Blueshirts get to that $14 million to $18 million threshold without having Dan Girardi and Rick Nash available for claim (assuming players with no-moves expiring July 1 are eligible and those with no-moves beyond that date are not)?

While the groundwork for reconstruction will be laid at next month’s organizational meetings, the Blueshirts — like every other team in the NHL — will have to wait until they’re clued in on expansion details in late June before they safely can proceed with a plan.

We all recognize the quandary in front of Gorton as management attempts to renovate a roster replete with aging athletes carrying prohibitive cap hits … for a team that we should all remember in this time of hysteria finished with 101 points despite down seasons from essentially everyone and is not nearly as bad as it looked while outscored 14-3 by the Penguins over the final 140:42 of the playoffs.

The obvious decisions independent of the expansion draft most notably concern impending unrestricted free agent Keith Yandle; impending restricted free agents Chris Kreider and Kevin Hayes; and the 1A/1B Derick Brassard/Derek Stepan combination down the middle.

The Rangers will have to decide whether it is worth waiting for Kreider to attain a much greater measure of consistent impact or whether he is more valuable as a trade commodity — youth for youth or maybe a No. 1 — just as Gorton will have to decide whether Hayes simply has too many physical gifts to jettison following a lost sophomore season in which No. 13 exhibited troubling traits.

The call on Yandle — an imperfect top four to be sure at what will be at least $6 million per year but a darn valuable one by essentially every measure — won’t be an independent one at that projected cap hit. It necessarily will be linked to decisions regarding Girardi and Marc Staal, if not also on Nash.

It would seem if the front office believes the Stepan-Brassard alliance is no longer sufficient, the logical approach would be to deal the center for whom the club could get the most in return. The cap hit is more prohibitive, but that would likely be Stepan.

But the boldest play available to Gorton would be to put Ryan McDonagh — the most important player on the roster other than Henrik Lundqvist — on the market, where he would immediately become the most valuable, most attractive and most sought after blue chip available.

Understand. There is no suggestion McDonagh was or is the problem, even if his game has plateaued over the last two seasons, since he first separated his shoulder in Vancouver on April 1, 2014, and then did it again Oct. 30 the same year. This is no attempt to denigrate McDonagh, an upper-echelon defenseman, at all. Just recognition that he is the only Ranger who could bring back the type of bounty the organization requires to reboot.

If the mandate is to renovate and rejuvenate, the Rangers owe it to themselves to investigate fully what they could attain in return for this 27-year-old (as of June 13) with a club-friendly annual $4.5 million cap charge through 2018-19 — but whose limited no-trade clause kicks in July 1.

Specifically, it would be to determine what the club might be able to extract from Edmonton, a team likely to be excluded from consideration once the no-trade is in force. What would the defense-needy Oilers be willing to deal for McDonagh, the best defenseman at the best price they might ever be able to acquire?

This year’s first-rounder — which will be overall pick Nos. 1-5 as determined by this coming Saturday’s lottery drawing — would necessarily have to be part of the conversation. So would Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Taylor Hall.

The Kings suddenly have won one playoff game the last two years. Tanner Pearson and/or Tyler Toffoli and how much more for McDonagh? Would the Avalanche deal Matt Duchene as part of a package for No. 27? Would the Maple Leafs contemplate dealing Mitch Marner in order to get in on the action? Actually, you’d have to believe 20 teams would ante up for the captain. (The underlying assumption is the Blueshirts would sign Yandle if McDonagh were dealt.)

Chances are McDonagh will be here for the foreseeable future. But if the Rangers are truly invested in an overhaul, they must be bold and have an open mind about dealing him — before that limiting, limited no-trade becomes operational.