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Martin Brodeur was on the bench for the Devils 3-2 loss to the Rangers on Tuesday night, but he is expected back on Thursday when the Devils play Carolina.

(Photo by USA Today Sports)

Martin Brodeur skated off the ice Tuesday morning after testing his sore back one more time, then said the five words that will make Devils fans weak in the knees with relief:

“It’s nice to be back.”

It’s nice to have you.

Now, go save the season.

That’ll be the task in the coming weeks for the Hall of Fame goaltender, to lace up his skates and put on a cape, because this team has tumbled from a Cup contender to complete crisis mode in his absence.

Twenty-four days. That’s all it took. Brodeur left the Prudential Center ice on Feb. 24 after feeling tightness in his back during a pre-game warm-up. The Devils were two points away from the best record in the Eastern Conference when that night started, with every reason to believe they were fighting for playoff positioning.

Instead, they’re fighting for their lives. They are a fragile group that gives up too many chances around the net and has scored more than two goals just three times in their last 13 games. That’s the situation after this 3-2 loss to the Rangers Tuesday night, which dropped them out of the postseason picture entirely with 18 games to go.

It has been a long 24 days.

The Devils always have leaned on their franchise goalie, in good times and in (the rare) bad ones, and they will again now. His absence was a 13-game window into life without No. 30 — a future that is coming sooner than anyone associated with the franchise would care to admit — and it wasn’t pretty.

Not that their struggles can fall entirely on the shoulders of his replacement. Johan Hedberg made a few brilliant saves against the Rangers. He also got caught along the boards before the Rangers’ first goal and admitted that, while the game-winner from Rick Nash came on a two-on-one, the shot “caught me off guard.”

Blaming him for the Devils’ collapse is unfair because this was never supposed to be his role. The team hoped he would play about 13 games all season, certainly not 13 in a row for the first time in his career.

Still, Hedberg was 3-8-2 in relief. He had an .888 save percentage on the season entering last night. He is what he is: a 39-year-old backup approaching the end of his career.

Brodeur might be a year older, but he is the backbone of this team. He brings a level of confidence that impacts everyone on the ice, and his stellar puck-handling could help spark a stagnant offense.

He also looked as spry as a 19-year-old, not a guy with 19 years on his resume, before his injury. Can he return to top form? Can he avoid another injury? He’ll have to, because the margin of error for this team is gone.

“Any time you get somebody like Marty back, it gives you a boost,” teammate David Clarkson said. “But right now, it doesn’t matter who’s back there — we’ve got to find a way to put the puck in the net.”

This will be a month-long sprint in the Eastern Conference now. The Devils and Rangers are fighting with seven other teams for three playoff spots, and based on their talent and the relative weakness of the other contenders, there’s no reason that both shouldn’t get in.

Still, what should happen in a free-for-all shortened season certainly is not what will happen. If both teams don’t start playing at a more consistent level soon, there is a good chance that their playoff hopes will come down to the final week.

If that happens, the Devils and the Rangers play twice that week, on April 21 and in the last game of the season on April 27, at Madison Square Garden. It is entirely possible that one of these teams could not only clinch a playoff spot, but knock out its rival in the process.

There is a reason Clarkson called it a “must win,” and why head coach Pete DeBoer admitted the games against teams competing for those playoff spots carry more weight because it could be “a four-point swing if you can win in regulation.”

The Devils missed on one of those critical opportunities now, and that puts the pressure on each one after this. That puts the pressure on Brodeur to recapture some of the magic from his play during the team’s run to a fifth Stanley Cup Finals appearance last spring.

“If anything, I’m getting better and better every day,” he said. “The symptoms are 100 percent gone. I’m getting a little more strength from the numbness. It’s moving along pretty good, so I’m happy.”

Not nearly as happy as Devils fans will be to see him standing in the crease. Now all he has to do is rescue a team that has tumbled into the abyss in his absence. Now all he has to do is save the season.

Follow @StevePoliti