COLUMBUS, Ohio — Regarding the Rangers, who on Saturday against the Blue Jackets will attempt to match their 2-0 getaway from the 2022-23 season:

1. For the first nine years of his NHL career while playing for head coaches John Tortorella, Alain Vigneault and David Quinn, Chris Kreider amassed a total of 38:47 worth of penalty-kill ice time.

Along came Gerard Gallant who in 2021-22 paired Kreider on the first penalty-kill unit with Mika Zibanejad. And if this is to serve as Gallant’s legacy as a Rangers head coach, it will be remembered as commendable.

For when No. 20 scored on the PK off a feed from Zibanejad at 11:34 of the third period Thursday in the opener at Buffalo to give the Blueshirts a 4-1 lead en route to a 5-1 victory, that marked Kreider’s eighth shorthanded goal over the last three seasons.

That leads the NHL by one over Vancouver’s Elias Pettersson and Toronto’s Mitch Marner. Not too shabby for an individual who got his first shorthanded goal in his 611th career game, Jan. 13, 2022, against San Jose’s Aidin Hill in the match in which Braden Schneider made his NHL debut.

“I always kind of thought it would be something I’d be good at,” said Kreider, who also scored a power-play goal in the opener to boost his career total to 267, fifth in franchise history and just five behind Andy Bathgate. “Good first step … reach … close on guys.

“Get in the way, and when the puck turns over, take off.”

The Rangers killed all three Sabres power plays over an aggregate 5:22, allowing only one shot while blocking six attempts. The Zibanejad-Kreider tandem was one of three used by head coach Peter Laviolette with Vincent Trochek-Barclay Goodrow and Nick Bonino-Tyler Pitlick.

“I think playing on the power play has benefitted me by understanding where the problem areas are,” said Kreider, whose 35 power-play goals over the last three seasons are tied for second in the league with Zibanejad, a whopping 22 behind Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl. “I don’t want to necessarily be cheating, I don’t want to get caught out of position, but you know when you can go and when you can’t.

“It’s a lot easier playing with Foxy and Mika.”

2. The Blueshirts won 38 of 60 faceoffs against the Sabres (63.3 percent) with Alexis Lafreniere leading the way by winning four of five draws. Nick Bonino was at 75 percent by going 9-3, while Vincent Trocheck clocked in at 66.7 percent in winning 12 of 18.

Lafreniere stood in for center Filip Chytil, apparently compromised by the unidentified upper-body injury he sustained at camp’s fourth day on the ice that sidelined him for two weeks. No. 72 did not take a draw. Artemi Panarin, the line’s left wing, took one draw and lost it.

“It’s a good spot to do that when somebody’s coming back,” Laviolette said. “We had talked to Laff about it, we sat him in on the faceoff meetings and worked with him on-ice a little bit and tried to give him some help. And then he crushed it.

“He’s not a natural centerman, [Thursday,] it went our way in the circle a little bit and as part of that he did a really good job,” Laviolette said. “I don’t think it’s something we want to be married to for the rest of the year, but it’s nice that he was able to jump in and help us out in that situation.”

More to the point, though, is that the Rangers need Chytil to be able to jump in and help out at the dots. A year ago, Chytil’s 39.8 percent at the dots ranked 112th and last among players who had taken at least 500 draws. That represents an almost impossibly tough nut to swallow from a second-line center.

3. The Kid Line lived!

Well, for about 40 seconds on the back end of the Rangers’ third power play that came at 7:18 of the third period with the club holding a 3-1 lead.

The Blueshirts scored 16 seconds into their first man-advantage with Kreider deflecting home Fox’s drive from the right top.

On the second power play, the first unit consisting of Kreider, Zibanejad, Panarin, Trocheck and Fox changed after about 55 seconds. The second unit featured four forwards in Chytil, Lafreniere, Kaapo Kakko and Blake Wheeler, with K’Andre Miller the lone defenseman back at the top. That’s how the club generally practiced this week.

But on the third power play, after the first unit changed, the Rangers sent out Chytil, Lafreniere and Kakko up front with Miller and fellow defenseman Erik Gustafsson back at the points.

“It was [game situation],” Laviolette said. “First of all, I think it’s still a really good power play, I don’t think you give anything up with the defensemen we have on the ice.

But from a defensive standpoint, to have two guys who think that way — I think when a defenseman gets on the flank of a power play he thinks more about the defensive side or what might happen as opposed to a forward

“So for me,” the coach said, “it was just pulling back from the mindset but not necessarily decreasing the quality of the power play.”