from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Regarding the Rangers, whose logo could well be a question mark heading into Tuesday’s Game 4 of the season, at the Garden against the Blues:

1. It is a long way to the Feb. 26 trade deadline, 60 games through which the Blueshirts must navigate from here to there. But the inability of longshot 18-year-old Filip Chytil to materialize into a lighting-in-a-bottle find in the middle makes it very likely that general manager Jeff Gorton will be hunting for an upper-echelon veteran rental center as the season evolves.

And Joe Thornton fits the profile perfectly.

The Post has learned the Rangers and Thornton had several productive conversations during the 38-year-old center’s free-agency period last summer that extended into midday of July 1.

continued