At one point Monday night, as the shootout unfolded in the Rangers’ eventual loss to the Sabres, coach Gerard Gallant glanced at the Madison Square Garden scoreboard. 

And when Gallant scanned the outcomes around the NHL, it made him glad his team already secured a postseason spot. 

“Oh, it’s a battle,” Gallant said after the game. “I mean, fortunately, we’re in a good spot right now. I mean, we’ll see what happens in the standings over the next few days, but you look at the battles below us, and those teams are battling right now — like Buffalo [on Monday].” 

Though Gallant has reiterated that the standings are what they are, and the Rangers’ playoff seeding will unfold however it unfolds, he sounded, at the very least, relieved to have avoided the cluster of four teams for two spots that is defining the final days of the regular season in the Eastern Conference. 

Entering Tuesday night, the Panthers held the first wild-card spot with 92 points.

The Islanders held the second one, a point back.

But the Penguins, at 90 points, controlled their own destiny, with games against the Blackhawks and Blue Jackets, while the Sabres remained in contention — barely — at 87 points. 

Gallant’s team removed itself from those scenarios as of March 27, when the Rangers clinched a postseason berth.

That turned the final two weeks of the regular season into a quest for seeding — with the Blueshirts, Devils and Hurricanes all stationed atop the Metropolitan Division standings. 

The Rangers still have a chance to pass the Devils and earn home-ice advantage for a looming series against New Jersey.

They need to beat the Maple Leafs in the regular-season finale Thursday while the Devils lose their final two games, Tuesday against the Sabres and Thursday at Washington. 

“Obviously, you want to try and win and get home ice and open up in front of the fans,” defenseman Adam Fox said following the game Monday. “But I think once you’re there, you just gotta win games any way. You gotta win road games, too. I don’t think we’re too concerned with that.” 

But it would be a bonus for the Rangers, who have been the lower seed in four of their past seven playoff series — dating to 2015-16, and not counting the best-of-three set against the Hurricanes in the 2019-20 “bubble” qualifying round. 

“If we want to win the Stanley Cup,” center Filip Chytil said Monday, “we have to beat anybody, anywhere.” 

Patrick Kane’s assist on Artemi Panarin’s first second-period goal Monday was the 786th of his career, which moved him into 36th place all-time, passing Mats Sundin.

Kane could next pass Peter Stastny (789). 

That Panarin goal also made Monday the sixth game out of the past eight in which the Rangers scored a power-play goal.

They now have the seventh-best conversion rate in the NHL at 23.9 percent. 

The Rangers will practice Wednesday ahead of their regular-season finale against the Maple Leafs at the Garden.