SUNRISE, Fla. — The disconnect on the Rangers power play dates back to Game 3 of the second round against Carolina, when a 1-for-17 stretch began and spilled into the first three games of the Eastern Conference Final against the Panthers.

It hasn’t significantly hindered them just yet, but it’s glaring for a top unit that had not only finished the regular season among the top three teams in the NHL, but also set the Rangers apart in a big way from their first two opponents.

“Puck’s got to move, feet got to move,” Chris Kreider said Tuesday morning before Game 4 at Amerant Bank Arena, before which the power play had gone 0-for-8 in the series. “Got to support the puck, got to win puck battles.”

This is how it’s gone the last few years that a majority of this unit has been together: There’s stretches of dominance and stretches of fragility.

Nothing could slow down the Rangers power play through the first six games of the playoffs, in which it went 10-for-25 as opponents struggled to keep up with the unit’s automatic movement, quick decisions and innate ability to retrieve pucks and hold the zone.

Toward the end of the Carolina series, however, the other Metropolitan Division powerhouse started to figure out how to defend it better.

And Florida was able to do the same during the series’ first three games.

It seems like whenever a Ranger is waiting for the puck to come to him instead of going to meet it, chances are a Panthers player will step in front to get to it first. That has rung true during most situations, five-on-five play and even when Florida is shorthanded.

The Panthers’ penalty kill has been so aggressive.

Posting a 88.6 percentage on the PK in the playoffs, Florida is currently ranked second in the NHL, behind only the Oilers’ outrageous 92.9 percent. They were ranked sixth in the NHL during the regular season, posting a 82.5 percent mark.

They’ve forced the Rangers to the perimeter and haven’t allowed them to have an easy time setting up, which is what makes them so difficult to defend in the first place.

It could be as simple as the Panthers’ shorthanded strategy paired with the probability that members of the Rangers’ top unit aren’t operating at 100 percent.

Adam Fox hasn’t looked like himself for a bit.

The 2021 Norris Trophy-winner isn’t moving as well as he usually does and that appears to be having an effect on the power play, during which he usually shares the puck distributing responsibilities with Artemi Panarin.

Head coach Peter Laviolette has even had Fox come off early and sent Erik Gustafsson out with PP1 at times recently.

“Well, obviously, Fox is doing a great job, but sometimes he’s tired too,” Gustafsson said of the assignment on Saturday. “You get the opportunity to go in, make sure to be dialed in and in meetings and all that, too. So you know what they’re doing. Conversations between games and stuff like that before games.

“Obviously, you’re just trying to make simple [plays], trying to shoot the puck when I have the opportunity. Just trying to move around the puck as much as I can.”