Rangers face many blue line questions including Sean Durzis health

When the Rangers return from their five-day stretch without a game, they’ll have questions to answer with their blue line.The first involves the health of Sean Durzi, who took a third maintenance day since Oct.21 at Tuesday’s practice and who head coach Mike Sullivan said postgame Monday is “battling through some stuff physically.” Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Mollie Walker about the inside buzz on the Rangers.

And the second, if Durzi remains in the lineup as he has for all 14 Blueshirts games this season entering Sunday’s match with Edmonton, involves the status of his pairing with Marcus Pettersson after they were split up in the loss to the Kings.Durzi and Pettersson have been nearly inseparable since they were acquired in separate July 1 trades — Durzi from the Mammoth in the Vincent Trocheck deal, Pettersson from the Canucks.They skated together from the first day of training camp and were a “pretty solid pair” over the Rangers’ first seven or eight games, Sullivan estimated.

But then in the first period Monday, Sullivan started using Pettersson with Braden Schneider and Durzi with 18-year-old rookie Alberts Smits.“I think they were more effective,” Sullivan said Tuesday when asked what the Durzi-Pettersson pair did better earlier in the season.“I thought they defended well.

I thought their execution with the puck, helping us get out [of] our end, executing tape-to-tape passes, things of that nature.In particular, I think they were defending the rush much better.”The Rangers have struggled defensively in front of their goaltenders in the wake of Igor Shesterkin’s season-ending injury, especially when it comes to containing opposing teams on the rush, but Sullivan has avoided any major change with his defensive pairings since the start of training camp.

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