What’s behind Rangers’ stunning scratch of Pavel Buchnevich

This is not a bombshell. A fourth-line right wing getting scratched in late January by a non-playoff team cannot be a bombshell.
But this is not nothing, either.

Pavel Buchnevich, the aforementioned fourth-liner (for the previous seven games, at least) getting scratched while the Rangers dressed a seventh defenseman and wound up using nine forwards for most of Tuesday’s 1-0 Garden defeat to the Flyers, is not nothing.

It is not simply a wake-up call, either, not when it comes in the club’s first match following an extended bye/All-Star break that started Jan. 20, not when it comes without a corresponding move to insert a different forward into the mix, and not when it had already happened three times.

This, rather, is an air-raid siren being blasted into Buchnevich’s ear by David Quinn, who quite obviously had had enough with the third-year pro’s approach on the ice before reaching this stunning decision. Remember, two weeks ago in laying out his principles of development during an extended conversation with The Post, the coach had talked about “Intentions.”

“I’m big on intentions. Are you making a mistake yet you had the right intentions and it just didn’t work, or is your mistake one because you had the wrong intentions. Is your work ethic what it needs to be? Is your preparation what it needs to be?” Quinn had said. “It’s our responsibility as a staff of sending the message of what is acceptable and what’s not. That’s part of development. Letting them know they have to earn what they get, is part of development. That’s one of my most basic principles.”

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It is difficult to believe that Quinn made this decision primarily based on Buchnevich’s play during the week leading into the break, even if No. 89 got only 9:19 overall and 2:22 in the third period of the Jan. 19 victory in Boston. Two games earlier, Buchnevich had gotten a pair of power-play goals against Carolina. Ten days is a long time to hold that kind of a coaching grudge or to reach back over which to try to teach a lesson.

Quinn said, “He needs to play better,” without much elaboration when offering the lineup reveal following Tuesday’s morning skate. But I wonder if there isn’t more at work here.

I wonder whether Buchnevich played himself out of the lineup by the way he practiced Sunday and Monday, the latter when it became obvious that No. 89 would remain on the fourth line with Cody McLeod and Boo Nieves while natural center Brett Howden would move up to the top-nine spot on the wing that opened when Mats Zuccarello came down with an infected foot.

I wonder if Quinn noticed the grumpy frown on the 23-year-old’s face and felt compelled to stage another intervention almost three months after he last scratched Buchnevich. An immediate response followed then, but then the winger broke his thumb in Columbus on Nov. 10 and his work has almost predictably deteriorated following his mid-December return.

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Yes, it must be frustrating for Buchnevich (nine points, six assists, 15 points in 32 games) to get relatively small doses of five-on-five play, and on a team that is starving for offensive production. But his diminishing ice time is on him, not the first-year coach who followed the veteran coach named Alain Vigneault who, lo and behold, handled the winger with very much the same kind of tough love.
Peripheral numbers are not enough.

When it comes to Buchnevich, the player the Rangers drafted 75th overall in 2013 with the third-round pick obtained from Columbus in the Rick Nash deal, is it always somebody else’s fault or might it actually be his?

The Rangers would love for Buchnevich to become an elite top-six producer. Are you kidding? They are in desperate need of talented game-breakers and in desperate need of young men who can make a difference. At this point, though, the Blueshirts would probably settle for Buchnevich being dependable enough to retain a spot in the lineup.

“I’ve said before that I don’t love playing seven D,” said the coach, who actually rotated eight forwards for most of the second period after Howden departed with a knee injury. “But sometimes there are more important things than that.”

Buchnevich is a pending restricted free agent. The trade deadline is fewer than four weeks away. Subtracting talent would not seem to be part of the plan, but the Rangers need to know just who and what they have here as they go about their business. The shame of it would be if they already do know.