GREENBURGH, NY – Jaromir Jagr calls them “clean games,” but there’s really nothing sanitary about them.

With the playoffs starting, the NHL referees have put their whistles in their pockets and stopped calling the penalties, which were called all season.

And that spells bad news for the Rangers.

Built to be part of the new NHL, where the game is open and scoring is plentiful, if the clutching, grabbing and heavy hits are now allowed, the Blueshirts will have a problem playing with a Devil team, which made its living by doing just that over the past decade.

It’s something that must concern Tom Renney and the coaching staff, but he is not looking at the officiating as a crutch.

“I put the onus more on our players,” Renney said yesterday at practice. “I didn’t go after the referees too much. I put the onus on our players to stay out of our penalty box.”

Fair enough, but after the league swore up and down the rules in the playoffs will be the same as the regular season, now the game changes and really hurts a Ranger team that worked so hard to reinvent itself this season.

Part of that adjustment was playing to the skill players and catering to the new rules. But with only one power play on Tuesday, after last week only having two against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the old officiating is coming back and with that, the Rangers will have to work harder to fight for the puck in the corners and earn every inch of the ice.

And it has showed in the record with the team limping into the playoffs with a five game losing streak.

That’s not to say the referees is the only reason why the Rangers went into a slump, the effort hasn’t been there. At the same time, it doesn’t help, especially now, because the Devils hockey is made for the old rules.

Renney though is looking for his team to adjust, “You have to skate, you have to work and you have to give the second effort. We got to smarten up and play within the rules of the game in the playoffs.”

The silver lining in all of this is the Rangers still have a strong defensive core and the goaltending of Henrik Lundqvist. For most of the season, the Blueshirts won their games by low scores with smart team shot blocking and being quick to adjust to the new regulations.

Now, if the game will be called like it has in the past few weeks, the Rangers will need to adjust again. They have some gritty players and if motivated, the team has as good of a chance as any to pull off the upset.

That’s the million-dollar question. With a chance to win the division, New York was enthusiastic for only part of the game and then the malaise came back. Renney needs to push the right buttons, because if the Devils jump out to an early lead, the Rangers may revert to just sitting back and letting the game come to them.

Which will mean an early exit for a team that looked so good at the Olympic beak.

But the troops will be out, because with seven games played within a six-mile radius, there will be plenty of support for the Blueshirts.

“Our fans are going to be in their building,” Jaromir Jagr said. “New York Ranger fans haven't seen playoffs in a long time. Now they have a chance to even go to their arena for a lot of games. I think there's going to be a lot of them over there.”

Now the only question is what Ranger team will they see?

Notes: Renney said Martin Rucinsky will be fitted with a new cast on his broken finger that may allow him to play in the Devils series. He may even dress for Game One…Steve Rucchin [broken foot] didn’t practice yesterday, but is expected to be in the lineup on Saturday, as are the other two Rangers who sat out, Darius Kasparaitis [groin] and Petr Sykora, who didn’t get the new practice schedule and arrived late, so he was rested… During practice, Renney took a shot on goal that beat Lundqvist. It was a highlight of lighthearted afternoon, which saw the Rangers in good spirits.