Interesting, how life works out sometimes.

It figures that just when the New York Rangers are finally coming together and playing their best hockey of the season, the trade deadline looms. Just when the Broadway Blueshirts are showing the kind of offensive prowess that many of us expected them to from the start, the pressures of modern-day sports reach their boiling point.

This was quite the impressive weekend for this club, no matter what happens on Tuesday.

On Saturday night, the Rangers played a very important game against a team with whom they are neck-and-neck with in the standings. They played a solid game, as did their opponents. At the end, though, they found a way to win. I’m certainly not the first to say that good teams find ways to win in the clutch and that’s what they did against the Buffalo Sabres in a 4-3 win.

Then, on Sunday night, they faced a lackluster team with serious injury problems, and guess what? They did exactly what a winning team does against opposition of that caliber: they dominated them. That’s what a good team should be doing against an injury-riddled cellar dweller like the Florida Panthers.

Much like some of the team’s players said after Sunday night’s s 5-0 domination over Florida, aside from the 3rd period debacle in Montreal a week ago, this team has been playing very, very well for several weeks now.

For most of the season, it felt as if the Rangers were lucky if on any given night, one of their four lines could provide an offensive spark. Now, with three lines consistently contributing on the scoresheet, all of a sudden it becomes a lot easier to believe that this team can not only make the playoffs, but win some of those post-season games, too.

It all starts, of course, with that first line. The maturation of Brandon Dubinsky has been fun to watch. They say that when you just start learning to play hockey, for a while you’ll notice no difference, but then, all of a sudden, you’ll see a big change, a big improvement. Well, I guess that doesn’t apply just to beginners. For half the season, Dubinsky seemed like a kid who was a little bit uncomfortable, a little bit unsure of himself, maybe trying to do too many things at once.

Come January, though, and out of nowhere, Dubinsky has played like a different man. The guy is doing everything right. He fights for every loose puck, he stands up for his teammates and he shows tremendous hockey sense. Watch him move without the puck. He’s always putting himself in the right position on the ice to be effective. Most importantly, though, he never stops moving his feet. Dubinsky never stops skating, which is one of the biggest reasons why he’s constantly beating opposing players to pucks, especially around the net.

Many of those qualities have also been evident in the play of Sean Avery lately. Avery had a lot of problems early this season, first with a shoulder injury and then with wrist injuries that forced him to miss patches of time. He was probably struggling to get into a groove. Now, however, Avery has been in the lineup for a while and his injuries have been given enough time to heal. He’s showing the kind of hands and puckhandling skills that he showed when he first brought his act to Broadway last February. Like Dubinsky, Avery has also done a great job of moving his feet.

What’s been more impressive than anything is Avery’s ability to turn it up a notch and bring his quickness to another level whenever he sees an opportunity for a scoring chance. If he keeps playing this way, he may get the salary he was hoping for this off-season, after all.

It hasn’t hurt either Dubinsky or Avery that they’ve been skating with a Jaromir Jagr that finally seems to have figured out the way he needs to play to be most effective, based on what he can and can’t do at this stage in his career. So maybe his shot isn’t what it was two years ago, and maybe he can’t weave his way through defenders with the same perfection that he could even last year (although he did make some nice moves against the Panthers), but that doesn’t mean that Jagr can’t be effective. Is he still the same player he was? Probably not, but he can still be a benefit to this team.

More often then not recently, it isn’t Jagr who is making the play, it’s Jagr who is starting the play. Notice some of the really quick small passes he’s been leaving for Avery and Dubinsky lately. He still has the mental aspect of the game so he still understands the game offensively. He’s making some of the less glamorous, but still integral plays that have allowed Dubinsky and Avery, or whoever else has been on the ice with him, to finish. That kind of a Jaromir Jagr is certainly better to have than the one we saw for most of the season.

Right now, the way the Rangers are playing, they’ve certainly convinced me they can lock up a playoff spot. The only chink in their armor is that power play, which still needs improvement. One would have to guess that before the puck drops on Thursday for the Rangers next game in Carolina, something will have been done to address that. Ranger fans should hope that general manager Glen Sather makes as shrewd a move this time around as he did last year, when he acquired Avery.

I’ll have more on the trade deadline tomorrow, when business should really pick up.