The Artemi Panarin trade has completely taken the rest of the intrigue and the energy out of the Garden.

With the Panarin saga finally reaching a conclusion with his trade to the Kings, the Rangers played their final game before the NHL break for the Winter Olympics — and the corresponding league-wide roster freeze — with the knowledge that their devolving season eventually will resume with more work to do for general manager Chris Drury to retool the roster for 2026-27 and beyond.

That pre-Olympic finale Thursday night only represented more of the same for the crashing Blueshirts, however, as they fell for the fourth straight game without Panarin with a sleepy 2-0 loss to the Hurricanes at the Garden.

It marked the ninth time they have been shut out this season — and inexplicably, the seventh time on home ice — and head coach Mike Sullivan wasn’t pleased with the effort.

“I thought they outplayed us. … The first two periods weren’t nearly good enough,” Sullivan said afterward. “My message to the group was, I will acknowledge that we’re in a little bit of a difficult circumstance and none of us really want to be in this position. … But the reality is we are where we are.

“I thought tonight that we lacked a certain competitive spirit. It’s simply unacceptable on our part.”

Panarin, who inked a two-year contract extension worth $22 million with Los Angeles to bypass unrestricted free agency this summer, was dealt for junior forward prospect Liam Greentree and at least one conditional third-round draft pick, depending on Los Angeles’ postseason success.

The last-place Rangers previously had played without Panarin while their leading scorer was held out of the lineup in two defeats to the Islanders last week and another against the Penguins before Wednesday’s trade.

Before the game, Sullivan had said he wished the 34-year-old winger “the very best” in a conversation after the trade was announced.

He added that he “already had addressed the circumstances” of potential additional trades with his squad, which is now mired in a 3-13-2 tailspin to sink to the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings at 22-29-6.

“From the drop of the puck, we got outplayed all night,” said captain J.T. Miller, who will join Sullivan as part of Team USA in Italy. “It wasn’t good enough. We wanted to go into the break feeling good about ourselves, and it’s quite the opposite right now. So it sucks.”

With the 20-year-old Greentree slated to finish out his current season with OHL Windsor, the Rangers will continue to plug the gaping hole left by Panarin from within.

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Will Cuylle mostly has skated in his spot the past several games alongside center Vincent Trocheck.

“You know that we’re not going to plug a player in, and he’s going to replace what Artemi does for this team,” Sullivan said. “I think what we’re trying to do is build a team game where we can replace it by committee, so to speak. I think we can do a better job at being harder to play against, giving up less opportunities on the defensive side, which should allow us an opportunity to create some offense off of that. But we’re not plugging anybody in and saying, ‘Hey, you’re gonna go replace what Artemi’s brought to this group.’ That would be unfair.”

Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov gathered in a failed clearance attempt by Vladislav Gavrikov and opened the scoring with a wrister from the slot past Quick for a 1-0 lead 6:26 into the game.

Mika Zibanejad had a strong chance on the power play later in the period, but he rang the puck off the crossbar and the Rangers generated little else against Carolina goalie Brandon Bussi (16 saves).

Quick made 41 stops to keep the Rangers within one despite a lopsided shot disparity before Jordan Staal added an empty-netter in the final minute.

“[Quick played] extremely well,” Sullivan said. “I think he did his very best to drag us into the fight. But we needed more guys to do that for us.”