The pending Rangers sell-off is really about to take off now.

Two days after making their first retooling trade of the regular season, the Rangers held leading scorer Artemi Panarin out of Wednesday’s road game against the Islanders for “roster management,” The Post’s Mollie Walker reported about an hour before puck drop. The star winger will not play in the team’s final four games before the NHL’s upcoming break next week.

General manager Chris Drury informed Panarin before his Jan. 16 letter to fans that the 34-year-old — a pending unrestricted free agent after his seven-year, $81 million deal signed as a free agent in 2019 expires this summer — would not be re-signed by the organization after extension talks went nowhere and they had “extremely candid” conversations.

“It’s hard to say how I feel. I’m still confused, but the GM decided to go in a different direction. I’m OK with that,” while promising “to give 100 percent in every game,” Panarin said earlier this month after the news became public.

Panarin must approve any trade because of a full no-movement clause.

Mika Zibanejad and J.T. Miller also are among those with no-movement clauses, but more deals are sure to follow ahead of the March 6 trade deadline, with the Rangers entering Wednesday’s game with the worst record in the Eastern Conference. But NHL rosters will be frozen from Feb. 4 through the Olympic break.

“We are not going to stand pat — a shift will give us the ability to be smart and opportunistic as we retool the team. This is not a rebuild,” Drury wrote in his letter. “This will be a retool built around our core players and prospects. We will target players that bring tenacity, skill, speed and a winning pedigree with a focus on obtaining young players, draft picks and cap space to allow us flexibility moving forward.”

Drury already has made one trade this week, sending veteran defenseman Carson Soucy to the Islanders for a 2026 third-round pick, meaning his first two games with his new team will come against the team that just traded him. The teams also will meet in the second half of back-to-back games Thursday night at the Garden.

Panarin leads the Rangers with 57 points in 57 games this season, and his 19 goals rank second on the team behind Zibanejad’s 21. He also recently had a 10-game point streak with five goals and 18 points but the Rangers entered with just three wins over their previous 14 games (3-9-2) under first-year coach Mike Sullivan to fall out of playoff contention. They also missed the playoffs one year ago under since-fired coach Peter Laviolette.

Soucy said Wednesday morning that he and his former teammates knew trades likely were on the way, but that Drury did him “a favor” allowing his young family to remain in the New York area with Monday’s deal to the Islanders.

“Obviously with the Rangers I kind of knew some trades were coming,” said Soucy, who was acquired by the Rangers from Vancouver before last year’s deadline. “This one just kind of made sense with obviously my family and stuff, we don’t have to uproot. We can stick [in Westchester] where we are now, so it kind of made sense there.

“I guess it just showed where both teams are, really. And I think it’s just that Drury kind of did me a favor of not wanting to shift my family, like last year, where I was kind of across the country, with my wife and kids. We have a newborn right now, so it’s nice to not have to move houses right now. So I appreciate Chris kind of making that work for me.”

Now, Drury must also work with Panarin and perhaps others on a preferred destination.