This is Alcaraz and Sinner in the second round at Wimbledon. This is a matchup that comes at least a series too soon in the Stanley Cup playoffs. This is a heavyweight battle between teams with the best and third-best records in the NHL that comes already as an early-spring delight. These are the 114-point Rangers and 111-point Hurricanes in Game 1 of Round 2 at the Garden on late Sunday afternoon in yet another test for the Presidents’ Trophy winners that has overcome every challenge they have been confronted with for going on seven months.

The Carolina organization probably thinks victory is its birthright here in the sixth year of a program under head coach Rod Brind’Amour in which the club has won a total of seven playoff rounds while creating an identifiable brand and style of constant puck pressure across the 200×85 and an offense based on attempt volume while shuttling everything to the net. The Canes are poised.

But you know when the Canes were also poised?

It was on March 12, when the Rangers were in Raleigh, leading Carolina by two points with both teams having 18 games to go. The Blueshirts were on the second night of a back-to-back and without Matt Rempe, serving the first of his four-game suspension for having caught Jonas Siegenthaler with an elbow in the head the previous night. Carolina had been chasing the Rangers since the last week of October. This was the chance to do it. The final score of the game was 1-0. It was 1-0 Rangers, on Adam Fox’s goal in the final minute of the first period. The Canes didn’t catch the Rangers that night. They never caught them at all.

And though there most certainly is a line of demarcation between the regular season and the playoffs — and just as surely between the first and second rounds of the tournament — the Blueshirts’ litany of 2023-24 achievements have emboldened the team. Carolina is very good, but guess what, so are the Rangers, and, respectfully and within context, they kind of know it. There is nothing, but nothing, wrong with that. “I think one of the biggest things we’ve talked about is not being satisfied but realizing that we have accomplished a lot this year,” K’Andre Miller told The Post.

“I think winning the league, winning our division, being the first team out of the first round, there are a number of things that we did first this year. “That’s kind of the built-in standard of how we’ve grown this year and the competitive nature here around the rink. I think that’s the biggest thing.” Carolina is relentless. They bring a heavy forecheck on essentially every possession that puts constant pressure on the defense to make a good first pass and on the five-man unit to protect the front.

Again, on March 12, the Canes had 59 attempts at five-on-five, but only 24 on net as the Blueshirts blocked 23. The Rangers defended that night and they defended against Washington in their first-round sweep. They do not panic under duress. Their poise reminds me of the 2011-12 Black-and-Blueshirts team that always seemed comfortable in its own end even while being Corsi-d to death the way it happens to this club from time to time. “We defend pretty hard and are confident in the way we play in our end,” Jimmy Vesey said. “The 82-game season is a grind and you can’t finish on top if you don’t defend or if you don’t play with attitude.” The series is going to be about the effervescent Artemi Panarin, made for this time and place.

It’s going to be about Igor Shesterkin, having a cash-register tournament in advance of his summer contract negotiations.

Does anyone know what a cash register is these days?

Maybe the franchise goaltender is having a bitcoin playoffs. It’s going to be about Mika Zibanejad, saving his 2023-24 best for this and the narrative about being matched up against Jordan Staal. It’s going to be about Fox, six months-plus after taking the knee-on-knee from the Canes’ Sebastian Aho, back on the ice with the team on Saturday after taking a leg-on-leg from Nick Jensen in Sunday’s Game 4.

It’s going to be about elite specialty teams on both sides, where during the season, the Rangers were ranked in the top three on both the power play (26.4 percent) and penalty kill (84.5) for the first time since 1993-94 — third in each — but somehow Carolina finished ahead in both, second on the PP at 26.9, first on the PK at 86.4. Good on the specialty teams isn’t going to be good enough in this round. And it’s going to be on the impact created by Rempe, who never got a game against Carolina during the year and who is supposed to be too slow for the Canes, except the Rangers have won the last 13 games in which No. 73 has played and are 18-2-1 overall with him in the lineup, and so I think it’s probably OK.

It’s the team with the best record in the league against the team with the third-best record in the league. This could be a matchup for the middle of June but instead it is a matchup for the first week in May. It’s go time. Go time for the Rangers.