Like just about every other hockey fan, player, coach or owner, Terry O’Reilly’s hockey life is in a state of flux.

With his two-year contract with the New York Rangers expiring at the end of the month, the former Boston Bruin great isn’t sure when, where or if there is another hockey job out there for him.

“It’s a wait and see period for me in my life,” said O’Reilly.

While the NHL holds its annual entry draft Saturday, O’Reilly won’t be mulling over prospects and potential draft picks. He’ll be at the Fireside Inn in Auburn signing autographs.

O’Reilly wasn’t surprised that the Rangers didn’t offer a new contract. President and General Manager Glen Sather relinquished the head coaching job to Tom Renney in February, and the Rangers are ripe for an overhaul on the ice and on the bench.

“I’m not sure what their plans are,” said O’Reilly. “I had a brief conversation with Glen Sather, and I wasn’t expecting to come back.”

Instead, O’Reilly is waiting to see what offers might be out there. He’ll wait until later in the summer to see which teams are interested.

One thing hanging over everyone’s plans is the impending lockout. With collective bargaining agreement talks between commissioner Gary Bettman and players’ association executive director Bob Goodenow going nowhere, next year’s season is in question.

“I don’t think we’re going to have hockey,” said O’Reilly. “They sound like a couple of gun fighters that like to go right at it. They’re both talking tough. I don’t know what they’re fighting about.”

With so much at stake, O’Reilly knows that a shutdown could do long-term harm to the game.

“It’s a great game,” he said. “It’ll hurt the owners a little bit. Every time things shutdown, the fans find ways to spend their entertainment dollar somewhere else.”

O’Reilly mentions a league in Russia that might draw the top players with hefty contracts. Many of them might not return should they go that route.

Lost in all the posturing, he says, are everyday people that make their living from the NHL. Businesses that feed off the sport and their employees will be hit hardest.

For O’Reilly, it could cost him an NHL coaching job, but he’s got other plans to fall back on. He says he might have hip replacement surgery if he isn’t coaching, and he’s been busy dabbling in real estate.

“I was doing real estate and development in the period between leaving the Bruins and joining the Rangers,” said O’Reilly, who was in Florida this week closing a deal he’d been working on for a couple of years. “I still have a hand in that.”

O’Reilly hasn’t faced a wait-and-see type of scenario before. After 14 seasons as a prototypical Bruin, he stayed busy. Besides his real estate and charity work, he was broadcaster for the club before becoming a head coach in 1986. During his three years with the Bruins, the club went 115-86-26, reaching the playoffs all three years, including a trip to the Stanley Cup finals. He says he’s not interested in being an assistant again and will see what interest there might be from various clubs this summer.

“If I pursue a coaching job, it will be as a head coach,” said O’Reilly, who had his number retired by the Bruins last season. “If it’s not out there, I have other interests.”

A top job in the minor leagues isn’t exactly what he has in mind, but it would be an offer he would consider.

“I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t say No’ without listen to what they have to say,” he said. “You always listen.”