NHL

Rangers rock in win over Flames

The Rangers could use more sheer skill, everyone knows that about this squad that’s more spit than polish, but this is the team, this is the kind of blue-collar, bare-knuckles team that Garden fans have been waiting for, oh, only just about a lifetime.

“From day one, we’ve wanted to establish an identity where we’re going to be in your face and finish all of our checks,” Ryan Callahan, the irrepressible leader of the band, said following last night’s mean-edged, 2-1 victory over the Flames that had the round building rocking. “We want to be a team that if you’re going to beat us, then you’re going to have to get beaten up in order to do it.”

The Flames couldn’t beat the Rangers in this match that was snarly from the get-go, but they got beaten up anyway, most notably Matt Stajan, who was knocked out of the game on an hellacious blindside, open-ice hit from Marc Staal at 9:39 of the third that came as the center gained the zone while looking down at the puck.

“My knees were bent, my elbows were in and I came across low,” said Staal, who was not penalized on the play. “I saw him kind of playing with it in the middle of the ice, I saw an opportunity and I came across on him.

“Our game is to finish checks and to play hard.”

The nastiness started early when Michael Sauer drove Stefan Meyer into the wall from behind for a boarding penalty at 7:10, was immediately challenged by Tom Kostopoulos in a sequence in which the players drew matching minors, and then fought both Kostopoulos and Meyer before the scoreless period ended.

Brian Boyle gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead at 2:08 of the second when his attempted two-on-one feed banked in off defenseman Brendan Mikkelson, but the Flames equaled matters at 5:16 when Jarome Iginla finished a perfectly executed three-on-one for which Callahan was partially responsible.

“But,” coach John Tortorella said after pointing out the associate captain’s guilt, “I am certainly not going to criticize Ryan Callahan.”

Perhaps that’s because Callahan, who leads the NHL with 91 hits after being credited with 11 in the match, is the personification of these Black-and-Blueshirts.

Last night, with the game tied past the midway point of the second, Callahan crushed Jay Bouwmeester into the wall. When Curtis Glencross, the player who concussed Chris Drury last Nov. 7 in Calgary with a blindside elbow to the head, retaliated with a high stick, the Rangers capitalized on the ensuing power play when Dan Girardi buried one at 12:41 off a clean Derek Stepan faceoff win.

“I think my game follows what we want to be,” Callahan said. “I lead with my effort, and to be a leader I try to do all the things that we talk about doing every night.”

Into the third, the match had the feel of a Flyers, Devils or Islanders game, with the fans on their feet, chanting for the club and for Martin Biron, excellent again in limiting the opposition to two goals or fewer for the seventh time in his eight starts.

“This is the kind of game where we could have had a letdown but we were determined not to allow it,” Callahan said. “This is the way we wanted to play.”

This is the team that Ranger fans have been waiting for.

larry.brooks@nypost.com