NHL

Rangers work overtime to conquer Penguins

PITTSBURGH — Not that they’d necessarily want to try it again, but this was one where the end justified the means, which means that even though the Rangers weren’t close to their best most of the night, they were determined enough to somehow pull it off here last night against the Penguins when all seemed lost.

Somehow? Brandon Dubinsky, Marc Staal, Ryan Callahan and Henrik Lundqvist, with heavy doses of Dan Girardi and Brandon Prust, that’s how.

That’s how the Blueshirts managed to come back from the heartbreak of allowing two goals within 38 seconds late in the third to fall behind 2-1 before first getting to OT on a Staal shorthanded score at 18:34 and then winning it 3-2 on Callahan’s score from in front off a nifty Dubinsky feed at 3:28.

“This is huge emotionally for our team,” said Callahan, who redirected Dubinsky’s feed past Marc-Andre Fleury after Pittsburgh defenseman Paul Martin had slid in an attempt to break up the 2-on-1. “It wasn’t pretty, but we didn’t give up and we don’t give up.”

Somehow? By killing all of Pittsburgh’s seven power plays that, in fact, were the only seven power plays in the game, with the Rangers failing to get a man advantage for the first time in more than three full seasons, since Jan. 16, 2007 at New Jersey, that’s how.

That’s how, with Staal’s tying goal from the left porch off a feed from Dubinsky coming with the Blueshirts attempting to kill an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Lundqvist for breaking his stick over the crossbar and then throwing the shaft in the direction of an official when Matt Cooke scored at 18:07 to give Pittsburgh a 2-1 lead.

“I’d like to see the penalty record the last five years in Pittsburgh,” said an annoyed Lundqvist, who was brilliant throughout the match. “We’re shorthanded so many times in Pittsburgh and it’s definitely not our fault.”

The Rangers don’t want to get a reputation as whiners, but last night was a joke, both on calls made against the team as well as those not made against the Penguins, the most flagrant omission a Sidney Crosby slash on Girardi’s wrist while the Rangers were shorthanded midway through the third after a ticky-tack call on Marian Gaborik.

Staal, who had a game-high 29:24, played his finest match of the year at both ends of the ice, paired most of the night with Steve Eminger. Girardi, who skated with Michael Del Zotto, played 27:35, and missed only one turn after being hit in the forehead by the puck with 3:48 to go in the third, returning for the final 1:53.

“Before the puck was dropped, I told Dubi I was going to be up on the play,” Staal said about the penalty kill that resulted in the team’s third SHG of the year. “I took a bit of a gamble, but really at that point there wasn’t much of a choice.”

The choice would have been for the Rangers to yield to the officiating or to roll over when Chris Kunitz and Cooke combined to erase the 1-0 lead the Blueshirts had held since 10:16 of the second on Erik Christensen’s spinning wrist shot.

“We’ve talked about this, about that you don’t have to be perfect, you just need to find ways to win,” said Lundqvist, who faced 39 shots. “This was one of those games.

“And it feels good.”

larry.brooks@nypost.com