This was far from a picture-perfect performance, but in the big picture, the Rangers re-established themselves at the Garden last night with a 5-2 victory over the Penguins that, for 24 hours at least, should bring all the panicky skeptics back in off the ledge.
The Rangers played straight-line, mean-edged hockey for 60 minutes. They hammered the Penguins – take a bow, Brandon Dubinsky – at every opportunity; most notably the Pens’ star, Evgeni Malkin, who disappeared under the constant battering.
They finished their checks, they went to the net, they were nearly always first to the puck, and when they weren’t, they battled their way to gain possession.
This one wasn’t so much about talent. This one was about desire. This one was about the Rangers’ desire to put the twin weekend defeats in Florida behind them immediately.
“Of course you start thinking after two games like we had, but we had a really great talk on Sunday about our situation and where we want to go as a team and where we believe we can go as a team,” Henrik Lundqvist, simply outstanding once again, told The Post.
“Do we know we have a good enough team to win? I think we do. We have a very good team. It’s just a matter of how badly we want it and how hard we’re willing to work for it.
“We have to make up our minds to be the hardest working team on the ice in every game. … Now we have to carry it over not only for the next game, but for all the games.”
The next game is tonight in New Jersey, against a Devil team the Blueshirts have beaten five straight times. The Devils, 12-3-2 in their last 17, are in first place in the East with 90 points in 72 games; the Rangers, 11-2-3 in their last 16, are in sixth with 85 points in 73 games.
The Penguins, who played without Sidney Crosby (ankle), have 89 points in 73.
The Dubinsky-Jaromir Jagr-Sean Avery unit that had jelled immediately by scoring 11 goals in its first six games as a line had gone dry, getting two in the next seven, both by Avery at the Coliseum on Mar. 6. Last night, there were two more, both from Avery.
“Playing with Jags, I’m going to get my chances,” said Avery, who has 15 goals in 48 games, and who admitted to chuckling at the chants of “Re-sign Avery” in the third period.
The Rangers dominated the first and led 2-0 into the second when the Penguins struck twice off horrid decision-making and execution within 1:33 to tie it at the 3:11 mark. Ranger coach Tom Renney called a timeout, the impressive Fredrik Sjostrom scored 44 seconds later, Lundqvist made two huge stops to maintain the lead, and the Rangers were home.
Tonight, they’re in New Jersey. Tonight, they bring their exceptional 16-6-1 record within the division – the only team in the Atlantic with an intra-divisional record above .500 – to Newark. Tonight should be something.
Rangers 5 Penguins 2