PHILADELPHIA — It was one game, and it does not erase a season of middling results.
But Tuesday night the Rangers had good signs abound in a 5-2 triumph over the Flyers at Wells Fargo Center.
The first and most obvious was the fact they scored more than two goals for just the second time in eight games. The two from Rick Nash might have been expected — and possibly even the four-point night from Derek Stepan, whose goal and three assists seemed to be a long time coming for the rising top-line center.
But it was the good game from Brad Richards, including his first goal in seven games, that was the icing on the cake.
“It felt pretty good,” said Richards, whose voice and demeanor had a levity to it that has been absent over the past couple months. “How we’ve been up and down and need wins, the same emotion as you always have — scoring is scoring, and it’s always nice, especially when you win.”
Richards was no longer on a top line, but instead skating with Brian Boyle and Chris Kreider. Late in the third period, with the Rangers up 4-2, Richards gained the zone and waited for the play to develop. It was vintage play-making Richards, as his pass went across to Kreider, who executed a nifty give-and-go with Michael Del Zotto to send the Philly faithful home with a mouthful of anger.
“That’s huge for me in watching Brad Richards play,” said coach John Tortorella, who won his 400th career game. “To have him see that game in that type of situation. We have good people — we just hope that they get it going.”
One of the people who needs no help to get it going is Nash, now reunited on a top line with Stepan and Carl Hagelin, and again spectacular in scoring his 11th and 12th goals of the season.
“It seems like we were getting some chances, they just weren’t going in,” said Nash, whose team came in having gone 2-4-1 in its past seven games. “When that happens, you wait for one of these games. Finally it came.”
And when things broke down for the Rangers (16-13-3), there was Henrik Lundqvist in nets, piling up 32 saves in a performance that could have been ripped from the pages of his Vezina Trophy-winning season just months ago.
“I didn’t feel great, and sometimes that helps you,” said Lundqvist, who admitted to some headaches still lingering as a result of taking an elbow to the head from Dan Girardi in Newark last Tuesday. “When the game started, I felt it was really important to me to focus on each shot and we had a good first period.”
For a change, the opening period was a table-setter for the Blueshirts. They got out to a 1-0 lead behind Nash’s first goal, a wrister from the slot with 14:54 gone by. They then piled it on in the second, taking it to 3-0 behind Richards’ power play goal and Stepan’s doorstep finish.
The Flyers (13-17-2) did fight back, getting goals from Wayne Simmonds and Jakub Voracek — the first off Simmonds’ skate, the second off Voracek’s face — but with 7:42 gone by in the third is when Nash got his second on a wraparound try, which sealed the deal.
“In the standings, we just worry about ourselves,” said Nash, whose eighth-place team travels to Ottawa to play the Senators tomorrow night before heading to Montreal to finish this three-game road trip against the Canadiens on Saturday. “It’s a big win tonight, but we’re just going to try and keep taking it game by game.”
bcyrgalis@nypost.com