NHL

Rangers comeback for naught as they fall to Capitals in shootout

The goals came early but not late, and luckily for the Rangers that went for both teams.

After a first period in which the Blueshirts and Capitals scored twice apiece, neither team was able to find the net — that is, until Nicklas Backstrom put home the game-winning tally in the fourth chance of the skills competition, giving the Capitals a 3-2 victory.

The Rangers (15-13-3) were coming off a bad loss to the 30th-overall Panthers on Thursday. The Capitals (15-16-1) had just won two games on back-to-back nights in Winnipeg, outscoring the Jets 10-1.

The second period was scoreless, but saw coach John Tortorella juggle his lines and put rookie Chris Kreider on the top line with Brad Richards and Rick Nash. That meant Marian Gaborik, still mired in his offensive slump and being dangled at the approaching April 3 trade deadline, was demoted to a line with Brian Boyle and Taylor Pyatt.

The Rangers opened the game poorly, giving up two unanswered goals in the first 10 minutes that led to the Garden faithful turning ugly. The first Capitals goal came on the power play, 7:54 in, after Anton Stralman got called for a hold. Alex Ovechkin took a slap shot that was slowed by a Derek Stepan deflection, and when it got to Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, he tipping it up in the air with his stick and it bounced off Backstrom’s chest and in, making it 1-0.

Less than two minutes later, Stepan lost Ovechkin as he circled to the front of the net, and as Steve Olesky took a wrist shot, Ovechkin was left open on the left post and tipped the puck past Lundqvist for his 18th of the season and a 2-0 lead.

The Rangers did manage to find some pride and push back, starting with an unlikely duo of Kris Newbury and Arron Asham. Newbury was playing his second game of the season for the Rangers, having been just called up from the Connecticut Whale (AHL) on Saturday. With just over five minutes left in the period, he chipped the puck out of the zone and off the wall to Asham, who was playing for the first time in more than a month due to a lower back injury.

Asham streaked up the left side of the ice, and on the 2-on-1 he ripped a snap shot into the top-left corner, making it 2-1. It was a carbon copy of Asham’s only other goal this season, on Feb. 10 against the Lightning.

Just more than three minutes later, the Rangers worked their way into a 5-on-3 man-advantage, and Stepan took a bad-angle shot from along the goal line, getting a good break when Braden Holtby let it slip by him. With the score tied 2-2, the Rangers had managed to reestablish some momentum.

bcyrgalis@nypost.com