NHL

Brad Richards’ two power-play goals propel Rangers

This might be one ripped from the pages of the textbook on how to prepare a team for the playoffs — a touch of adversity, and tons of good feeling.

That’s how the Rangers dealt with the Hurricanes on Tuesday night at the Garden, putting them to sleep with four unanswered goals en route to a 4-1 win.

By going two-for-three on the previously dormant power play — both goals from Brad Richards — the victory got the Blueshirts one step closer to wrapping up home-ice advantage for the playoffs, their next major goal after clinching their eighth postseason berth in the past nine seasons while idle on Monday night by virtue of a Devils’ loss.

“You want to get into good habits. You want to try to play the game you want to play next week,” said goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who made 27 saves, none more important than a first-period breakaway on Alex Semin that kept the Hurricanes early lead at 1-0. “You don’t want to change anything, your approach or your focus on the details. It needs to be here now and it needs to be there next week. You can’t take any shortcuts.”

Surely, the Rangers (44-31-5) have taken few shortcuts on this winding road to where they are, which is second in the Metropolitan Division, holding a two-point cushion over the Flyers, who kept pace with a breezy 5-2 win over the Panthers. There are two more regular-season games remaining for the Rangers, Thursday at home against the last-overall Sabres, and then a trip to their House of Horrors in Montreal for the finale on Saturday.

“We talked about it before the game, that we have been playing good hockey for a long time,” said coach Alain Vigneault, whose team is now 8-2-1 in the past 11. “We want to go into the playoffs feeling good about our game.”

That will be easier as the man-advantage broke out of a 5-for-52 slump that it had been mired in since the March 5 trade deadline. Both goals were on good shots from Richards, who now has 20 goals on the season, and both were assisted by Martin St. Louis, recording three assists in what Vigneault called “probably his best game with us.”

“You knew it was only a matter of time before [St. Louis] figured it out,” said Derek Stepan, who tapped in a great feed from his new linemate, St. Louis, to finish the scoring 4:38 into the third. “He’s going to be a big part of our push at the end.”

Another big part is the line of Mats Zuccarello, Benoit Pouliot and Derick Brassard, who were dominant in the offensive zone all night, often toying with the Hurricanes (34-34-11), especially in the third period when Carolina was down 3-1 and mentally packed up, halfway to LaGuardia.

“That line has some real good chemistry 5-on-5 and on the power play,” Vigneault said after Zuccarello set up Pouliot for the go-ahead goal 50 seconds into the second period. “We need them to play that way.”

The Hurricanes did come out hard in this one, getting out to the 1-0 lead when Patrick Dwyer took advantage of a strange bounce off the side of the net and through Kevin Klein’s legs, lifting one passed Lundqvist 3:22 into the first. But from there the Rangers just about shut it down, and now they continue to look forward, to trying to solidify their home ice and then see what happens.

“You just need to focus the same way and take every game as an important game,” Lundqvist said. “Who knows, it can play a huge part in the end.”