NY Rangers beat NY Islanders at Madison Square Garden

The Rangers didn’t just snap a three-game losing streak with Sunday night’s 4-3 overtime win over the Islanders at the Garden. They persevered past bad bounces, erased three deficits, woke up a slumbering power play and held an opponent scoreless in the third period for the first time in March. It was all a part of the Rangers (43-18-7, 93 points) reaffirming that their brand of hockey wins, while keeping their Eastern Conference lead over the Penguins at four points after Pittsburgh (42-21-5, 89) surged to its ninth straight win on Sunday afternoon, 5-2 over the Bruins.“The thing I love most about it is the way we won,” John Tortorella said after Marian Gaborik fired a bullet over the right shoulder of Evgeni Nabokov with 5.8 seconds remaining in overtime on a 4-on-3 power play. “You don’t want to draw it up that way, but the things we’re going through as a team – even in this game, with some of the bounces – just to keep a hold of ourselves and stay with it.” Brad Richards was the best player on the ice, scoring two power-play goals. The Rangers went for 3-for-6 on the man advantage after going 0-for-9 in the previous four games, 1-for-18 in the last eight and 3-for-35 in the last 12. “I’ve been feeling better,” said Richards, who had his second two-goal game of the season and first since Oct. 29 against Ottawa, and also assisted on Gaborik’s game-winner from the left circle. “Knock out the Jersey game (last Tuesday). That was awful. But besides that, I’ve felt progress. The production sometimes doesn’t come, but I just feel better seeing the ice.” Before losing their third straight, the Islanders (28-31-10, 66 points) got goals off John Tavares’ skate, a freak bounce off a stanchion behind Henrik Lundqvist’s net that fell to Matt Moulson’s stick and a Gaborik turnover to Tavares who hit defenseman Andrew MacDonald out of the penalty box on a  breakaway. But Brian Boyle deflected Ryan McDonagh’s shot past Nabokov to tie it at 3-3 with 16:31 remaining in the third period. “No disrespect to them, but the mentality was it wasn’t a matter of ‘if,’ it was ‘when’ we were going to get it and tie it up,” said Boyle, who also screened Nabokov on Richards’ second goal playing on a revamped first power-play unit that included Sunday’s AHL call-up Mats Zuccarello, Gaborik and Anton Stralman. Zuccarello, in for the injured Ryan Callahan (foot) assisted on Richards’ first goal and kept the puck moving on the overtime power play when Derek Stepan and Richards fed Gaborik for the game-winner on an advantage earned from Travis Hamonic’s trip of Richards in the neutral zone with 2:04 remaining.