The imposters dressed in Rangers’ uniforms that were on display in Florida this past weekend were nowhere in sight last night at MSG as the Blueshirts got right back to their winning ways with a powerful 5-2 victory over the offensively dominating Pittsburgh Penguins. Sean Avery proved once again how valuable he is to this team with two goals (his 14th and 15th) and Henrik Lundqvist stopped 22 of 24 shots for his 100th career win (breaking Mike Richter’s record of fastest Rangers’ netminder to earn 100 wins).

The Penguins know how to put the puck in the net even without Sidney Crosby in the lineup. They came into last night’s game having tallied seven goals in each of their last two games. But aside from a brief lapse early in the second period when they got both of their goals, the Rangers held the Pens’ abundant offensive abilities in check.

Both teams were guilty of many turnovers and giveaways in the first two frames, but both Lundqvist and Ty Conklin were sharp. In the opening period, the Rangers struck twice within a 40 second span. At 11:07, Avery ripped a beautiful wrist shot past Conklin off a feed from Jaromir Jagr to open the scoring (after having previously been robbed when Conklin made a spectacular save on him by lunging across the crease with his stick) and Ryan Callahan (his eighth) knocked in Chris Drury’s rebound moments later. The Blueshirts took a well deserved 2-0 lead (and outshot the Pens 12-8) into the locker room after one.

But the second period started off dismally for the home team. As has been the case many times this season, the Rangers have a hard time getting psyched up for the middle frame. A little over three minutes into the period, all the good work done in the first 20 minutes had vanished. The Rangers skated as if they were in a trance and squandered their lead. Jarkko Ruutu scored his third of the season just 88 seconds in when he broke in alone on Lundqvist due to a bad line change by the Rangers and at 3:11, Jordan Staal tied the game at two (his 11th) when Fedor Tyutin and Lundqvist suffered from a lack of communication and lost the puck to Pascal Dupuis.

Coach Renney called a timeout to regroup and get his battered squad to refocus; it was a tactically brilliant move as the Blueshirts stopped the bleeding immediately. Fredrik Sjostrom stole the puck in the Penguins’ zone and scored only 44 seconds after played had been stopped to restore order in the building. The Rangers reverted back to what had been working for them in the first period and controlled play. Neither team did any further damage for the remaining 16 plus minutes in the second period. Shots marginally favored the Pens11-9.

When Avery got his second of the evening at 5:37 to give the Rangers their second two goal lead, the game was over. The confident home team dominated and shut down the powerful Penguins; they managed only five shots on goal to the Rangers nine. Martin Straka closed out the score sheet with a tally at 11:29.

With the two points, the Rangers moved two points ahead of seventh place Boston in the Eastern Conference and trail conference leading New Jersey and Montreal by five. There are nine games remaining and all are against Atlantic Division opponents. They are back in action tonight against the Devils; it’s a must win situation if they want to contend for the conference title.