PLAYOFF BOUND!

Rangers lose in OT but are back in postseason

SAN JOSE — The Rangers did not make this one easy on themselves, but after looking overwhelmed in the second period a resilient effort got the Blueshirts through the formality of officially securing their postseason berth.

They needed just one point Tuesday night to punch their ticket to the playoffs, and they got it in their 5-4 overtime loss to the Sharks. The Rangers (47-26-4, 98 points) are going to the playoffs for the seventh straight season and for the 11th time in 12 years. “It’s obviously something you want to get over with and not let it hang and drag on any longer,” Rick Nash said before the game of earning what Alain Vigneault has dubbed the “checkmark.”

Brent Burns scored the winner on a power play with 1:50 left in overtime.

Rangers scored three goals in a span of 5:07 beginning with 22.4 seconds left in the second to come back from a two-goal deficit J.T. Miller, at the start of the game demoted to the fourth line after a bad night on Sunday, scored twice, including a go-ahead goal on a 4-on-3 power play at 4:44 of the third. Chris Tierney’s second of the night tied it for the Sharks with 2:15 left in regulation. “For 39 minutes we didn’t show up,” Vigneault said. “We didn’t make a play, we didn’t execute.”

It was possible for the Rangers to clinch before they even stepped on the ice if the Bruins had lost, but Boston won at home against Nashville.

Before the game Henrik Lundqvist, who played his second game since returning from his strained hip muscle, said the team was thinking more about playing a strong game after Sunday’s loss to Anaheim than clinching their berth. “If we don’t make the playoffs this year we don’t deserve to be in the playoffs; we need one point in (six) games,” Lundqvist said after the team’s morning skate.

In the third period Miller was moved up to play with Nash and Mika Zibanejad. He has responded well to similar situations before. After a rough stretch in December he was dropped to the fourth line to begin the Rangers’ Dec. 27 match against the Senators, and over the ensuing 19 games he put up 24 points. Entering Tuesday’s game he had just one goal in his previous 16 matches. His first goal tied the game at 1 at 13:30 of the first. Derek Stepan, his 23-game goal-less drought in the rearview, now has a goal in three straight games with his powerplay goal 22.4 seconds left in the second bringing the Rangers to within one. Brady Skjei’s shot was deflected by Jesper Fast for the equalizer 1:24 into the third, and Skjei set up Miller for the go-ahead goal 3:20 later for his third assist of the night. Kevin Hayes earned assists on each of the last two goals.

Dan Girardi reentered the lineup for Kevin Klein, who felt tightness after his Sunday return from a 16-game absence because of back spasms, and Matt Puempel played in place of Pavel Buchnevich.