Scott Hartnell scored three consecutive goals and Antero Niittymaki won his fourth straight start for the Philadelphia Flyers, who rallied to a 6-2 victory over the Rangers last night.

New York grabbed a 2–0 lead in the first period on a rare pair of goals from hard-hitting forward Ryan Hollweg but that was gone midway through the second period.

Simon Gagne pushed the Philadelphia lead to 6–2, scoring a power-play goal with 5 minutes left. It was his first game back in the Flyers lineup since November 7 when he was forced out for the second time with post-concussion symptoms. He sat out 30 games total. They didn’t need much offense from him as Hartnell took care of that with his second NHL hat trick.

Stefan Ruzicka scored his first of the season, Mike Knuble added a goal and Mike Richards had three assists for the Flyers, who have won six of seven.

The Rangers are 0–4–1 in their last five and have been outscored 20–10 in the skid.

Hollweg posted his first multi-goal game in the NHL after not scoring at all for 67 games. He has five career goals in 173 games.

Hartnell gave Philadelphia a 3–2 lead 10:42 into the second, stretched the advantage to two goals just after a Philadelphia power play expired at 1:54 of the final period, and netted his third of the night at 8:49 when he took a long pass from Steve Downie and sneaked a shot past diving Henrik Lundqvist.

That capped another long night for the Rangers’ goalie, who allowed at least four goals for the eighth time in 14 outings after doing that once in the previous 24. Niittymaki made his third straight start as a goalie controversy is brewing with No. 1 netminder Martin Biron. He made 38 saves, and has stopped 120 of 125 in the three games.

The tide started to turn toward the Flyers late in the first period when the Rangers took three straight penalties to set up an extended stretch of 5-on-3 play.

Brandon Dubinsky went off for hooking with 1:40 remaining in the period, Blair Betts joined him in the box 1:16 later after shooting the puck over the glass, and Chris Drury was whistled for throwing his stick to defenseman Dan Girardi.

New York killed off Dubinsky’s penalty starting the second, but the Flyers still had 1:17 left of a two-man power play. Knuble took advantage 40 seconds into the period when he deflected a shot by Richards in front of Lundqvist.

The Flyers couldn’t cash in on the rest of the power play, but by then they had taken momentum and crispness away from the Rangers.

On a dump-in behind the New York net, Jim Dowd outraced everyone to the loose puck at the end boards to Lundqvist’s left to negate an icing call. Lundqvist came out to try to provide a little pressure, but Dowd wasn’t impeded. He swept the puck back past Lundqvist into the slot to Ruzicka, who let go a shot as Rangers defenseman Michal Rozsival failed to get in his way, but instead bumped Lundqvist as the puck slid between his legs to make it 2–2 at 8:45. Lundqvist had no one to blame 1:57 later when Hartnell flung the puck from below the goal line to the goalie’s right and banked the shot in off his left skate.

Hollweg made it 1–0 at 4:43 of the first and doubled New York’s lead 2:59 later with his second of the season.

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DEVILS 4, HURRICANES 1

Patrik Elias scored the go-ahead goal in the second period, and Martin Brodeur made 20 saves in the Devils’ 4-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes last night.

Travis Zajac, Brian Gionta, and Sergei Brylin also scored for New Jersey. Langenbrunner and Zach Parise each had two assists for the Atlantic Division-leading Devils, who have won seven of nine. Brodeur allowed two goals or less for the seventh time in his last eight games. The Devils have allowed just 99 goals this season, the only team in the Eastern Conference that has allowed fewer than 100.