Mike Knuble scored two of Philadelphia’s three power-play goals in the first period, and the Flyers overcame Jaromir Jagr’s hat trick and moved into a first-place tie with by beating the Rangers 6-3 last night.

The Flyers won for the second straight night, ending New York’s three-game victory streak and catching the Rangers atop the Atlantic Division. Both teams have 39 wins and 88 points.

Philadelphia, which earned its third consecutive road win over the Rangers this season has 12 games remaining. New York will play 13 more.

Jagr, the NHL leader with 49 goals and 104 points, scored twice in the first period to give the Rangers two leads. His second-period goal cut the deficit to 4-3 and gave him 15 career hat tricks, three this season.

The key play in this one was New York forward Ryan Hollweg’s check-from-behind on R.J. Umberger with 3:17 left in the first period that gave the Flyers a 5-minute power play and caused Hollweg’s ejection from the game.

Philadelphia was trailing 2-1, but took a one-goal lead into the second period after Knuble and Michal Handzus scored 2:29 apart. Knuble’s first of the night tied it.

Simon Gagne turned a Rangers turnover into a goal that made it 4-2. After Jagr made it 4-3, Jeff Carter scored his 18th with 7:10 left to restore Philadelphia’s two-goal lead. Sami Kapanen closed the scoring with an empty-netter.

Robert Esche made 20 saves for the Flyers,who beat New Jersey on Tuesday and are 4-3 in their last seven games.

Henrik Lundqvist stopped 17 shots and failed in his bid to win each game on the Rangers’ four-game homestand.

The teams will play twice more – once on each club’s home ice – as they fight for the no. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference.

Just 39 seconds after the Flyers got even at 1 on Knuble’s 29th, the Rangers grabbed the lead back on Jagr’s second of the game.

But any momentum New York stole was lost 34 seconds later when Hollweg slammed Umberger in the back and drove him into the right-wing boards in the New York zone.Hollweg was first directed to the penalty box as Umberger was attended to, but then was ushered off the ice with a game misconduct.

The Flyers made New York pay 1:07 into the major penalty when Knuble again got his stick on a shot – this time from Simon Gagne – for his 30th of the season that tied a career best. Knuble, formerly of the Rangers, has five two-goal games this season – his first .

Handzus stung New York when he deflected a drive from Brian Savage while standing at the right post, landed the rebound on his stick and shoved it past Lundqvist with only 0.8 seconds showing on the clock.

Gagne made it 4-2 at 5:48 of the second period, 51 seconds after Philadelphia killed off its first short-handed situation of the game.

New York defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh was acquired earlier this month to help create offense, but not like this. Ozolinsh had a clear path to get the puck out of the Rangers zone but instead he swept it right onto the stick of the oncharging Gagne, who skated unimpeded down into the slot and zipped a shot past Lundqvist for his team-leading 41st goal.