NEW YORK (Ticker) -- The New York Rangers avoided another second-period downfall, then took care of business in the third.
Mike Dunham made 11 of his 27 saves in the second period and Anson Carter and Petr Nedved scored power-play goals to lead the Rangers to a 6-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Rangers have scored first in each of their last six games and took a 2-1 lead into the middle period on goals by Martin Rucinsky and Carter.
New York surrendered four second-period goals in its previous three games, including three in Monday's loss to Edmonton. But Dunham stopped eight shots during a Penguins' power play and Mark Messier's team-best seventh goal made it 3-1 at 11:49.
"We were disappointed with the game against Edmonton," Messier said. "That's a game we could win, we should have won and didn't. So we came in tonight pretty focused and did what we had to do to get the win tonight."
"We talked about that after the first period," defenseman Tom Poti added. "The second period, we have been letting teams get back into the game and we really came out and played hard and got the win."
Defenseman Dick Tarnstrom had a chance to tie it on a power play in the second period, but Dunham slid out of the crease to stop him and denied rookie Ryan Malone and Martin Straka on rebounds.
Just over four minutes after killing the power play, Messier scored his 683rd career goal. With linemate Chris Simon holding two defensemen, Messier lifted a wrist shot over rookie goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.
The goal tied him with Penguins owner-captain Mario Lemieux for seventh on the all-time NHL list.
Nedved extended the lead 78 seconds into the third. Pittsburgh's Aleksey Morozov scored on the next shift, but Nedved set up Poti's third goal of the season just over three minutes later.
Defenseman Vladimir Malakhov capped the scoring with 92 seconds to play.
Several Rangers thought back to last season, when their playoff hopes took an almost fatal hit in a 3-1 loss to Pittsburgh.
"I think from last year, these guys came in here and stole two points from us at a critical time in the year," Carter said. "Just because you're out there, it doesn't mean you're going to get two points. Hopefully we've learned a lot of tough lessons early this season where we've taken teams for granted."
The Rangers, who play just two of the next 11 games at home, totaled a season-best 42 shots and snapped a season-high three-game losing streak.
Playing without Lemieux for the third straight game, the Penguins lost former Ranger Rico Fata early in the first period to a hamstring injury. Without its top two scorers, Pittsburgh dropped its fourth straight.
"Whatever we manufactured had to be from team play, and now we've lost our leading scorer and the best player in the world," said Pittsburgh coach Eddie Olczyk, whose team has surrendered 25 goals in the last four games. "We got to figure it out for ourselves."
Fleury suffered his third consecutive loss, allowing a career-high six goals while facing more than 30 shots for the ninth time. The top overall draft pick played his 11th game of the season, avoiding a return to his junior team.
