Henrik Lundqvist, Rangers allow three power-play goals in loss to Flyers 

David Quinn gave Henrik Lundqvist an early birthday present when he started the goaltender against the Flyers on Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden. Coming on the day before Lundqvist’s 38th birthday, it was the franchise icon’s first start since Feb. 3.

It did not go especially well.

Two power-play goals and a shorthanded goal by the Flyers in the first period undid Lundqvist and the Rangers, who were handed a 5-3 loss and fell to the Flyers for the second time in three days.

“When you haven’t played in a long time, the first thing you want to [do is] go out there and try to build a good feeling,’’ Lundqvist said. “Honestly, that was pretty tough, when you give up three first-period goals. I don’t think I was very good. A couple tough situations, that’s for sure. I thought we took some sloppy penalties that cost us; their power play was really good. But I was hoping for a better feeling coming out there.’’

Lundqvist, who made his fourth start and fifth appearance since Igor Shesterkin was called up from AHL Hartford on Jan. 6, never got the chance to grow into the game.

Defenseman Ryan Lindgren was called for a hooking penalty 23 seconds into the game and Matt Niskanen scored at 1:52, jamming in the rebound of a shot by Nicolas Aube-Kubel that caromed off the goalpost.

Philadelphia made it 2-0 at 11:19. With Ryan Strome serving a hooking penalty, Lundqvist kicked out Jakub Voracek’s shot right to Sean Couturier, who slid in the rebound for his 21st goal.

“When you take penalties early, you’ve got to be able to kill them off or it’s a tough hole to climb out of,’’ defenseman Marc Staal said. “We didn’t do that.”

The Rangers fell behind 4-0 before three power-play goals — two by Mika Zibanejad — made the score respectable.

The Rangers (35-26-4) fell four points out of the second wild-card spot as the Blue Jackets (32-21-14) rallied from a two-goal deficit to beat the Canucks, 5-3. Columbus has played two more games than the Rangers have.

The Flyers (38-20-7) won their sixth straight game and remained three points behind the Metropolitan Division-leading Capitals, who beat the Wild, 4-3, on Sunday night.

Rangers coach David Quinn, who said before the game that he understood that Lundqvist (21 saves on 26 shots) might be rusty in his first game since a six-minute relief appearance in Winnipeg on Jan. 11, absolved the goaltender of blame for any of the five goals against.

“We all touched on how hard a situation it is for him,’’ Quinn said while insisting he hasn’t lost confidence in Lundqvist. “Nobody’s more sympathetic to the situation than I am, and he and I had three or four conversations this week. We want to put him in a situation to succeed, and I thought he was fine tonight.

“I didn’t think Hank was our issue tonight. And I know you may look at it statistically, but Hank was not our problem tonight.’’

In Quinn’s mind, it was the goal that made it 3-0 — a shorthanded effort by Michael Raffl on a two-on-one break at 17:53 of the first period — that “really deflated us, gave them life and took us out of it for a while.’’

Things got worse when Derek Grant scored on a breakaway at 1:23 of the second to make it 4-0.

Zibanejad scored his first power-play goal at 12:31 of the period, but Travis Konecny scored the Flyers’ third power-play goal at 15:34 of the second to make it 5-1.

The Rangers got two power-play goals in the third — by Pavel Buchnevich and Zibanejad — to make it 5-3. They put plenty of pressure on Carter Hart (23 saves) in the final minutes but were unable to beat him again.

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.