But Nash's first goal 4:24 later on a breakaway off a feed from Pavel Buchnevich evened the score and the Rangers never looked back.
"Personally I feel like my game's been good, just haven't been able to put the puck in the net," said Nash, who had seven shots on goal in addition to the two tallies. "Tonight, two go in."
Nash's second capped the scoring in the second that put a bow on the victory that snapped the team's three-game losing skid. And while the two goals are a step in the right direction for Nash, he said it's just "one game."
"It's not that big of a deal to me," he said. "[Scoring is] what I'm supposed to do. I'm going to go back to work tomorrow and keep working on my game and try and come back even better against Buffalo."
J.T. Miller got a piece of Ryan McDonagh's shot from the point with the Rangers on the power play put New York ahead with 3:10 to play in the first. Carey's breakaway goal - off a feed from the debuting Peter Holland - three minutes later put the Blueshirts up two with less than 10 seconds to play in the first.
Michael Grabner potted his team-leading 20th of the year midway through the second period to make it 4-1, which proceeded Nash's second 6:40 later.
Henrik Lundqvist stopped everything he saw after Weal's goal on Philadelphia's first shot of the game on his way to his 20th victory of the year, and with it, he becomes the first goalie in NHL history with 20 wins in his first 13 NHL seasons, and the first time any goalie has reached that plateau in that many consecutive years.
"Every time they say first time in NHL history, that's pretty cool because it's been around for a while," Lundqvist said. "I'm not going to lie; I feel really proud about that accomplishment. I've been working hard, but I always say I've been very lucky to play with a lot of great players."
The importance of the victory was two-fold for the Rangers; in the standings and for their confidence.
"These points are so big every game, especially these divisional points," said Skjei, who was a plus-3 two games after being a minus-4 Saturday against the Islanders. "Getting two points against these guys. It just seems like every game is a playoff-type game for us. We need as many points here as we can going down the stretch."
