NEW YORK – There’s no truth to the rumor, Steve Valiquette took over the position of Public Sports Enemy No. 1 in the city of Philadelphia, but a few more solid games by the Rangers backup netminder he just might.

“I don’t know about that,” laughed Valiquette. “The Eagles are very popular down there. I don’t know if Flyers hockey has the same following.”

Actually, Philadelphia fans love their Flyers and they love the way the game was played in the first period yesterday, in the Rangers 5-4 shootout win.

A back and forth game with the Flyers getting three goals on seven shots, which was enough to chase Henrik Lundqvist after one. Only because the Rangers were able to take advantage of a shaky Antero Niittymaki, who allowed the Rangers to get the score tied and take the lead early in the second.

“It was pretty chaotic,” said Brendan Shanahan, who scored the game winner in the shootout. “It was not really the game we have been playing. We came home, we had a lot of energy and our own energy worked against us at times defensively.”

And it was the new Rangers Fredrik Sjostrom and Christian Backman taking center stage. Both players scored impressive goals, their firsts as a Ranger, and Sjostrom had a great effort to score his tally.

“I wanted that bad,” Sjostrom said. “I was just being persistent, staying on the puck and tried to bang it in. Obviously when you come to a new team, you want to help anyway you can. It was nice to get that goal.”

After Backman made it 4-3 early in the second, Marty Biron replaced Niittymaki and order was restored with two new netminders.

And for the rest of the game, the two teams slowed down the pulse and Valiquette, stopping 17 of 18 shots and only allowed a Jeff Carter goal in the third to tie the game to send it into overtime.

“Valiquette was great,” Shanahan said. “He has a good track record against Philadelphia and it is funny to see both starting goaltenders pulled kind of early.”

Although Biron was able to stop the Rangers the last two periods and in overtime, he wasn’t able to get them in the shootout with both Shanahan and Nigel Dawes coming through, while Valiquette was perfect stopping Kimmo Timonen and Carter to give the Rangers the extra point and put some space between them and the eighth place Flyers.

“Our team was very excited about playing today,” said coach Tom Renney. “It was great. I was really excited about the dressing room, myself. It was good karma and I really felt strongly we would have a good game.”

And Philadelphia fans have another reason to hate Valiquette.

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