NEW YORK – Don’t worry, no collapse happened tonight.

After dropping a 5-0 lead in Montreal earlier this week, the New York Rangers made sure that embarrassment didn’t happen again and secured a 5-0 shutout against the Florida Panthers at Madison Square Garden.

“When it was 5-0, we sat back and thought we had a pretty good shot,” quipped center Scott Gomez, who had a goal and two assists on the night. “We let that go a long time ago. We got a point out of Montreal, but when we had five [tonight], we were definitely going for six to make sure.”

Of course, this was not a rebound win. The 4-3, come from behind effort in Buffalo on Saturday took care of that. But this was a complete win and 23 saves were enough to give Henrik Lundqvist his eighth shutout this season.

“I think we showed last night we are a pretty good team in the third period,” Lundqvist said. “I think last night it was important for us to play a good solid third period and we got the game-winning goal. Tonight, I felt like we were more in control and there wasn’t as much pressure on us.”

Controlling play from the drop of the puck, the Rangers came out and pressured Florida for most of the game. Outshooting the Panthers in the first, the Blueshirts were able to take a 1-0 lead at 7:53 when Gomez took a pass from Brendan Shanahan on Tomas Volkoun’s stick side and made it 1-0.

“We talked about it before the game,” said Rangers captain Jaromir Jagr. “We wanted to jump on them right away and make sure we had a very good first period.”

The momentum went to the second with goals by Marek Malik and Jagr, just 1:15 apart. Malik was able to take a pass in the slot from Martin Straka and put a slapshot by Volkoun and then Jagr has an open net from the side, scoring his 17th goal of the season and his sixth point in the past three games.

“Every time I get the puck, I hear Sean Avery,” joked Jagr about his new loquacious linemate. “I want to shoot, but the noise is everywhere.”

In all seriousness, Jagr has come alive in the last week and with 55 points, has an outside chance of reaching his vesting mark of 84 points in the last 17 games. Also Malik has played well since coming back from his knee injury and although the subject of trade talk, could stay and be a help to the Blueshirts down the stretch.

“He has worked hard on and off the ice,” said coach Tom Renney, who Malik had words with earlier on the year. “I think he has been a great player lately. I am happy when anyone scores, but there are moments in the season when you are cheering real hard for someone on the inside and it was good to see.”

As was the needed 5-0 win, which was as complete as any this season.

“It means we understand where we are,” Renney said. “It means we are the only ones that can get us where we want to be at the end of the day, which is a good seed in the playoffs. Tonight we were an intelligent, hard working team and we were relentless.”

And one that didn’t collapse in the end.

Notes: No word on Paul Mara, who suffered a head injury in Buffalo. Something will be released on Monday…With the win, the Rangers move into sixth in the playoffs with 72 points…With the trade deadline on Tuesday, the Blueshirts wait to see if GM Glen Sather will make any moves, possibly for a defenseman if Mara is out for any long term.