NEW YORK – It’s very rare for the Rangers to tie a game in the last second. So much so that their coach doesn’t even remember the last time it happened.

“I couldn’t tell you,” said coach Tom Renney. “I honestly don’t know. I couldn’t tell you.”

No one can blame Renney, who is recovering from a conk on the noggin, because it’s been so long since Chris Drury tied the game in Edmonton on Jan. 5. So when Nikolai Zherdev put one past Marc-Andre Fleury with 8.1 seconds left, the Garden understandably went nuts.

“That was the loudest I have ever heard this building,” said Fredrik Sjostrom, who ultimately won the 3-2 decision over the Pittsburgh Penguins with the shootout’s only tally. “It was just amazing for us to come back where we were just bombarding them with shots. And then to get the late one, and the place just erupted out there, it was one of the best moments I have had in here.”

“It’s unbelievable,” Drury added. “Right down to the wire. It feels great to see [the puck] go in.”

Zherdev’s goal completed a great third period comeback for the Rangers. Through the first 40 minutes, the team looked flat, and maybe a little fatigued from the night before. But Renney switched things up in the third, with different combinations and shorter shifts to keep the team fresh.

It allowed the Rangers to have 18 of their 44 shots in the third and they got the two goals to tie it.

“There was just more urgency in the third,” Renney said. “We were just paying attention of taking back as much ice as we could. Getting it in deep and getting places first. It’s almost like we tried to articulate our way through the first two periods, instead of playing.”

Besides Zherdev, Markus Naslund woke up with a power play goal earlier in the period. Just seven seconds after Petr Prucha drew a hooking call on Jordan Staal, the Swedish left wing knocked a pass from Scott Gomez past Fleury to cut the Penguin lead in half.

It was part of a great third period by Naslund who looked very comfortable out there.

“We were trying to make an extra push there to get something going,” said Naslund, who now has three goals on the season. “We go rewarded out there and got a couple of goals.”

Those two goals allowed the Rangers to take it to overtime and then the shootout. Although Zherdev and Nigel Dawes were sent away by Fleury, Sjostrom’s goal gave the Rangers the win after Henrik Lundqvist was able to stop Kris Letang, Petr Sykora, and Sidney Crosby.

Those third period heroics were needed because the Rangers dug themselves a hole over the first two stanzas. Darryl Sydor opened the scoring at 9:04 of the fist on Pittsburgh’s first shot of the game. Taking it from the point it went through traffic and past Lundqvist.

Then Sidney Crosby made it 2-0 in the second as he poked a loose puck by Lundqvist and it looked like it was Pittsburgh’s night.

But the Ranger netminder stopped the Pens’ 25 other shots to allow his team to come back in the third.

“Henrik is probably the best goalie out there,” Naslund said. “He showed it again tonight. He’s making the saves at the right time.”

With the win the Rangers improved to 8-2-1 for 17 points, by far the most in the league. But they have played 11 games, which is two more than any other team.

Notes: Renney said he felt fine after the game. After meeting with the doctors in the morning, he was given a clean bill of health.

That didn’t stop general manager Glen Sather from buying him a helmet or goaltending coach Benoit Allaire from wearing a nametag so Renney “would know who he was.”