NEW YORK -- Center Derick Brassard's evening got off to in an inauspicious start before he took the ice for his first shift.

New York Rangers center Oscar Lindberg had his stick break during the Sunday's game's first minute. Brassard handed Lindberg his stick but lost his glove in the process. As an equipment manager was handing Brassard a new stick, he was struggling to scrape his glove off the ice in front of the bench as it was quickly becoming his turn to take a shift.

"Our trainers are usually pretty good with that," Brassard said, "but it happened so quick, my glove was on top of the bench and it fell onto the ice."

That was easily the low point of an outstanding Sunday night for Brassard, who scored twice to help the Rangers to a 4-1 victory against the Ottawa Senators at Madison Square Garden.

Outside of a shouting match with referee Tim Peel that Brassard labeled a "misunderstanding," it was a near flawless effort from a Rangers team that had lost five of its previous six games.

The Rangers (18-7-3) held the Senators (14-8-5) to 24 shots, with few coming from dangerous scoring areas, and scored on both power-play opportunities. With the Senators playing the second half of a back-to-back against a rested team, they were held to three shots in the third period.

"I thought overall we played really good and smart," goaltender Henrik Lundqvist said. "The third period felt like the first couple weeks of the season. We were back to making good decisions with and without the puck."

Because of the way the NHL awards points for losses after regulation, the Rangers' last handful of games are like an ink blot; they can be looked at as mostly poor, as they have lost five of seven (2-4-1), or they can be looked at as a team turning a corner with points in three of four games (2-1-1).

At the very least, the Rangers felt the way they played Sunday is more representative of their team and can be repeated going forward.

"Right from the beginning, we were making the safe plays and right from the beginning, anything they were getting, we were forcing them to work hard for," defenseman Marc Staal said. "We weren't just giving it to them, which we had been for a little while. That just led into a more solid effort the whole game."

Power-play goals by defenseman Ryan McDonagh and Brassard in the first period gave the Rangers a 2-0 lead. The goals were big on their own but especially so for a Rangers team that had one true 5-on-5 goal over a nearly 200-minute span before Brassard's breakaway goal in the third period made it a 3-1 game.

Senators defenseman Marc Methot scored at 6:01 of the second period to make it a 2-1 game, but between the Rangers more structured game on the ice and Ottawa's weary legs over the final 20 minutes, the Senators never seemed to threaten to tie or take over the game.

"There's an energy drop when going back to back," Senators coach Dave Cameron said. "We just have to do better."

"It's tough, especially against a good team like New York," Senators center Kyle Turris said. "We're just trying to get pucks deep and be smart about our energy, maximize and take advantage of our opportunities and we weren't able to do that."

The Rangers will attempt to build on their success as they embark on a stretch that features five of their next six games on the road against Western Conference teams. All but one of those teams -- the Minnesota Wild -- sit outside a playoff spot, so while the competition may not be challenging, two separate swings through different time zones could prove difficult.

"We wanted to win the game before our road trip to Western Canada," Brassard said, "and just have that good feeling for a couple days, travel with the team and know we got the job done."

NOTES: Senators C Kyle Turris was in the lineup after being considered a game-time decision. He suffered a leg injury near the end of Saturday's home game against the New York Islanders but was good to go against the Rangers. ... Senators G Craig Anderson made his 11th consecutive start. ... The Senators were without G Andrew Hammond (upper body), LW Clarke MacArthur (concussion), LW Milan Michalek (finger) and D Chris Phillips (back). ... Rangers RW Emerson Etem was a healthy scratch. ... Rangers C Derek Stepan (ribs) and D Kevin Klein (oblique) did not play.