With a thorough 4-1 victory Sunday, the Broadway Blueshirts took care of both.

Ryan Callahan scored a goal in the opening minute and another in the third period, and Henrik Lundqvist made 26 saves as the Rangers eliminated the Devils from the Eastern Conference playoff race.

Callahan provided the lead 34 seconds in, Derek Stepan added a goal in the first period, and Taylor Pyatt snapped a long drought in the second for the eighth-place Rangers, who are inching closer to a playoff berth.

“It’s always nice to beat them,” said Brad Richards, who had two assists. “It was a big win for us. They’re out now, but that’s not why we were playing. We were playing because we need to stay alive. Now we’re down to nine teams, so the odds are better.”

Of the teams behind the Rangers, only Winnipeg can catch them. New York is even in points with seventh-place Ottawa, but the Senators have four games remaining — one more than the Rangers. Winnipeg is three points behind with three games left.

New York has won three straight and is 8-2-1 in its last 11. The Rangers aren’t looking too far ahead. After a trip to Florida and Carolina, they will wrap up their season at home Saturday against the Devils.

“We’re playing our best hockey we’ve played all year,” Callahan said. “Now is the time to do that. We’ve been playing playoff-style hockey the last couple of games. These are must-wins for us. It gives us a dress rehearsal for the playoffs.”

Callahan made it 4-0 at 5:13 of the third with a power-play goal, flipping a shot over sprawled-out goalie Martin Brodeur, who tried to poke away the puck. Brodeur heard derisive chants of “Mar-ty, Mar-ty” throughout and finished with 18 saves.

“It’s difficult to take,” Brodeur said of the elimination. “We’ve competed real hard all year.”

Lundqvist was solid in his 12th straight start, allowing only Andrei Loktionov’s goal with 6:30 remaining. The Rangers had more space between games recently. The extra rest has helped Lundqvist stay sharp.

He told coach John Tortorella he won’t ever ask out of the lineup.

“It’s like the playoffs have been going on for a couple of weeks,” Lundqvist said. “It’s fun to be out there. I don’t want to sit on the bench.”

The Devils won’t get a chance to defend their conference title. New Jersey had won two straight — including 6-2 on Saturday against Florida — following a 10-game skid (0-6-4).

“We pride ourselves on being there every year,” forward Stephen Gionta said. “Unfortunately, we’re not. It definitely hurts. The organization prides itself on winning and being in the playoffs every year. Anything less is a disappointment.”

Madison Square Garden fans serenaded the Devils with chants of “Season’s over” as time ticked down in the third.

“It hasn’t sunk in,” said Devils coach Pete DeBoer, who was ejected in the closing seconds for unsportsmanlike conduct. “You don’t want to think about it until it’s actually a reality. No other word but disappointment.”

The Devils had already been called for two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, one that cost them a power-play goal, before DeBoer was ushered out.

“A little frustration on my part,” he said. “Two of our players were given unsportsmanlike conducts in an elimination game. The sensitivity of some of the officials is beyond me.”

With a 3-0 lead heading into the third period, the Rangers had all but sealed New Jersey’s fate. New York is 85-0-6 when leading after two periods, dating to Feb. 4, 2010.

The Rangers came out quickly, seemingly motivated to put the Devils away early. New Jersey knocked out New York in last year’s conference finals.

New York connected right away, scoring while Brodeur was looking the opposite way from where the puck was. Carl Hagelin worked to get free from defenders behind the net, and flung the puck in front to Callahan, who was near the left post.

While Brodeur had his head turned away from him, trying to find the puck he thought was behind the net, Callahan nudged it forward off of Brodeur’s skate and into the net for his 13th goal.

“They were waiting for us. We played yesterday,” Brodeur said. “They were able to score the first goal, and that made a big difference in the momentum.”

Game notes

Pyatt played in his 800th NHL game. … Rangers C Brian Boyle missed his third straight game because of a right leg injury. … Volchenkov returned after serving a four-game suspension for elbowing.

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The 22-year-old from London, Ontario, scored on a one-timer against Ottawa’s Ben Bishop at 4:48 of the third period to complete his hat trick. Resumption of play was delayed as hats littered the ice and chants of “KA-DRI” broke out.

“Leafs Nation is everywhere,” Kadri said. “We obviously appreciate the support and want to give back as much as we can. To see everyone, especially at the start of the game with that ‘Go Leafs Go’ chant, and to hear it throughout the whole building, it kind of got everyone going. We took advantage of that.”

Joffrey Lupul scored and added three assists for the Leafs, who have won three in a row and continued an eight-game point streak.

Bishop made 19 saves for the Senators, who were coming off a 3-0 shutout over the New York Rangers on Thursday.

“We thought it was going to be a lot closer,” Senators forward Zack Smith said. “We’re used to playing tight games.

“It was 4-0 but I don’t think it was a 4-0 game. We had a lot of chances, just maybe not the quality third and fourth chances that we’re used to scoring on.”

The Leafs led 1-0 after the first period and 2-0 after the second.

“I think we had a great start, and that’s one of the things we’ve been focusing on. Any time you can get a decent start on the road, it puts more pressure on the home team to perform,” Toronto coach Randy Carlyle said.

The first of Kadri’s goals came at 12:45 of the second after a giveaway as Senators forward Jakob Silfverberg tried to clear the puck, but instead gave it right to Lupul leading to a 2-on-0 break in front of Bishop. Lupul fed a pass to Kadri at the side of the goal and he put the puck into a wide-open net.

Lupul took advantage of another Senators’ giveaway to set up Kadri again for the game’s final goal.

The Senators appeared to score in the third period as Erik Condra tucked a loose puck in from beside the post, but the referee had blown the play dead.

Senators coach Paul MacLean said whether it was in or not was irrelevant as they didn’t score any others. When asked what went wrong for his team, MacLean said giveaways would be a good place to start.

“Two of them right in front of your net in the third period makes it kind of hard for your goaltender to save you,” MacLean said. “That little bug-a-boo that we’ve had in the past about execution in came back to bite us.

“I don’t know if Toronto had better puck luck than we did, but at the end of the day they ended up playing better than we did and they win.”

The second period produced just one goal, by Kadri on a delayed penalty call. There were also just four minutes in penalties, two delay of game calls against the Leafs, which was a stark contrast to the first period.

The opening 20 minutes also produced a single goal, a power-play effort from Lupul, but there were 40 minutes in penalties, including six fighting majors.

Ottawa’s Matt Kassian was the busiest player in the opening period as he took on both Colton Orr and Frazer McLaren in fights.

“They put the puck in the net and we didn’t. Reimer made some good saves and they got a couple bounces that helped them out too, but we just weren’t good enough from the drop of the puck and they wanted it more,” Kassian said.

“I don’t think we got pushed around or got dominated physically. We just got outworked, outskilled and outplayed. That’s the bottom line.”

The Leafs also held an 11-5 edge in shots over the opening 20 minutes, but the Senators turned the table in that department during the second period as they outshot the Leafs 12-6 in the second.

Ottawa held a 31-23 advantage in shots overall.

Game notes

Clarke MacArthur and Jake Gardiner were scratches for Toronto. Mike Lundin and Peter Regin were the Sens’ healthy scratches for the second straight game. … Going into Saturday, the Leafs led the NHL in hits with 1,143, blocked shots with 590 and fighting majors 34, a number they increased by three in the first period. … The Senators remain just one of four teams (New York Islanders, Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota Wild) that have yet to allow a short-handed goal this season. … The loss was just the third in regulation on home ice for the Senators in 19 games this season.

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