CALGARY, Alberta — Stranger things probably have not happened, but the Rangers can continue to dream the impossible dream of making the playoffs for as long as Henrik Lundqvist delivers performances like his historic back-to-back 50-save victories at Vancouver on Wednesday and against the Flames on Friday night.

The King celebrated his 36th birthday Friday with a 3-1 triumph over the Flames that featured one of the most superlative saves of his career, a diving palm-of-the-hand blocker stop following a left-right-left exchange that found Mikael Backlund alone from point-blank range on the left side 42 seconds into the second period of what then was a 1-1 game.

“You don’t have time to think,” said Lundqvist, who dropped his stick in order to allow him to get across from left to right. “You react, you improvise. There are so many situations in the game now where you have to improvise. There’s no textbook. You just battle.”

It seemed so certain Backlund had scored that trailing defenseman Dougie Hamilton began to raise his stick in celebration. Not only had Lundqvist performed the impossible to maintain the draw following an 18-save first period, but Pavel Buchnevich jammed one in from behind the net on the ensuing rush to break his own 10-game drought and give the Blueshirts a 2-1 edge 56 seconds in the period.

Lundqvist went immediately to the bench to be attended to by trainer Jim Ramsay while Buchnevich’s goal was being reviewed to see whether it had indeed crossed the line.

“It doesn’t hurt when you make the save and you score 10 seconds later,” said the graybeard in nets, who became the first goaltender since the NHL began tracking saves in 1955-56 to win consecutive 50-save games. “Rammer sprayed it and it was fine. It felt better right away when we scored.”

The Blueshirts’ first goal was scored by Kevin Hayes, who jammed a rebound past Jon Gillies after Ryan Spooner’s direct shot off a left-wing draw. Spooner then scored on a nifty five-hole bury on a breakaway for the 3-1 lead at 10:48 of the second period to give him the somewhat astonishing total of seven points (1-6) in his first three games wearing the Blueshirt.

And the Rangers had won twice in a row after losing seven straight (0-6-1) while winning only five of 22 (5-16-1) bridging the ownership/management dictate to dismantle the old gang and start anew.

Playoffs?

Playoffs?

“It’s a group of professional athletes. No one in here has quit,” said Chris Kreider, who engaged Travis Hamonic in a second-period fight. “We’re not mathematically eliminated. We look at it like, ‘Let’s go.’ “We’re playing with house money. Why not? Why not us?”

The Blueshirts, who complete this three-game trek Saturday at Edmonton with Alex Georgiev scheduled to get the start in goal, are five points out of the second wild-card spot with four teams to leapfrog in order to get there.

Maybe that’s why not.

But the despair that had blanketed the squad for nearly a month has lifted. There is new energy, even if no one believes that surrendering 106 shots over two games represents a viable formula for pulling off a miracle.

“It is what it is, but we’re going to try to have fun and make the most of it,” said Lundqvist, whose previous highest two-game combined workload was the 89 shots he faced in the opening two games of last year’s Montreal playoff series. “We’ll try to get on a roll.“A lot of us had been waiting or the big [deadline] day, especially me. It was tough to have the right mindset. But I just want to feel like I can make a difference. That’s why I’m here. The first half of the year I felt as good as I had in a few years. I want to get back to that.”

The Rangers serenaded Lundqvist in the postgame room by singing “Happy Birthday” to the goaltender.

“It felt great,” he said. “I’m 1-0 as a 36-year-old.”