SHOOTOUT

Rangers 3

Flyers 2

In the first place, there are the playoffs. In first place, there are the Rangers.

Nine years, eight seasons, 173 players and five head coaches had come and gone between invites to the postseason ball, but this year – this incredible year – the Rangers will get to put on their party hats and make some noise with all the other NHL big boys.

They’ll get to dance, they’ll get to rumble, they’ll get to play in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 1996-97, clinching with last night’s Garden 3-2 shootout victory over the Flyers that increased the Blueshirts’ Atlantic lead over Philly to three points with seven games to play for each squad. For the franchise’s sake, this post-season berth won’t have to last the same lifetime since the last one.

“We looked each other eye-to-eye on the ice when we embraced at the end,” said Kevin Weekes, outstanding in nets and cheered lustily in gaining his first home victory since Nov. 19.

“We didn’t extend it because we knew the fans were waiting for us to get to center ice for the salute, and we didn’t want to keep the people waiting.”

For more than seven seasons, meant the goaltender, in his first year as a Ranger.

“The principles have always been the same old-school commitment to values and work ethic,” Weekes said. “We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished, and I’m sure our parents and families are proud, too, because they taught us those values when we were younger.

“Some things never change.” But some things do – as in Rangers going to the playoffs. And if the players’ families were proud last night, if the fans were proud, if the coaching staff was proud, so was the owner, Jim Dolan, who expressed his congratulations while meeting the team in the locker room after it had ended.

But if congratulations were in order – and they were – Jaromir Jagr was talking about the miles to go the Rangers still have to travel.

It was Jagr, denied by Robert Esche on 12 shots – 12! – in quest for his club-record 53rd goal, who went public guaranteeing a playoff spot on the first day of training camp when essentially every hockey person extant pegged the team for a lottery pick in the draft.

“The biggest advantage was that nobody believed we could do any damage in this league,” said Jagr, who had one assist. “We could play the game no matter what, without any pressure from the outside.”

Of the 20 Rangers who dressed last night, only five had played even a game with the club during its seven-year itch. Past failures were no burden for this club. Weighted heavily toward creating an environment in which Jagr and the skilled Rangers could thrive, the organization saw it all before anyone else did. Glen Sather and his staff conceived a season when everyone else was seeing doom.

“It’s terrific; it’s great for this group of players and for the organization that rolled the dice on this philosophy,” Tom Renney said after Petr Sykora’s goal in the shootout proved decisive. “There’s a sense of accomplishment that we’ve secured a spot, but there’s a lot more work to do and a lot more hockey to play.”

In the regular season – and the playoffs.

larry.brooks@nypost.com