We haven't had a sports week like this around here for a long time.
The Giants won the Super Bowl and it was hard to even remember that took place once the Jeremy Lin Experience got rolling at the Garden on Monday night. And, thanks to the news that the Yankees might actually be on the verge of trading A.J. Burnett, the Lin story might not even be the most improbable development in New York sports.
There's only so much oxygen available for the Rangers with all of that going on, but they made a pretty good case this weekend that it is probably time to put the Giants win aside and turn our focus to another team that's going to challenge for a title.
They swept the Flyers and Capitals in back-to-back wins, moving seven points up on the Bruins in the Eastern Conference and providing even more reasons to believe that last week's parade could have company.
Or maybe the Rangers like anonymity provided by sharing space on such a crowded landscape. They certainly don't play a game that relies on too much flash.
They block shots, bodycheck and take care of their own end relentlessly so that Henrik Lundqvist will only have to make the bare minimum of saves on his way to another victory.
Relentlessness is easy to admire but hard to put on the back page of a tabloid when there's another easy pun to make off of Lin's name.
Not that there weren't players and moments that were worthy of oohs and ahhs over the two-win weekend. Ryan Callahan scored four goals, Marian Gaborik had four points in Philly, Brandon Prust connected on a key shorthanded tally on Sunday and the power play generated three goals in the Flyers win.
It wasn't quite an end to the team's longstanding power play woes, with two of the goals coming on rushes instead of the traditional sets we see with the man advantage.
There still might be a trade to bolster things on that front, but that's about the only place on the team where things aren't firing on all cylinders as the Rangers near the top of the stretch.
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All of that makes for a pretty spectacular ride and there's plenty of room to hop aboard the bandwagon for the final push. Without football to distract you, there's no excuse not to check things out.
When you do, you'll find the Rangers have been just about the best show in town.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.
