The Games of the Week: Monday night, New York Rangers vs. Pittsburgh Penguins; Sunday afternoon, Houston Texans vs. New York Jets: With the Blueshirts clinging to a 1-0 lead with a couple of minutes to go in regulation, and Henrik Lundqvist not only standing on his own head but Dan Girardi's melon as well to keep his team in the game, the Penguins scored two goals as fast as you can say "The Penguins' five power plays to zero for the Rangers sure looks awfully suspicious, but that would just be a crackpot conspiracy theory, thinking that the NHL really wants Pittsburgh to win every game they can." But Marc Staal saved the day with a miracle shorthanded goal with 1:26 left, and Brandon Dubinsky and Ryan Callahan teamed up for a doozey of a goal to win it in overtime. Holy Bill Chadwick! As for the Jets game, just substitute Mark Sanchez for Brandon Dubinsky, Santonio Holmes for Ryan Callahan and we'll throw in a Holy Don Maynard! for good measure.
The Shot of the Week: Raymond Felton's falling down, one-handed, acrobatic, off-the-backboard prayer against the Warriors on Friday night.
The Opponent's Dunk of the Week: Clipper Blake Griffins' sky-high, head-scraping-the-ceiling slam over Timofey Mozgov on Saturday.
The Opponents' Uniform of the Week: Golden State's cool, retro-style, old-time-logo unis.
The Player of the Week:
Winner
Santonio Holmes: He did it last week, and he did it again this week. Only the Jets didn't have to wait until overtime this time. Holmes is on a roll of a lifetime. The only way he can top the endings to the last two games is if he not only catches the winning touchdown pass in the Jets' next game on Thanksgiving but if he throws it to himself, as well. The Jets had all but blown the game until the combination of Sanchez and Holmes struck again. Maybe they should play the lottery this week. Holmes racked up 126 yards on seven catches, including a 41-yard TD and the game-winner, a six-yard pass to the corner of end zone. He's the hero of the week, but Sanchez is becoming Mr. Clutch. It only took him 39 seconds to drive 72 yards down field for the winning score, highlighted by the perfectly thrown bomb to Braylon Edwards (four catches, 86 yards, TD). For the game, Sanchez went 22 for 38, throwing for 315 yards, with three touchdowns and one pick.
Runners Up & Other Notables
Amar'e Stoudemire: Fire Mike D'Antoni? Give him an extension. Ok, it wasn't the Lakers they beat, but you have to start somewhere. The New York Knicks are starting to click, and their prime-time players are beginning to look ready for prime time, as they rolled through California with three straight wins. It's a tossup between Stoudemire and Raymond Felton, but we'll pick the big guy because he's finally starting to do what he's supposed to be doing. Stoudemire took on the challenge thrown down by Blake Griffin, and the Knick came out on top. Griffin scored more points, but Stoudemire's team won and he contributed with 39 points and 11 boards. The former Sun scored 27, 24 and 26 points in the other three games this week. Felton was just as good, though, with a career-high 35 points on Friday in Oakland (along with 11 assists), and 19/11, 16/3 and 20/7 games, as well. Danilo Gallinari was also on fire this week, and Landry Fields was awesome in Tuesday's loss to Denver when he scored 21 points and hauled in 17 rebounds.
Brandon Dubinsky: The Rangers went 2-2 this week. Dubinsky gets the nod for the Blueshirts, with his two assists in Monday's thriller. And they were both fantastic passes, one to Staal for the game-tying goal and the other to Callahan for the winner. The Alaskan also scored in the loss to Boston, and notched a goal in Saturday's victory over Minnesota. He now has 12 goals and seven assists in 21 games for the year. Marian Gaborik had a goal and two assists this week, as did 20-year-old Derek Stepan, who's starting to find some consistency. And let's give a little credit to Derek Boogaard for his hit along the boards against the Wild that set up the first goal of the game.
Kris Humphries: Despite scoring 24, 27, 7 and 20 points this week, Brook Lopez loses out for missing that layup on Saturday in Denver. Humphries will be the Net of the week for his 13 point, 12 rebound performance in the team's only win of the week over the Clippers on Monday, to go along with 3/15, 18/10 and 10/8 games in the three losses.
Matt Moulson: The Islanders keep losing, but Moulson put the puck in the back of the net twice this week and added an assist. He leads the team with eight goals. And despite Sunday's loss, Rick DiPietro was solid in the nets in his first game in almost three weeks.
Mike McKenna: As always, we're grasping at straws to find a decent Devils performance this week, but we'll choose McKenna. He made his Devil debut on Saturday night in his hometown of St. Louis, and though he allowed three goals, two of them were flukes. One was poked in when the ref probably should have blown his whistle to stop play, and the other banked off his back side into the goal after taking a weird bounce off the end boards.
Giants: Any good offensive performance was fumbled away. And though the defense did a good job on Michael Vick, all accolades went out the window with that 50-yard touchdown run they gave up on fourth-and-one.
For more in-depth discussion on the Jets, Giants, Nets, Knicks, Rangers, Islanders and Devils, go to SB Nation's Gang Green Nation, Big Blue View, NetsDaily, Posting and Toasting, Blueshirt Banter, Lighthouse Hockey and In Lou We Trust, respectively.