It's Monday morning, which means it's time to vote for the SB Nation New York Player of the Week. Last week, Eli Manning was the winner, due to his heroics in Green Bay. This week, the New York Giants defeated the San Francisco 49ers and are headed to the Super Bowl. As for the other local teams: The New York Knicks went 0-4, the New Jersey Nets 2-2, the New York Rangers 2-1, the New York Islanders 3-1 and the New Jersey Devils 1-2. Here are the new nominees, but it's an almost-all Big Blue edition. Vote now!
↵Eli Manning: His offensive line almost got him killed, but Manning hung in there and never got flustered or lost his cool, as always. Rain? Wet ball? Who cares, as he threw 58 passes, completing 32 of them, threw for 316 yards, tossed two touchdown passes and didn't turn the ball over.
↵Victor Cruz: He dominated the first half, making one key catch after another. Cruz hauled in 10 passes in all (one short of the franchise postseason record), for 142 yards. He didn't get to do his salsa dance in the end zone, but he did do it in the locker room at Terry Bradshaw's request, so I'm sure he'll take it.
↵Devin Thomas: The special teams savior came up with the two most important plays of the game, alertly scooping up the ball after it bounced off Kyle Williams' leg, which should have resulted in a Thomas touchdown if the refs hadn't messed up the call on the field, but it did result in Mario Manningham's TD. He then recovered the ball after Jacquian Williams knocked it out of the 49er kick returner's hands, which led to the winning points.
↵Lawrence Tynes: His teammates did most of the heavy lifting, but Tynes did have to actually make the 31-yard kick in overtime, and now he's been the hero twice, booting his team into the Super Bowl a pair of times. He also made another 31-yard field goal earlier in the game, and did his job on the kickoffs.
↵Steve Weatherford: He was seemingly on the field every couple of minutes, punting the ball 12 times in all, for a 46.4 average. Weatherford's longest was 57 yards, and twice he pinned the 49ers inside the 20. And he did a flawless, not-so-easy job of handling the low snap on the game-winning field goal.
↵Marian Gaborik: Saturday's marquee matchup between the Rangers and Boston Bruins lived up to its billing, and the Blueshirts had karma on their side after Andrew Ference leveled Ryan McDonagh in OT. Gaborik netted the game-winner with 3.6 seconds left, and scored the Rangers' second goal of the game. He also had in assist in each of the two previous games last week. He has a modest four-game point streak going, and is a plus-4 in those games as well.
↵John Tavares: Speaking of overtime game-winners, Tavares scored one of his own on Saturday, and he also netted the Islanders' other goal in the 2-1 win over the Hurricanes. The center is playing like the No. 1 overall pick that he was, leading his team to three victories in four games this week, scoring four goals with two assists. He's in the midst of a 12-game point streak, piling up 21 points in that span.
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