I’ll be honest. Even with the flu, last night’s Stanley Cup rematch meant something. Of course, it’s not the same as avenging the five-game series loss. But seeing our team fight back from a two-goal deficit and hold off the Kings 4-3 at annoying Staples Center was pretty sweet.

The Rangers’ latest win made it four straight and 12 of their last 13 pulling tying Washington in points (50) with two games at hand. They’re third and trail the first place Islanders by five and second place Pittsburgh by four with less games played. One of those games is coming soon against those Islanders next Tuesday at MSG. The Isles rallied for a 3-2 overtime win over the Devils.

Forget the division race. I want to focus on how good a comeback Thursday was. The Kings are defending champs. This was the first meeting between the teams in Tinseltown since Alex Martinez broke Broadway hearts. As they’ve noted, last June can’t be changed. The way they’ve moved forward after a tough start tells you all you need to know about this team. They’re focused and improving every game.

It would’ve been easy for them to fold up tent after the Kings blitzed Cam Talbot with two early goals. Jeff Carter set up Tanner Pearson and Justin Williams scored 1:37 later to get Staples rocking. The familiar “Rangers suck,” chants started with the cheesy organ player aggravating me to the point where I told Dad to turn it off. Eventually, Dan Boyle scored scored on the power play and we put it back on. I will admit the Kings drive me crazy. I wanted this one.

The kind of speed and skill the Rangers demonstrated in a dominant second period was something to behold. They outscored the Kings 3-0 completely outclassing them. As usual, Kevin Klein was in the middle of things finding a shooting angle for his eighth from Kevin Hayes and John Moore, who gave a good account in his second consecutive game. Only 19 seconds later, the fourth line continued their strong play with J.T. Miller allowing Lee Stempniak to come out in front and bury his sixth. It was so impressive that I cheered wildly.

With Martinez off for hooking, the Rangers power play went to work. Having already converted once, beautiful passing resulted in Martin St. Louis burying a Boyle rebound from Derick Brassard suddenly giving them a 4-2 lead. Ever since Boyle was put back on the top unit, the PP has looked the best it has in a decade when Jaromir Jagr was on his way to breaking Adam Graves’ single season goal record. Amazingly, he still plays and is one of the Devils’ best players. Hopefully, he gets the nod at the All-Star Game in Columbus. Has anyone seen those jerseys? They’re hideous.

Of course, Williams made things interesting by somehow backhanding a puck out of mid-air past Talbot with 4:03 left in regulation. The Kings came hard searching for the equalizer. But Talbot never gave in. He responded well to the challenge after allowing a bad one in the first. That’s the thing. You know Henrik Lundqvist wanted to start. But Alain Vigneault gave him the night off. He’ll be back for San Jose Saturday with the three-game Californian invasion concluding. If they play well, they’ll sweep it against three of the West’s best.