For much of the past decade, Madison Square Garden-style standing ovations were hard to come by for the New York Rangers.

This season, though, the AHL-fueled Rangers are bringing the standing "O" back to Manhattan.

With no playoff appearances since 1997, the Rangers over the years had become easy fodder for New York’s brutally honest tabloids.

Why then, critics asked, could the Rangers not implement an all-out rebuilding campaign?

Draft well.

Grow AHL talent and develop a top-notch AHL system, just like those Hudson River rivals, the New Jersey Devils.

Build a real, honest-to-goodness organization from the bottom on up with home-grown talent that climbed the organizational ladder together.

Well, the counter-argument went, Rangers fans and the win-now Manhattan mentality would never settle for a rebuilding outfit. Stars, after all, shine more brightly on the Madison Square Garden marquee board.

Finally, the Rangers bottomed out late in the 2003-04 season. Instead of talent flowing into New York at the NHL trade deadline, that talent flow reversed course and dispersed talent across the NHL map.

Left with no choice but to rebuild, the Rangers and that fan base have found that the youth movement may not be such a bad way to go.

Just a shift toward a young team that works hard every night and shows signs of growth probably would have been enough for numbed Rangers fans to embrace at this point. Winning was expected to have to take a backseat to player development this year, and the Rangers were all but slotted to finish at or near the bottom of the NHL’s Eastern Conference.

But the Rangers entered November sitting atop the Atlantic Division with a stout 6-4-3 mark, just two points up on the trailing Philadelphia Flyers and New Jersey Devils, but far ahead of where most critics and experts predicted they would sit at this point in the season.

Finally the Garden has become a place where the Rangers and their 4-1-2 home record possess some semblance of a home-ice advantage. This, after years of playing host to sluggish Rangers teams that all too often left the local faithful irritated and visiting opponents skating off with two points.

Not too surprisingly, this season’s crop on Broadway has a heavy Hartford presence, and that crew has helped bring a winning mentality to the Rangers’ dressing room. The Wolf Pack piled up wins over the past two seasons, sampled playoff hockey and took the 2004 Eastern Conference final to seven games.

Former Wolf Pack benchmen Ryan McGill and Nick Fotiu employed a demanding style, and this season’s Jim Schoenfeld-led crew, with Ken Gernander and Ulf Samuelsson assisting, are no less demanding.

Now Jed Ortmeyer, Dominic Moore and Blair Betts, who saw his 2004-05 season largely interrupted by injury, all now skate regular shifts for Rangers head coach Tom Renney.

Fedor Tyutin, who spent parts of the past two seasons skating at the Hartford Civic Center, now has made the full-time jump to the NHL. Fellow Russian Maxim Kondratiev, who got a taste of the North American game in a brief Hartford stint last season, also is a Ranger.

New York also imported AHL talent from elsewhere, with former AHL MVP Jason Ward and AHL All-Star Jeff Taffe being brought to New York.

Ryan Hollweg welcomed Philadelphia’s Dennis Seidenberg and Mike Rathje to the 2005-06 season on opening night in Philadelphia with his rambunctious style, pasting Seidenberg with a clean hit along the neutral-zone sideboards that left the former Philadelphia Phantom with a concussion.

Hollweg has been part of a New York-Hartford player flow that has seen the Rangers make better use of their AHL affiliate, particularly given the geographical convenience of their AHL affiliation. Petr Prucha spent last season in the Czech Republic, and the Rangers have used the Wolf Pack to help bring along Prucha when NHL ice time is hard to come by for the 23-year-old forward.

Bryce Lampman and Fedor Fedorov also have seen stints with the Rangers, and the Rangers saw enough in Fedorov to rip up his AHL contract and sign him to an NHL deal.

Whether the Rangers remain in the Eastern Conference mix or eventually settle somewhere further down the NHL standings, hope at long last at least has returned to Broadway.