Heaven must be like this…

The Rangers and Yankees combined to deliver New York sports fans one of the greatest nights in recent memory on Friday. Here are some quick thoughts on both.

First, the Rangers going up 2-0 on the Lamoriellos…
- This series is over. I know you Blueshirt die-hards are sitting at your computers right now saying, “Now why’d you have to jinx it?” but do you really think the Devils have it in them to come back? Right, didn’t think so. The most ominous sign for them had to be when every time Brodeur froze the puck in Game 2, the Devils began sucker-punching, horse-collaring, and/or slashing our forwards. Usually that’s reserved for when a team is already down 2-0, or on the verge of going down 3-0, and they’ll do anything to shift the momentum in the series, even if it means instigating a bench clearing brawl. The fact that the Devils resorted to doing this after the first game of the series tells you all you need to know about where they think this thing is heading…

- … and that sense of dread is the result of two harsh realities. The first is that the Devils simply can’t slip the puck past The King enough times to even have a shot in this series. Now a lot of this has to do with the fact that the Devils just flat-out suck on offense, but Henrik Lundqvist’s dominance is obviously a huge factor as well. It’s not like the Devils didn’t have their opportunities in Game 2– they had plenty, including 5 man-advantages– and it looked like hell was going to freeze over before they’d score (pun 100% intended), and even when they did put one in, it took a perfect “pass” by Elias and subsequent redirect by Madden to do the trick. Simply put, Henrik is out of his mind right now and, if history is any indicator, a blazingly hot King might be all the Rangers need to be parading down the Canyon of Heroes in June.

- The second sign that the end is near has to be the “shaky” play of Martin Brodeur. Now I use the term “shaky” in a relative sense considering he’s arguably the greatest goalie ever, but there’s no question Lundqvist is outplaying him, especially in key spots. Plus, it was interesting to see how Marty unraveled a bit there in the third after Jagr’s fluky goal. You could tell Marty was fuming after teammate Paul Martin accidently nudged Brodeur off balance and basically gave Jagr an open door to fire one off his back and into the net (sorry so detailed there, just making sure all you non-hockey fans/people who didn’t watch the game have some concept of what I’m referring to)… and just 23 seconds later, he got beat on a shot that he probably stops 99 out of 100 times IN HIS SLEEP — a knuckling wrister from Sean Avery from about 20 feet out. It’s rare to see Brodeur off his game like that– letting one bad goal cloud his judgment– but he was, and the Rangers capitalized.

- And that’s how this series has gone so far anyway– the Rangers pounce on every little Devils’ mishap, while New Jersey can’t do anything even when they have the upper hand. To me, Ryan Callahan’s shorthanded goal on Wednesday night was the turning point. Game 1 was tied 1-a-piece, the Devils had a chance to go for the jugular with the man advantage… but instead, the Rangers not only ended up stealing home-ice advantage, but then they went ahead and took both games at the Rock to boot. I know I picked the Rangers in five, but I wouldn’t be shocked if this thing is over by Wednesday.

Alright, the Yanks’ big win in Fenway…
- I know it’s still early, but Brian Cashman is looking like a genius right now for believing that Chinny-Ming could expand his repertoire and become a true ace instead of jumping the gun trading Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, et al for Johan (and really, who could’ve blamed him if he did?). The guy looks absolutely unhittable so far and, if not for Bobby Abreu, he might have been, literally.

- Speaking of Abreu, what the hell happened there?! Dude, your glove is a f#@king picnic basket, there’s no excuse for that.

- He’s no Derek Jeter… hell, he’s not even the Attorney General anymore… but I like this Alberto Gonzalez kid. He’s got a decent bat, plays a solid short, and keeps his wits about him. And “ssshh,” keep this on the D/L, but it looks like he’s got way more range than #2. The credit here has to go to Joey G though. The easy thing (aka the Joe Torre thing) to do would have been to stick Wilson Betemit in Jeets’ place and then watch him commit like 15 errors in a big spot Friday night. Instead, Girardi called up a young’n, got him in the mix at KC so he wouldn’t be shellshocked in Fenway, and then threw him head-first into The Rivalry. So far, so good…

- Everyday I think my man-crush on Joey G can’t get any bigger, but it does. First of all, I love how our pitchers are attacking the inside part of the plate. Never would’ve happened with #6 in charge of things; he’d call for meatballs to be served up to Manny and Ortiz (somewhere, John Kerry is convinced that’s a typo) all day long, with an intentional walk or two sprinkled in here and there. But, most importantly, I am infatuated with Girardi’s use of defensive shifts. Remember all the times we would play the Sox and our guys would smoke the ball, and you were sure it was gonna go for a base hit… until you realized they had their guys perfectly positioned so it just turned out to be an at-’em-ball? Now that’s happening for us instead of against us. About damn time someone started paying attention to the freaking scouting reports.

- Anyone else cool with Molina being the full-time catcher, having Jorgie DH, and just letting Damon rot on the bench? After seeing Molina’s defense/the way he calls games for the last week, I’m not sure I ever want to see Jorge behind home plate again. Plus, Jose’s offense ain’t half-bad either. Still, I love Jorgie’s bat, so DH he must. Damon can just give Melk-man and Godzilla a day off every month or so.

- Again, I don’t want to jinx anything, but I don’t believe in stuff like that anyway so here goes– when was the last time you can remember David Ortiz having an 0-fer against the Yanks? Better yet, when was the last time you can remember him grounding into a double play against us? I don’t know what to make of his slump, but how long do you think this has to continue before terms like “steroids” and “HGH” start entering the conversation? I’ll be fair and give it at least until the end of April.