Your New York Sports Blog

Well it is playoff time and the Rangers will be taking on the Devils later today to kick of their post season. Despite the Devils having Marty Brodeur the Rangers have just owned the Devils this season going 7-0-1 against them. The only time the Devils even won they had to go to the 4th skater in a shootout not a dominating win. Despite that the offense has really been playing much more solid.

The captain Jaromir Jagr has just been on fire. His late season surge put him ahead of everyone on the team with 71 points. In a way it is sad because that is only 6 more points than Ovechkin has goals (65), but the whole team was inconsistent to begin and for a large part of the season. Jagr is a vital part of this teams success as you could tell when he got hot the Rangers played better towards the end. To add on to it we have Chris Drury. Come playoff time I don't think anything else has to be said about Chris Drury "Captain Clutch".

In the net Henrik Lunqvist will give you the chance to win every night. Fans decided to jump on him for giving up 3 goals the day after getting his 10th shutout, but is 3 goals that bad? No it is not. They may have been weak goals, but hell no one is perfect and Hank gets it done. The guy is one of the best goalies in the league and a Vezina contender year in and year out. This year he was 5th* in GAA (Osgood/Hasek counted as 1), 11th* in Save% (7 goalies ahead of him only played 1/2 a season), 4th in wins, and 1st in shutouts. You can't blame him for 1 bad game here and there the guy is solid.

Lastly the lines look good with the return of Blair Betts to the 4th line and Freedy Sjostrom will be the surprise of the playoffs and make a name for himself getting moved up in the lines for next season. Keep a watch on Nigel Dawes who has had Brodeur's number all season long.

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